Rating: NC17
Pairing: Frodo/Merry
Disclaimer: Frodo and all recognisable characters are the property of the Estate of J.R.R. Tolkien. No offence is intended, nor profit made.
Summary: Springtime and a young hobbit's fancy turns to...

Merry sighed as he looked out of his bedroom window. The smial was a hive of activity. His mother was bustling about ordering the servants to take out the carpets and rugs and polish the brasses, and everything was upside-down. It was Spring, and everything that was not nailed down or fixed in was being taken out and thoroughly cleaned.

There was a knock on his door and a maid stood there, blushing prettily at him. "Sorry to disturb you, Master Merry, but the Mistress said I was to get the curtains and..."

She fiddled with the corner of her apron. "If you please, sir," she finished, head down, looking up at him through her dark lashes.

Merry sighed again. "Yes, Lark, come in. I'm just off for a walk, so you can have peace to do as you like."

Her face fell. Obviously what she liked to do included flirting outrageously with Merry, but he was not in the mood. Not today, and, indeed, not for many days past.

Merry made for the front door, determined that the fresh air would clear his troubled mind. Unfortunately, he met his mother in the long hallway. She was struggling with a huge basket of linens, and Merry looked at her, exasperated beyond reason.

He took the basket from her, an impatient scowl on his usually amiable countenance. "Why do you do this, mother? Why do we employ servants if you are labouring with this...this...?"

Esme smiled softly, and put her finger over his lips, then smoothed his cheek with her work worn hand. "Because I enjoy it, Meriadoc. That's why."

They walked along the corridor, and every now and then Esme stole a glance at her son. What she saw concerned her. There were blue smudges under his eyes, and his face wore the melancholy look that had been evident there since Frodo had left after the Yuletide celebrations.

Esme discounted Pip as the source of Merry's distress. He saw him nearly every week. No - it wasn't young Pip.

Merry carried the basket into the laundry where it was snatched from his hands by the ancient crone who presided there. She bobbed a curtsey to them both, and shrieked at one of the younger lasses to take it and do what was necessary with the contents.

Esme smiled and led her son outside. The sun was shining, and Esme could see her husband ordering the lads in the high field. The brewer was driving his cart full of last year's excellent brewing into the smaller yard, and the front of the smial was alive with lads and lasses cleaning, scouring, painting and buffing.

Merry sighed again, and Esme pulled him to a bench against the front wall where, for a moment, no-one was working.

"Merry-love. You are restless, lad. You need a change. All this bustle is unnerving you. Why don't you go and visit Pippin for a while, or ..." here she looked at him keenly, "...or Frodo at Bag End?"

She saw her son's features soften at Frodo's name, and realised her guess had been correct. "You haven't see him since Yule, and Bilbo has gone on his yearly visit to the Elves at Rivendell. Frodo will be lonely, there in that huge hole with only Sam for company. Buried in his books, he'll be, no doubt, and starved of sunlight. You can take him some of that nice cheese we made, and some of our..."

But Merry heard no more. A visit to Frodo! Now, would that be a good or a bad thing? For Merry had found, much to his surprise and dismay that when Frodo was at Buckland during Yule it was his form Merry's eyes followed around the room during the Big Dance, and Frodo's blue eyes and pale silken skin that made him sigh like a tween, and not the very pretty girls who were throwing warm glances in his direction .

Merry had had lasses a-plenty, it was expected of the Master's son, and had some pleasure in them, it was true; but these days Merry found himself staring at the lads stripped for swimming at the river, trying to find one that looked like...Frodo.

He nodded. One way or the other, he would settle this. Frodo would tell him what it meant. Frodo was fourteen years older than him and used to Merry's inquisitive spirit.

Saradoc never seemed to have the time or the inclination to sit and answer his son's endless questions, but Frodo had always been there, had always answered the most pointless and ordinary of queries honestly and seriously. He trusted Frodo to give him an honest answer to anything Merry was likely to throw at him.

But was this the sort of subject he should be discussing with his father...? No, Saradoc would be more likely to box his ears and tell him to go and do a bit of hard digging in the vegetable patch to rid himself of such nonsensical dreamings.

Frodo it was, then.

*****

It was just as Merry was turning the corner that led to Bagshot Row, that he encountered Sam, driving a cart loaded with packages and two plump Hobbit lasses, who simpered at Merry. He returned them a friendly, but distant smile as Sam addressed him.

"Right glad I am to see you, Mr Merry, and that's a fact," Sam said heartily, his face breaking into a large grin.

"I'm off to take these two - my cousins Damson and Jasmine - back home and I'll likely be gone a sennight, knowing my Aunt Blossom. She’s always wanting to load me up with stuff to bring back for the Gaffer. So it's taken a weight off my mind to see you'll be there to keep an eye on him. He don't eat proper if there's no-one there to remind him it's dinner time."

Merry made all the suitable responses, and rode on to Bag End, hope jostling with fear in his stomach. He was longing to see Frodo, that was a fact, but would Frodo be glad to see him?

He had seemed - not stand-offish - but aloof at Yule, as if there was something weighing mightily on his mind. Merry longed to help - to take the burden off his cousin's seemingly fragile shoulders. But Frodo was a quiet, almost secretive person. Would he unburden himself to a cousin fourteen years younger than he? Time would tell.

Perhaps the fact that they both had secrets would make this easier.

Merry flung open the big door of Bag End and yelled with a fine disregard for grammar, "It's me! Frodo! Where are you? " Frodo would be sure to correct him. Merry smiled at the thought.

There was no answer. He called again.

Merry strode through the smial expecting to find Frodo at his desk, writing or poring over yellowing parchment, but there was no sign of him. Merry wandered into the large, familiar kitchen, redolent of the smell of herbs and fresh baked bread and saw that the back door was open.

He stood on the step and saw his cousin kneeling down on the path, staring intently at something growing in the loamy earth. Merry walked up quietly behind him, and saw that the object of Frodo's interest was a small yellow crocus, bravely pushing its way up between two pieces of sacking under which the rhubarb was sleeping.

Frodo ran his finger over the plump petals, and Merry heard his cousin's deep sigh, a sound that seemed to rise from his deepest soul.

Merry was about to make a flippant remark, but instead put his hand on his cousin's shoulder and said quietly, "Frodo?"

Frodo sprang to his feet, his face as pale as milk. He stared at Merry as if he were a ghost, then put his hand out to touch his companion.

"Merry! What a surprise you gave me! I was just thinking of...I was thinking."

"Now that's a surprise...Frodo Baggins thinking. What can it mean?"

Merry cocked his head to one side, grinning at his cousin. "No welcome for me at Bag End then, I see. I shall have to go home and tell my mother that her cousin Frodo..."

Frodo shook himself out of his reverie and grabbed his relative in a comprehensive hug. "Idiot! There is always a welcome for you here, and you know it! Come inside and I'll make you a cup of tea..."

Merry stood back, still grinning, but affected a look of horror. "Tea? Tea Frodo? All those miles astride a stupid, stubborn pony and all you can offer me in the way of refreshment is tea?..."

Arm in arm, they entered the smial.

That night, sitting in front of a fragrant blaze of applewood logs, Merry told Frodo of the Spring Cleaning going on at Buckland, that he was ostensibly escaping and the other news concerning his home.

Frodo sat in his comfortable chair, smoking his pipe, his feet on the fender, listening to Merry babble on, a contented smile upon his features.

The second night, Merry sat on the floor leaning against Frodo's legs and listening to Frodo read him some of the history of Arda he had translated from the Quenya.

Merry nestled his face into Frodo's velvet-covered leg, contented. "Could you read something in the Elvish, cousin? I'd like to hear your voice...I'd like to hear the old speech."

Frodo ruffled Merry's hair and began reading, his melodious voice travelling through the ancient language as if it were a journey with a well-beloved friend. Merry closed his eyes and drank in the sound of Frodo's voice, his mind wandering along the paths that Frodo was describing - totally content.

It was not until the third night that Merry found the courage to speak of the matter greatly exercising him.

They had just enjoyed a very neat dinner of roast chicken and spring vegetables and were lounging by the fire. Frodo was reading some poetry and Merry was whittling a toy horse out of a piece of wood he'd found in the garden, when he gathered his wits together and asked, quietly,

"If I ask you a question, Frodo, will you promise not to laugh, and to take the matter seriously?" Merry's eyes were fixed firmly upon the fire and the redness of his cheeks might be attributed to the glow from its flames. Frodo was not fooled. He lowered his book, and said in a voice equally serious in tone:

"Have I ever laughed at your questions, Merry? You may ask me anything, you know that, and I will try to answer, if I can. What is it that disturbs you so, my dear?"

So Frodo had noticed.

Merry cleared his throat. "It's a question about feelings, Frodo..." He stopped suddenly, not sure how to go on, but his cousin's voice was soft and low.

"Feelings, Merry…?"

Merry nodded, his face, if it were possible, even redder. "Those sort of feelings, Frodo."

Frodo leant back in his chair, a half smile hovering on his lips. "Ah!" he said, quietly. "Go on, I'm listening. What is it you want to know?"

Merry put down his knife and the half formed toy, and instead of unburdening himself, asked a question.

"Have you had much to do with lasses, Frodo?" He still was not meeting Frodo's gaze.

Frodo cleared his throat. "Oh...well, not very much, really. I...I never was one for the lasses, Merry. Too busy with my books as it were. Why? Is your question to do with them?"

Merry's eyes sank even lower, as he shook his head. "Not really," he whispered, as Frodo leant forward to catch his voice.

"I've had some...dealings...with them. Four summers ago, it began. They were nice...soft...willing. In the fields, in the big barn. Always keeping their eye open for me and pouncing on me as I passed. Once I even had two together, under the big elm at the edge of the lower field."

Merry paused, and Frodo prompted gently, his own heart filled with a thousand questions he was longing to ask. But this was Merry's problem, and he would do his best to answer it, never mind what his own feelings on the subject were.

"And did you like it? Like what they did to you?" Merry nodded. He leaned against the squab of his high backed chair and sighed.

"It was like getting an itch scratched, you know? Something to relieve...I...I..." Here Merry raised his eyes and looked straight at Frodo. "I was bored with my own hand. I wanted...more."

Frodo met his gaze. "I know how you feel," he said quietly, not willing to reveal he had had recourse to his own hand far more than was usual for him since Yule.

"So what is the problem, Merry?" He prompted gently. "Is it..."

Merry interrupted before his courage gave out. "I've been looking at the lads, Frodo, swimming and such. I've been looking...." He could not sayI've been looking for one who was like you.

It was now Frodo's turn to lower his gaze. His heart was pounding in his chest, but he tried to keep calm.

"And did you like what you saw?" Merry nodded, not knowing how to speak the words.

Frodo took a long breath. "Have you approached any of them to…to…"

Merry jumped up suddenly and took a turn about the room, pacing up and down in an agitated fashion. "No, Frodo," his voice loud in the gathering dark. He stopped in front of his cousin, whose blue eyes were trained fast upon him. "No, I haven't."

Frodo rose from his seat and took Merry by the hand, leading him towards the comfortable settee opposite the fire. They sat down on it, and Frodo reluctantly released Merry's hand.

"Why haven't you done so, Merry? Are you afraid?" Frodo's voice was full of sweet concern and Merry raised his head and met his gaze once more.

"No," Merry looked into the fire. "No, it's not that, although Da would probably have a fit if I decided on a lad and not a lass for my spouse. No little Hobbits for him to dandle on his knees, you see. There are a few couples in the Shire, you know, Frodo, who are ...like me... and live together in harmony," he snapped, as if his cousin had challenged the fact.

Frodo smiled. "I know," he murmured. "I may be a stuffy old Hobbit buried, before he's dead, in his books, but Ido know, my dear."

Merry stared at his cousin in disbelief. "" he managed. "You are not a day over forty two, Frodo Baggins, and you know I know it! In the prime of life, you are. You will never be old!"

Merry subsided as his companion said nothing. Then Merry picked up his courage. "Have you ever? With a lad, I mean."

It was Frodo's turn to nod. "Yes..." very quietly. "Yes, I have...but not for a few years, now. Mating is no fun, Merry, as you will find, if you go into it just for the rutting."

Merry's eyes met his cousin's again. "What do you mean, Frodo?"

Frodo sighed. "There needs to be something more, Merry, to make it perfect. Without it, the act becomes no more than...scratching an itch, as you so eloquently described it. Without love, it is a work-a-day act, like eating or sleeping or..." Here he stopped and took Merry's hand in his.

"I hope you find it. Love, I mean. For I never did."

Merry smiled. "I hope so, too. Frodo...may I ask you another question?"

"Of course. Anything."

"What is it lads do together?"

Frodo nearly choked on his own breath. "Merry?"

Merry looked tentatively at Frodo, not knowing whether he had overstepped the mark. "Well, Frodo, you did say anything - and I truly don't know. Please help me...it's not easy, asking things like that..."

Frodo didn't know what to say. His heart was tight within him. He was about to teach Merry what to do with other lads, and he so wanted Merry to do them only with him.

"Well," he began, slowly. "There's kissing. You can do that, I suppose?"

Merry laughed, and slid down the fat cushions to land at Frodo's feet, leaning against his leg again, more comfortable not looking at his cousin's earnest face - not understanding why.

"I know how to kiss. Well, lasses anyway. And touching...I suppose other lads are made the same way as I am. I know what to do to excite myself."

Frodo coughed again; embarrassed by Merry's openness. " Yes, of course you do. I mean..."

Merry started playing with the hair on Frodo's feet, and was just going to speak when Frodo said, quietly,

"You need to find someone to be with, until you meet that special person. Someone more experienced and fancy free. An older Hobbit not looking for commitment, but a lighthearted dalliance who would help you to learn...things..."

Merry's hand stilled on Frodo's foot. He turned around and knelt before his cousin, his face flushed by the firelight and by his feelings of excitement. "Frodo, may I ...will you let me practise with you?"

Frodo gasped. No! He wanted Merry more than anything. He had for a good while, now. But to be granted such a gift with one hand to have it snatched away by the other was unbearable. Merry didn't love him - he wanted a teacher, that was all.

"Merry..." he began, but the Hobbit butted in with, "Oh, don't say no Frodo. I don't know anyone else I'd rather try it with. I...I don't know any other lads my age who like...who were...but you said you had, you knew how to...please!"

Merry's hand nervously clutched at the velvet of Frodo's breeches, and looked at the fire again, breathing deeply. "You don't know how difficult it's been to say these things to you, Frodo. I didn't know how you would feel about all this, after all.

Frodo reached down and clasped Merry's trembling hand. "It's all right, really it is. What do you want to do?"

Merry opened his mouth and shut it again. "I don't know," he said, eventually, in a small voice. "Touching? I've done that with girls..."

Frodo smiled a soft smile into the dark. "Do you want me to touch you, or you …”

"Both!" Merry exclaimed hurriedly. "I want to feel another prick in my hand...other than my own...see if it's as good as I think it will be, and..."

"Steady on! There's more to it ...to...than grasping the nettle, so to speak. Take off your jacket and shirt, Merry..." said Frodo, rising and divesting himself of the items mentioned, "...and come and lie on the rug with me."

Soon a trembling young Hobbit lay on the fur rug in front of the fire. "What, now?" he breathed.

Frodo looked at him carefully. He was like a highly strung colt. Spring was high in his blood. He'd explode before long, he was so tense. Frodo looked down and saw a swelling behind the placket of Merry's breeches. Half way there already.

Frodo sat behind Merry, and drew his cousin into his lap, Merry's back resting lightly on Frodo's chest. "First - nipples," he said in Merry's ear. The lad trembled even more. Frodo drew courage and reaching around Merry's body grasped his nipples gently, rubbing and squeezing the nubs into hardness. "Do you like that?" he said on a whisper of breath.

Merry nodded, leaning his head back onto Frodo's shoulder, breathing against the soft skin of his cousin's neck. "Yes," he answered, his voice raw with emotion.

Frodo ran his hands over Merry's chest, feeling the firmness of muscle under the skin. He was as aroused as he had ever been, but ignored it as best he could. This was for Merry.

Merry groaned under the touch of Frodo's small hands. He was completely hard even before Frodo had touched his nipples, Now he felt as if he was about to burst.

He turned in Frodo's grasp, and leaned his forehead into the inviting neck. "I want...I want..."

Frodo could see he was suffering. He pushed Merry back onto the rug and pulled the lad's breeches and under-drawers off, revelling in the sight and feel of the aroused body taut as wire under his hands. He looked closely at Merry, gauging his needs. "What would you like me to do?"

Merry raised his hips towards Frodo, pleading. "Just touch me, please!"

Frodo knelt there for a moment, unsure of his next move. Merry shuddered and brought his hand up to grasp himself, needing, needing...

Frodo pushed the hand away. He knew that if he did this there was no turning back, ever. Even if Merry never knew how much Frodo wanted him, never knew it was he who fuelled Frodo's nightly appointment with his hands under the lonely sheets, he would do his best for the lad.

Frodo leaned forward and reaching out one tentative hand, grasped Merry to the root.

Merry cried out from both the tension and the excitement, and embarrassed by his outburst, closed his lips tightly, sinking into the sensation of a male hand on him, there.

Merry grunted in his throat, pushing up into the grip, his eyes screwed shut in concentration. Then to his amazement he felt wet heat envelop him. He shuddered. This was wonderful. Better than any lass could be. If he kept his eyes shut he could imagine it was Frodo'smouth on him...

Revelation. Merry's eyes flew open. It was Frodo! Always had been Frodo, from the beginning. All that business at the river looking for lads ...who looked like Frodo! Merry wanted Frodo, not any chance encounter with whom to relieve himself.

The feeling was glorious. Merry felt the tingle that was melting his thighs into jelly creep up through his muscles. He couldn't help run his trembling hand through the fine, dark brown hair on the head bobbing up and down at his groin.

He moaned. "Frodo!" but his lover did not stop. "Frodo, stop! I...I can't hold...I..." Frodo shook his head, and continued to drive his maddening tongue over Merry's engorged heat, as Merry mewled like a cat into the fur rug he had dragged into clumps underneath his head.

"Uh! Ah! Eru!" Then one last "Frodo!" and he came, his whole body shaking with his release. Frodo continued lapping at Merry until the lad subsided with a groan of utter contentment, then Frodo sat back on his haunches to soak up the sight of his cousin, weak in the aftermath of satisfied desire.

Merry rose on one elbow and smiled tremulously at Frodo. "Will you hold me?" he asked, his voice soft. Frodo lay down beside him and Merry turned to him with a small cry, burying his face in the dampness at Frodo's neck, revelling in the arms encircling his body.

All the unspoken feelings that Frodo had possessed for Merry over the past months threatened to engulf him as he held the warm body close. The smell of musk was heavy in the air, and Frodo revelled in the scent of it.

Frodo looked down on the handsome face resting on his shoulder, and saw that Merry had fallen asleep. He lay there, cradling him whilst he rested, dreaming impossible dreams, and kissing Merry's forehead now and then, as if it was a need within himself he had to satisfy.

When Merry stirred at last and opened his bleary eyes, Frodo smiled down at him.

"Come to bed, now. It will be more comfortable for both of us."

Merry nodded, and rose to his feet, naked as he was. He was not ashamed of his body: Frodo, after all, had made love to it.

Frodo threw his cousin's shirt around Merry's sturdy shoulders and gathered up the clothing from the floor.

"Go on with you!" he said, in an intimate voice. "You know where my room is. I'll get some hot water and...go on!" Frodo shooed Merry out of the room and went to get what was needed.

He opened the door of his bedroom awkwardly cumbered about as he was with a large jug and a pile of towels and stopped dead in the doorway, the words he had so carefully prepared in the kitchen, frozen on his lips.

Merry was lying on the bed, naked; his legs apart, his hand teasing himself to fullness again. His face was flushed in the lamplight, and Frodo saw that his lips were also damp with expectation.

"Come on, Frodo. I want you here, with me. You've seen all there is to see of me; now it's my turn. Please?"

Frodo put the jug and towels on the washstand, his hands none too steady. He wetted a cloth and tossed it to Merry, who cleansed himself thoughtfully, staring at Frodo from under half lowered eyelids.

Slowly Frodo undressed, not at all sure he wanted to expose himself to Merry's hot gaze. He came towards the bed, his erection thrumming against his belly showing his need for him only too plainly. Frodo blushed. It had been a long time since anyone had seen him like this. Too long.

He climbed onto the bed, and Merry smiled at him, licking his lips unconsciously, but in a way that left Frodo in no doubt what the younger Hobbit wanted to do to him.

Frodo lay at Merry's side and took him in his arms. "What would you like to do, Merry?" He asked in a low voice, sightly breathless with excitement. He tried very hard to remember that this was not for him, but for another for whom he cared very much.

"You know what I want," Merry muttered, not meeting Frodo's gaze. "May I?"

Frodo nodded and turned on his back to give Merry access.

Merry put an experimental hand around Frodo's arousal, hefting it in his hand. It was the same as holding his own - only different. He shook his head at the stupidity of the thought, and ran his hand over the length, feeling the tight skin move under his hand.

He very gently pulled the skin further down from the head, marvelling at the redness of the exposed tip. He felt, more than heard, Frodo's indrawn breath, as he worked up and down the shaft.

Frodo was trying his utmost not to disturb Merry's voyage of discovery, but he could not stop bucking into the warm, long fingered hand playing so tenderly with him. Nor could he suppress a groan as Merry lowered his mouth onto the tip, and ran his tongue around it.

Merry looked up. Frodo had fallen back onto the pillow and was grasping the sheets on either side in fevered hands.

Slowly, Merry took Frodo in, marvelling as the musky taste exploded on his tongue. He couldn't help his other hand sneaking up and fondling the balls. Frodo groaned again. "Merry!"

Merry thought about what Frodo had done to him, and copied the movements until Frodo was bucking into his mouth, desperate for release. Merry pressed firmly on the space behind the balls as Frodo had done, and Frodo spurted into Merry's mouth, so suddenly that Merry had no choice but to swallow and be amazed that he had all at the same time.

Merry rested his head on Frodo's thigh, watching his cousin's face flushed and beautiful. He sighed. Frodo had said that Merry should experiment with others. Learn from them: get to know about such things.

The trouble was that Merry had never wanted anyone but Frodo. He recognised that, now - but was it too late?

Merry moved up the bed and put his head in the crook of Frodo's neck.

"Was that all right? I mean, did I...did you?"

Frodo put his arms around Merry and drew him into a warm embrace.

"It was perfect. It really was. I have not felt..."

Merry interrupted. "May I kiss you?"

Frodo stared at his cousin. They had brought each other to climax, yet they hadn't even kissed. For an answer, Frodo gently put his mouth over Merry's, opening the trembling lips with his tongue.

Merry inhaled sharply, and returned the embrace, tasting Frodo's desire for him; breathing it in happily.

Frodo made a sound unlike anything Merry had ever heard, and drew him even closer, if it were possible.

"Ah!" Frodo groaned, his face alight with happiness. "So this is how it should be. I've never...I didn't know."

Merry smiled gently at his cousin - so much older, so much wiser than he. He saw his face rapt in the moment of discovery. He nuzzled into his neck, playing gently with the dark brown curls that tickled his nose so insistently.

"I think, Frodo, my dear, that you have as much to learn of love as I. We will be learning of it, together."

Frodo's answer was another hoarse cry as he plundered Merry's mouth once more, drawing mewling little sounds from both of them.

It was true. The lessons had begun.

The End