Title: The Birthday Suit

Author: Maura Labingi

(labingim@ananzi.co.za)

Pairing: Frodo/Original Female Character(s) (well, it'd have to be original, wouldn't it? Unless I paired him up with Lobelia or something.)

Genre: Romance/Humor

Rating: G this part. NC-17 future parts.

Warnings: Het sex. Poss. underage sex (Frodo's only 29. What's that, about 17 or 18?) No slash.

Status: WIP, but will be finished within days. (One of two or possibly three parts.)

Archive: Ask first, please.

Feedback: Yooooo betcha.

Disclaimers: Nothing here belongs to me except for Letty Sandydowns and her co-workers, my filthy imagination, and my Frolijah-lust.

Notes: Squashed-together movie- and book-verse. This came about as a result of a challenge on Azimuth's new and terrific LotR het list, Definitely No Mary Sues. Thanks, Azimuth!

Summary: A teenaged Frodo Baggins discovers that it takes more than clothes to make the man, or the hobbit... :).

The Birthday Suit
by Maura Labingi

"Letrice Overhill," my Mam used to say (for it was Overhill that was my name then, in my girlhood), "you study your skill with the needle and sew a hem straight and fine and you'll never be beholden to no one. Folks'll always have need of a good sempstress." And my Mam was right, as she generally was, and I've much cause to be glad that I listened to her words.

I married young, barely out of my twenties, and I had less than five years with my dear Toffman before the spangled fever carried him off in the spring of 1396 when it took so many folks in and around the North Farthing. Toff was the youngest son of the youngest son of a hobbit who hadn't much to start with, and what I had as a dowry was scanty at best. We married for love, Toff and me, and though there was much of that between us, there was little enough left of anything else when he passed; a two-room hole in the slope of the pasture and some acres of ground that I'd no hope of farming myself. So the fall after I lost my Toff I sold up land, hole and all to Farmer Proudneck, him with the twin spotted bulls, and I took myself here to Bywater to see what shift I could make to earn my own bread with my hands.

That's how I came to Miss Pansy's tailor shop. She's a sharp one, Miss Pansy, and she can be right hard in her dealings, but the day I came into her shop and showed her my wedding trousseau that I'd made myself and she'd turned the linen and the muslin over in her hands and seen what it was like, with the cut and the turn of the flounces and frills, the rows of stitches perfectly even and so tiny that they might have been sewed by mice, she took me on that afternoon. And it's me what she gives her most important customers to, the ones she most wants to please. Mayhap it's prideful of me to say it, but it's no more than true; after three years it's still me that's Miss Pansy's best sempstress, no matter what little minxes like Bramblerose Burrows might wish to say against it.

So it was me who'd always done the work for Mr. Bilbo, him from up in Hobbiton. Now, they have sempstresses and tailors in Hobbiton, I've heard, or at least such as is good enough for the farm folk and the brewers and bakers up that way, but for the quality who want the smartest and most elegant clothes, those what can pay for it come here to Bywater to Miss Pansy's shop. Mr. Bilbo liked what was smart and his custom meant a fair bit of money to Miss Pansy, so she gave his work all to me. And for Mr. Bilbo, I sewed with extra care and with every bit of skill I could put into my needle.

Not that it weren't a joy to work with such beautiful stuffs as he ordered. Lawks, his waistcoats! Whenever he'd bespeak a new one, we'd all be in a tizzy waiting to see the bolts come in from the mills out by Stock. Bright nankeen striped in green and brown and gold, beautiful figured watered silk embroidered with more flowers than a summer meadow, heavy tussahs shot through with gold; Mr. Bilbo had more of them fine waistcoats than there is days in the month, and silk neckerchers and pocket-squares to match them. I sewed his breeches out of lambswool merino for winter and brushed broadcloth for summer, and his shirts and underthings and handkerchers from the softest white linen you ever felt, delicate as frost under your hand. And he was always pleased with me and my work, for I'd gotten to well know his tastes and his likings and I could run off his measurements by heart.

But Mr. Bilbo's latest order was a puzzle to me. Everything was as sumptuous as ever it was, though perhaps a bit quieter than Mr. Bilbo's usual choice, but the measurements weren't to his order; the pattern I was sewing to was for someone lacking Mr. Bilbo's fine girth and stature, so much indeed that though I sewed the linens without saying anything, I felt I had to speak with Miss Pansy before I dared to cut out the brown broadcloth and the chestnut velvet for the coat and lapels, or the silk for the waistcoat that was so pretty with its soft colors like fall leaves.

"I know my business, Letrice Sandydowns," Miss Pansy said, just a bit sharp, when I questioned her. "These garments aren't for Mr. Bilbo to wear, but for his nephew Master Frodo Baggins. Mr. Bilbo's going to surprise him with some fine new things to wear for his twenty-ninth birthday party."

Well, now as if anyone had ever heard of such a thing! Giving a person presents on their birthday, instead of them giving to you! But Mr. Bilbo always was a bit odd. Least that was what folks said, though I liked him very well myself and thought him a deal more of a gentlehobbit than most what whispered of him. And it weren't so strange after all, I suppose, for Bramblerose Burrows piped up from the side room where she was altering Missus Nobottle's morning gown, "That will be a fair good party from what I hear, for it's Mr. Bilbo's birthday that day as well. It'll snow food and rain drink up Hobbiton way, I wager."

I've as many failings as most folks, I suppose, and curiosity is among them. After Miss Pansy had left us and I'd gone to the side room to lay out the chestnut velvet on the big table and begin cutting, I asked Bramblerose, casual-like, "So what do they say of Master Frodo?" For she has a cousin in Hobbiton what she visits regularly, and there's nothing Bramblerose likes more than other people's business.

She narrowed her eyes as though thinking, and that made her little sharp face get a bit more pinched. "Master Frodo's a Brandybuck mostly, though Baggins is his name. His mam was a Brandybuck and half-Took to boot, and he grew up there in Buckland and lived in Brandy Hall after his mam and his dad died. They tell all sorts of strange tales about how that happened, I assure you." She looked as though she might say more, but my face must have stopped her. I may suffer from curiosity, but I don't hold nohow with abusing the dead. So instead Bramblerose just tossed her yellow hair and said, "Let's just say that Master Frodo began queer. And he'll end queerer yet, I wager, living as he does with Mr. Bilbo. Talk is that Master Frodo and Mr. Bilbo are like as two peas when it comes to poetry and books and Elf-talk and such foolishness." Then a smile came to Bramblerose that I didn't much like. "Though Master Frodo may be queer-headed and not fair to look at either, just a thin pale thing and not filled out and strong like a proper hobbit lad, Mr. Bilbo's made him his heir. One day Frodo Baggins will be rich."

By then I was more than bit sorry that I'd gotten her talking on the subject. I lifted the soft chestnut silk velvet and shook it out for the next cut of the lapel, but not before I said, "That's all nothing to do with you, Bramblerose Burrows. You'd best keep your tales and your simpering to yourself."

Miss Puss didn't care for either my words or my tone, and she showed it by making a little nasty sound and putting her back to me for the rest of the afternoon. Not but what it proved to be a good thing, for I got much further along in my work without her foolish prattle to distract me. By the time the sun was getting low in the sky and the side room of the shop was growing a bit dim, I'd finished all of the cutting and basted together both Master Frodo's new coat and his breeches. They were shaping up lovely, if I say so myself, and I looked them over with some pride.

It was well nigh on shop-shut time by then, and I was folding the things and putting them away in the press to be finished on the morrow when I heard the door open and Miss Pansy's voice.

"Why, what an enchanting surprise!" she trilled, in the posh tone she keeps for the customers. "Mr. Baggins, sir, I'd no idea that you were in Bywater."

"Yes, yes!" That was Mr. Bilbo's cheery voice. "Up to town on party business, Miss Pansy, and we have one errand left to run yet. I know it's late in the day, but I'd like to have this lad try on his new suit to make sure of the fit while there's still time for it to be altered."

"Suit?" Now that was said by a new voice, one I didn't know. It was a well-spoken voice like Mr. Bilbo's, but softer.

"Yes, Frodo!" Mr. Bilbo's laughter was as hearty and pleased as ever it was. "My birthday gift to you, my boy, and no mathom, I assure you! Miss Pansy and her girls are artists. They've dressed me for years. You'll look fine for the party!"

So it wasn't just Mr. Bilbo who'd come to Bywater but Master Frodo as well, and them wanting to try on no less. I thought to myself that it was a good job that I'd gotten so much basting done, then shook the clothes out again to lay them out on the big table.

Bramblerose had already gone to the curtain that separated the side room from the shop. She pulled it aside a little to peer out, and then she whispered, "You'd best be ready to eat your words, Letty Sandydowns. Come here and see for yourself that what I said about Master Frodo Baggins is no less than the truth."

Now, that I would not do. I'd already had my curiosity shame me once that day, and I wasn't going to have it happen twice. But before I could say anything, brighter light from the windows in the shop spilled over the room as the curtain was drawn back.

There stood Miss Pansy in her tight black silk with the frothy lace ruffles at the throat. There stood Mr. Bilbo, grey-haired and ruddy and beaming in his yellow nankeen waistcoat with the fawn lapels and the bright brass buttons. And there was Master Frodo, scraping at the carpet with his toe and looking very much as though he wished he was anywhere else in the world but a tailor's shop in Bywater.

Now that he was set before my eyes I couldn't say that Bramblerose had lied, for indeed the lad was pale and not robust like most hobbits, but it was plain to me that it came mostly with his coloring. He had wide blue eyes, not light ones but a deep clear blue like the forget-me-nots that used to bloom on the hill in our pasture. He was very fair-complected, but that would be his Took blood, and it showed in a pleasing enough way; his skin was near as white as a lass's and looked as though it might be just as smooth, and his Tookish face with its strong jaw and soft mouth was set off by curls so dark that they were nearly black, and those pretty eyes by thick dark brows and long lashes. And the lad were very thin, true, but he was still young, and he didn't look unhealthy for all that, as there was a good color in his cheeks; a color that mounted higher and redder as he realized that Bramblerose and I were both studying upon him.

"Frodo," Mr. Bilbo said, "this is the Widow Sandydowns. She does all of my tailoring, and now she'll do for you as well. And this other lass is her assistant, Miss Bramblerose Burrows."

When Mr. Bilbo named me a widow, Master Frodo looked up from studying upon his toes and looked at me instead; there was a little drawing together of his brows and a turn to his mouth that told me what he felt was sympathy, instead of pity. So I knew then that Master Frodo had a good heart to go with his fair face. And for my part I felt a bit of a turn of my own, for he did look so young and his face was so gentle, and I knew that he'd had his own taste of the cruel turns life can take. In that way at least we were much of a pair, the widow and the orphan.

"And now," Mr. Bilbo said, rubbing his hands together, "let's see this suit!"

Part 2

"And now," Mr. Bilbo said, rubbing his hands together, "let's see this suit!"

Then it was me what must drop my gaze and be uneasy. "Mr. Bilbo, sir, it's cut and it's basted, but naught's been finished yet but the linens. The whole suit can still be tried, though, if we're careful with it." And it could, too, for my basting stitches were at least as good as Bramblerose's sewing and were more than equal to being worn for a fitting.

I could see Miss Pansy frowning at me over Mr. Bilbo's shoulder. Though Mr. Bilbo weren't likely to take on about the suit not being sewn - it couldn't be finished until after a fitting nohow - she didn't relish the idea of us looking behindhand to him. The glance she gave me was sharp, for she thought it was my questions about the measurements what had slowed the work, but her voice when she took Mr. Bilbo's elbow was as sweet as cream.

"Mr. Baggins, you know yourself that these fittings are ever so tedious, and you've had a long day of business already. Why don't you and I leave the lad to the girls and step across the road to the Dragon? We could have a bite and sup of something nice while they do their work here. And perhaps you could tell me some more about you and the dwarves and the treasure. Gracious me, but you were so terribly brave!"

Miss Pansy knew well enough that if the first bit of her offer didn't fetch Mr. Bilbo, the last certain would. There wasn't a soul in the Four Farthings what didn't know how Mr. Bilbo dearly enjoyed to talk of his wild carryings-on with dwarves and wizards and great warrior Men and such. With Miss Pansy listening and fawning on his words he'd be good for at least an hour of that, if not considerable more, and by the time she brought him back the fitting would be done and she could send him back to Hobbiton fed and with a few brandies in him, pleased as pie, to wait on the finished suit.

And sure enough, Mr. Bilbo bowed to her in his funny gallant manner and said, "Capital idea, Miss Pansy! Now that you mention it, I have a few corners that could do with filling out, and I could repay you for your company with some of my little reminisces of unimportant things." He clapped Master Frodo on the shoulder. "You'll be all right until we return, won't you, my boy?"

It were plain to me, if not to Mr. Bilbo, that the lad had thought little of the idea of new clothes to begin with, and from the look he cast at me and Bramblerose at that moment you would have thought he was going to be shut up in a tailor shop with two of them great hungry Wargs from one of Mr. Bilbo's tales. But Master Frodo showed again that he had a good nature, for I could see that he wasn't going to appear ungrateful to his uncle. He plucked up his courage and smiled. "Of course, Bilbo. Go have some supper. If we finish here before you do, I'll come to the Green Dragon after and join you."

Poor boy, they were most to the door before he'd finished, and Mr. Bilbo had already begun one of his yarns with his hands waving in the air and his cheeks brightening with delight. Miss Pansy paused just long enough to say, "Draw the bolt after us, Letty, for you'll take no other customers this evening. I want you and Bramblerose to give your full attention to young Master Baggins, and mind you make sure of the depth of your hems," before she fluttered her eyes back to Mr. Bilbo. "So you escaped from the dungeon in barrels? My, how resourceful! How clever!"

And then the shop-door banged shut behind them as they passed into the street, and Bramblerose drew the bar across it.

It was queer how the silence seemed to drop heavy the moment she did. There was nothing to be done in that shop that hadn't been done a hundred times before, nothing to be done that was worse than the fitting of a new suit of clothes, and yet I felt a sudden prickling in my skin I couldn't account for. Nor was I the only one, seemingly, for the soft sound of Master Frodo's breath went a bit faster, and Bramblerose crossed her arms over her chest and grinned a wicked grin at us both.

"We're locked in!" she said gaily. "I reckon you're fair trapped now, Frodo Baggins."

He pinked up even more at her words, but it was me he turned those bright wide eyes to with a look of reproach, as though I was the one had been a-teasing of him.

My patience with the girl was most gone. "Hush, you chit, and mind your manners. Trim the lantern to give us some light. We've work to do."

And glad I was of it, for I thought that setting about our business might break that strange heaviness that seemed to have settled in the air. I caught Master Frodo's eye again and pointed to the side room with what I hoped was a kindly smile.

"Just you go in there, sir, and put on what you find laid ready. I'll close the curtain behind you and we'll wait here until you call for us."

He swallowed, his cheeks still red, and did as I bid him. When he was standing before the big cutting-out table staring dolefully down on his new suit, I drew the curtain across the doorway. Then I stood before it with my back turned, for I wasn't chancing no more foolishness. "Go ahead, sir. It's quite all right. We won't stir until you say so."

Across the shop Bramblerose was warming the shade between her hands before she covered the lamp with it. She put her tongue out at me, and I shook my fist at the little minx.

"Letty, did you see how he blushed? He might as well be a girl!" she whispered, and not all that soft neither, as though she thought Master Frodo somehow couldn't hear her from the side room just because she couldn't see him.

Nor could I see him, but I found that standing as I was with my back to the curtain I could hear him well enough, for he was just a scant few inches away from me. Or rather what I could hear were the little sounds that were made as he loosed his braces and undid buttons, and the rustle of linen as he dropped his shirt, and then the heavier swish of wool that was his breeches falling to the floor. And it were to my dismay that with every one of those sounds my mind insisted on making itself a picture, a picture that was terrible clear and fascinating, too, never mind that it was wrong to be thinking so about a boy ten years younger than me who wasn't even out of his tweens.

I dug my fingers into my palms until the bite of my nails in my skin swept those thoughts away. You been a widow with an empty bed too long, Letrice Sandydowns, I told myself, and you're going a bit soft in the head. If you're not careful you're going to turn into one of them awful old hags what toddles about pinching the boys' bums in the square on market day. For shame on you.

"There aren't any buttons."

I jumped like a guilty thing at the sound of Master Frodo's voice, and well I might, for it was certain I had enough reason.

"To the new breeches, I mean," he added plaintively, from behind the curtain.

I cleared my throat. "The buttons are put on when we finish out the suit, sir. Just hold them up for now and I'll come and pin them for you."

A little silence. "All right, then. I suppose I'm ready."

Bramblerose brought the lamp behind me as I lifted the curtain. Frodo Baggins stood next the table, wearing the finished new shirt and the unfinished basted coat, and with both his hands on the waist of those brown broadcloth trousers in a death grip.

I hung my measuring tape about my neck. "Put the lamp nigh the block, Bramblerose." I picked four of the longest pins out of the pincushion I wore at my waist and stuck them ready through the band of my skirt, then went to my knees in front of him. When I set my hand to his trousers-waist I could feel the skin of his stomach twitch beneath my fingers, like that of a pony when a fly settles. He was very warm.

After a moment I looked up at him. "Master Frodo? You must let go, sir, for I can't pin through your hand."

"Oh." In the light from the lamp, his eyes were huge. "Sorry."

It was just the work of a moment to run the pins through the cloth and make everything secure. After I got to my feet again he seemed a bit more at his ease, and when I told him to step up on the tailor's block in the middle of the room he smiled as he stood there head and shoulders above us.

"I feel like a pig on market day."

"Well, when we're done with you I promise you'll look a sight better than the prettiest pig there ever was. Put your shoulders back and stand up straight, if you please." I circled around him to look the suit over, and I was glad to find that as I did my mind returned to my business, just as it should. "The coat hangs well enough about the waist, but I'm in doubt of the scye of it. I believe it rides up a bit between the shoulderblades. Hold your arms a little way from your sides, sir."

>From behind him I stepped up on the block and put my finger beneath the collar of the coat to test for a pucker in the facing, still in two minds about the fit. "Bramblerose, put the skirts level, would you? I want to see how it settles along Master Frodo's back."

Bramblerose came forward, switching her hips. She sat on her heels in front of the tailor-block, not missing a chance to tickle the hem of her dress over the edge of Master Frodo's toes as she did. Taking his coat-skirts in her hands she tugged them down straight over his hips and then held them in place, gazing up at him with a saucy look the while. I frowned at her from over his shoulder, then turned my attention back to the coat.

With one hand I lifted the long curls of dark hair that fell over his collar; they were thick and heavy and so soft that they felt like a palmful of spinning-silk. As I held them out of the way I put two fingers between the collar of the coat and his neck to test the ease, then ran my hand across his shoulderblades to judge the drop of the scye. He held still enough for the first of it, but as my hand moved across his shoulders I felt him suddenly flinch, hard.

"Did a pin get you?" I asked, puzzled.

"Yes," he said, in a queer, half-strangled voice. "I think that's what it must have been."

His tone made me look at him sharp, but he only stared straight ahead, biting his lip.

"All right, sir. Try to be patient. We'll be finished here before too long." It seemed odd for him to take on so over a pin, but there wasn't nothing to be done about it, so I turned and began to check the break of the coat where it settled at his waist. I'd hardly touched his back when I felt him go tight as a bowstring again under my hand.

This time I said nothing. Instead I bent a little lower to peer under his arm, which he still held away from his side as I'd asked him to do.

There was Bramblerose, the coat-skirts clutched in her fingers and her face turned away from me. As I watched she tipped a wink at Master Frodo, who looked down at her with pure misery on his face. She bent her head again so that it rested against the front flap of his breeches, where there stood plain a growing bulge that strained against the cloth; though Bramblerose may have declared before that Master Frodo might as well be a girl, there was plenty of reason for her to reconsider those words now. And that hussy knew it, too, for as his hardness brushed up against her cheek she opened her mouth and blew warm breath over him, up and down, and giggled.

It were but the work of a moment to clutch her by the point of her ear and haul her to her feet, and Bramblerose squeaked as I did, for I was none too gentle. I gave her a good hard shove forward into the shop and followed after without a word.

"Ow! Letty, don't take on. I did no harm to the lad." She caught herself with a hand against the till-counter, then straighted and faced me. Putting her hands on her hips, she tried to look defiant, but the paleness of her face showed that she didn't feel near so bold anymore. "Come on, now. It were just a bit of fun."

"Fun, eh? Is that what you call shaming a person who never did a thing to you?" I went to the shop-door and unbarred it, then I held it open. "I reckon you can tell Miss Pansy about your notions of fun, you vixen, if you should get the brass to show your face here again. Now out you go."

Bramblerose opened her mouth as though she might say something, but then she closed it again with a snap. Her face got pinched again, and she stalked past me stiff-legged like a cat, her eyes glittering.

"You're jealous," she said as her skirts brushed against mine in the doorway. "I saw how you looked at him. You just wish you'd had the spine to do it yourself."

That made me step back. Bramblerose saw it, and knowed she'd scored a hit. It must have been enough to satisfy her, for she gave me a last hateful look, then tossed her yellow curls and went into the street.

I closed the door after her, rather slow, and then I put the bar back across it. I didn't know what I'd find to say to him, but I turned my steps back toward the side room and Master Frodo.

He was sitting on the tailor's block, his elbows resting on his knees and his chin cupped in his hands. Those clear blue eyes sought mine out.

"I don't think she meant anything more than a joke," he said, straightaway. "She'll lose her place if we tell, so I won't. I hope you won't either. Will you promise me?"

I met his gaze. "Master Frodo, if you want me to keep silent, I will. Though I don't think the girl deserves it."

"Do it to humor me, then." He stood up and put out his hand to me, a gesture like a boy might use toward another boy. "Shake on it?"

Part 3

end part 3