"We'll take good care of him," said Pippin to Sam, while Frodo tried to button his right cuff with a perfectly good left hand and a still-sore left arm.

"We're just going on an easy stroll to the trees there," said Merry, pointing sideways up a gentle slope to a grove perhaps a mile distant. The rainbow gleam of a waterfall shimmered beyond fading-green grass and a patch of pines and the poplars just now turning gold, in this sheltered valley.

"We have a picnic basket bigger than the Hornblowers'," said Pippin.

"Do Elves go on picnics?" asked Sam, going from rightfully worried to curious about Elves in no time at all.

"Of course they do," said Frodo, shaking off Sam's hands and buttoning up his own jacket, now that his left shoulder had been tenderly placed within it. "We'll be quite safe, Sam. A bit of a walk will do me good. I only wish you were coming with us."

"It's not as though there's anything more than gardens here," said Merry. "The trees are tame, and all." He placed a proprietary hand on the enormous Elven basket, large enough for a good three-hobbit nuncheon.

"Just see to it you don't tire yourself," said Sam to Frodo. "If Mr. Bilbo hadn't asked for me special, I'd..."

"You'd take care of me instead of him." Frodo let Sam's hand linger on his in reassurance, as it sometimes did ever since he'd woken in this house of air and healing and autumn beauty. Sam never seemed to want anything for himself.

"I shan't go gadding about on a picnic when he wants to hear Shire-talk of the mill and the farms, but you do need to be careful, sir."

"We'll be careful of him," said Merry. "We promise, Sam."

Pippin gave Sam a sly grin. "The kitchens here know just what Bilbo likes. There's a cooking-lass... well, an Elven cooking-lass... who dotes on him. I swear she brought him extra cakes on purpose yesterday at tea. You could do worse than share his table."

"Trust you to notice it, Pip." That was Merry, of course.

As he listened to his cousins' familiar voices Frodo felt a smile tug at his mouth, an unfamiliar sensation after so long in pain and solemnity. He set a hand to the basket's other side, but it was his left hand and gave his shoulder a cold twinge, so he let Pippin take the handle instead.

The path led slowly up the western hills above the Bruinen. Frodo lagged behind the other two, but not because he was winded or ill. He wanted to feel the sunlight and breathe in the gardens and the daylight sky overhead, knowing nothing here could see the Ring chained in his pocket. Nothing of evil could come here.

The pine woods beyond the poplars and shelf of meadow drew him. There was a clump of pines in the Shire on a hill a little north of the Great Road. He passed it every time he went that way to Buckland, and it was, somehow, always a signal to stop for half an hour and a pipe, or if Merry was with him, for an hour and at least two pipes.

Was there pipeweed in Rivendell? Besides whatever the four of them still had in their packs from the Shire? He'd have to ask. Gandalf would know.

Merry and Pippin, already at the edge of the meadow above, were whispering over the basket, and then Merry gave a crack of laughter and let Pippin pull the whole weight of it away from him. Pippin went running, basket and all, across the slope to a patch of sunshine and grass flecked with golden leaves and edged with lacy shadows.

Frodo chuckled and walked at his own pace around a curve in the path before it opened into the meadow. Merry stood waiting for him. "Are you letting Pippin have the first bite? For shame!"

"There's plenty," said Merry, quite undismayed. "You're such a slow-poke today."

"Don't say you were waiting for me!"

"I promised Sam."

"Sam is... never wrong, but sometimes he's too anxious about me. I'm feeling very well." He stepped up to the lip of the meadow and caught sight of Pippin across the grass, now sprawled on a bright blue cushion, wine-glasses and serving-dishes arrayed around him.

"Over here!" called Pippin unnecessarily, waving a oversized Elven bottle. "Frodo, you'll have to tell us what this is. There's no label."

Elven noses didn't need wine-labels. "I'm not sure I'll know what it's called, but I'll wager you it pours well." Frodo looked down at the river, a thread of sunlit silver far below, and turned back to the smooth meadow and the luncheon bower Pippin had chosen. He wondered if Rivendell picnics would have ants or if the Elven artistry that had perfected this woodland garden somehow prevented insects from invading food not meant for them.

An hour later he took his pipe (Merry had packed their pipes and leaf under the sweet-meats) into the pines for a moment alone. The trees were beautiful enough in themselves that no Elven refinement could be discerned in them; he might have been back in the Shire. Rivendell was entirely beautiful, and they might stay here some weeks, but afterward... he was going further away from the Shire, not back.

After a smoke amid the comforting scent of pine, Frodo put the cooling pipe into one of his outer pockets and retraced his steps toward the picnic area, peering through the screen of poplars as he neared it.

Merry and Pippin were sitting in a patch of sunlight, Merry holding his pipe in one outflung hand, the other arm around Pippin, while Pippin unbuttoned his shirt-front. As Frodo watched, it fell open and Pippin's fingers busied themselves inside. Frodo stood quite still, watching Merry's face and imagining the brush of fingers over skin, skimming along his chest, circling a nipple...

Merry leaned back to set the pipe aside on grass and brought his hand up to trail his fingers through Pippin's hair. Frodo remembered Merry's fingertips in his own hair, combing through tangles, stirring desire.

His cousins didn't stop. Pippin spread the shirt-opening wide and bent to mouth slowly over Merry's chest. Merry threw his head back, showing a pink-dappled throat and a scatter of bronze hair below his collarbones. His gasp couldn't be heard under the rustling poplar-leaves, but a moment later he straightened up and it seemed as if his open eyes looked into Frodo's.

Inviting.

Frodo took a step forward, silent on the loam and pine-needles.

Merry closed his eyes, both hands now holding Pippin's head, smoothing over the curls that shone copper in the noon sunlight.

Frodo took another step. Merry sat up a little, pulling Pippin up and closer, working to remove the jacket Pippin still wore. Their heads leaned together for a kiss, then parted. This time when Merry's eyes looked at him over Pippin's shoulder, Frodo had no doubt it was on purpose.

He felt a low branch brush him with trailing leaves as he stepped out onto the grass and sank down beside Pippin. He put an arm around the thin-shirted, sinewy shoulders and slid his hand up into the warm brown curls to meet and clasp Merry's hand. Pippin gave a tiny start and turned to Frodo, smiling welcome. "We've been waiting for you." He turned up his face for a kiss.

Frodo kissed him once, quickly, tasting the flavor of Merry on his lips. "It looks like you've started without me."

"We've been waiting for you as often as we can," said Merry, crooking an eyebrow upward.

"I'm not at all surprised." Frodo put a long moment into kissing Merry. The knife-wound was still a pull in his left shoulder, but it was a relief to feel like himself again after the dark weeks of fear and flight. "May I join you?"

"You'll have to kiss me again," said Pippin, and Frodo did, leaning with his good arm wrapped around Pippin until he leaned too far and they both overbalanced. They landed on Merry and the picnic cushions, Pippin mostly on Merry, Frodo on the cushions and his bad shoulder.

It wasn't very bad, no more than a twinge of pain, but he gasped once as the chill swept through him and passed off. With his second breath, cold in spite of the calm sunlight, he said, "Carry on," and rolled over and out of the way. He picked up a cushion and brought it around to the smooth grass on Merry's other side, while Pippin took shameless advantage of being on top to start an interesting tilt and slide of groin against hip. Frodo remembered that motion in his bones, and it took only a moment of watching Pippin enact it with Merry to make him catch his breath and forget his shoulder.

He settled on his right side, close enough to feel Merry's warmth, to nibble at his neck or whisper in his ear if the notion took him, but he was caught up in watching Pippin open one set of clothes and then the other. Clever, lascivious fingers played showily with the glittering buttons on a weskit, or trousers -- but now and then Pippin's eyes darted to Frodo instead of Merry.

When Frodo gave him a steady return look, Pippin blushed pink.

Frodo smiled and laid a hand low on Merry's belly, finding a line of hair and teasing down it until he could curl his fingers around the shaft rising from the dark-bronze thicket. Merry made a sound of approval, but Frodo was looking at Pippin while the warm handful twitched and hardened. He tilted it a little, offering. "Go on," he said.

Pippin smiled back, embarrassment instantly turned to complicity, and leaned down to take it in -- but he sucked in Frodo's fingers as well. The warm erection in his grasp and warm mouth around it left Frodo suddenly shaking and very warm indeed from nose to groin. He moaned and turned his face into Merry's neck, but Merry turned too and his mouth met Frodo's in a kiss like swimming underwater. For a moment it was like floating, while Merry's tongue fished into his mouth and Pippin's mouth pulled at his fingers. Frodo floated until he had to move one way or the other, had to breathe.

Merry opened his eyes as Frodo pulled back, and he groaned as Pippin's mouth slithered upward and pulled away, leaving Frodo's fingers cool in the air. Merry clutched at Frodo's chin with a hand that still smelled of pipe-weed. "Stay."

Frodo pushed up a little on his good arm and kissed between Merry's eyebrows. "I'm here" -- his fingers circled up and down Merry's erection with easy familiarity -- "but what's Pippin doing?"

Their eyes met briefly, and then Merry looked past him. "Pip? Are you-- oh." The last word included a smile, heard instead of seen. "If you insist, I suppose I can put up with it."

When Frodo lay back and looked up, Pippin knelt on Merry's other side, wearing only his open shirt that showed faintly-tanned chest, legs that were whiter and hips sharper-boned than Merry's. He held out a dish of butter from the picnic.

"You're up for it," said Pippin, "and I want some help here." He scooped up a little of the sun-warmed butter and began spreading it generously on Frodo's fingers.

"It's not Frodo who needs..." said Merry, and then, "well, yes," but after that Frodo was concentrating on butter and on Pippin and on his fingers finding their way into small places that squeezed appreciatively and loosened silkily after long, quivering moments while Pippin grimaced and sighed.

The fingers worked quite well, but Frodo had to brace his elbow on something, which unfortunately was Merry. "Oof, that hu-- no, don't stop." Frodo supposed the last words were directed at Pippin, who was smoothing his buttery hands over Merry's erection. Frodo eased his hand free and stopped to watch, aching in his trousers. Merry, rosy with lust and the utter confidence that his desire would always come to him, smiled up at Frodo. "You're next. Whatever you want."

Frodo nodded, and heard himself whimper. Merry was smiling at Pippin now, hot fire in his eyes. "Come here, Sweeting. Some things are too good to put off for lon--" He sprawled back, mouth wide open in a soundless cry, as Pippin wriggled over him and settled deeply onto his lap.

Frodo swallowed. His cousins, their skin shining with sweat in the pale sunlight against the backdrop of tree-boles and green shade, their bodies joined and moving together, rivaled any Elven sculpture for artistry. He swallowed again. He supposed he was biased, preferring hobbit proportions to the elongated Elves, whereas an Elven artist would...

Pippin moaned softly as he tilted his body forward and back, changing the visual composition... His tightly intent expression mirrored each shift of inner pressures, and Frodo caught his breath. He kept one hand in Merry's hair and with the other stroked Pippin's knee and up his thigh.

Merry was panting, mouth open and eyes closed, but his hand found Frodo's on Pippin's leg and clenched hard around it. Frodo, watching Pippin move, whimpered again. He knew very well the struggle to balance weight above and impaling presence within, to find the perfect placement for the perfect moment.

Pippin's face was lost in that seeking, eyes open but dark and unfocused. "Mer... ahh!" Merry gave a shudder and a gasp; his body writhed beneath Pippin and bucked upward, and after another gasp the grip on Frodo's hand finally relaxed.

Pippin went still and rigid as Merry opened his eyes. Frodo, biting back a whimper that would have become a wail, reached up to wrap his still-slick hand around Pippin, squeezing loose to tight in one slow stroke. The feel of hot readiness was unmistakable: nothing mattered but another slick stroke, faster, and another. Pippin and Merry groaned at the same time, just before Pippin collapsed full onto Merry's chest, catching Frodo's arm between them.

The pinned arm wasn't stretched enough to hurt. Frodo pushed his face into Merry's neck and let his shoulder rest on Merry's heaving ribs and his hand stay where it was, while the sharp odor of sex spread through the clear air. He wondered how far away an Elven nose would scent it. He wondered if an Elf would know what it was. It must smell very much of hobbit, but exactly which sort of hobbit activity would an Elf imagine it meant?

"Frodo," said Pippin, out of the warm, panting sandwich of cousins. "That was your hand. I know it was."

"How did you know?" But by now, Pippin could have worked out whose hand was still holding him amid the tangle of flesh and a few poplar leaves.

"I knew as soon as you touched me. I like your hands. And, you made me come."

"Not that it's... a rare feat," panted Merry, under the weight of one and a half cousins.

Pippin snickered. "Who came first?"

Merry drew in an indignant breath, let it out hard, and took in another. "The chicken or the egg? Which are you?"

Frodo started to laugh, and whimpered as it jostled his groin. "I have to get out of these trousers. I'm dying."

Both cousins turned to him instantly. Pippin lifted up a little. "If you can get free without doing me an injury I'll help with the trouser problem."

Merry was already unbuttoning Frodo's shirt one-handed. "Don't try to move. We'll take care of you."

Frodo almost couldn't speak as he was half-undressed, trousers pushed down and off, his jacket and shirt opened. The Ring was still closed in its dark pocket, safe and out of the way, and after one thought Frodo let himself forget it was there. Pippin's warm, clever tongue slid over his lower lip too quickly to catch and Merry's mouth moved up the side of his neck and under his ear. The itch of the slow, constant suckling spread outward over his body, tingling, making him want more.

Pippin's clever fingers handled him gently, too gently. "Harder," Frodo said with shaking lips, into another licking, teasing kiss.

Merry chuckled around his ear-tip. "How much harder? We've all afternoon if you want it."

How far could Elves hear? Did it matter? "I'll make noise."

"Oh, will you..." breathed Merry. From behind Frodo, one arm slid under his right side and the other around his left shoulder, pushing aside velvet and already-wrinkled linen. Strong fingertips fastened onto his nipples, pinching, stroking, making fire surge through his body. "Enough?"

"No," he gasped, and tucked his left arm securely around Merry's, ignoring a blurred ache in his shoulder. "You know... how to do better."

"Yes," said Merry's voice, softly, sweetly, before sharp teeth nipped into his earlobe. And again.

The tiny pain was joy and life in place of the deadly wound that had frozen some part of him too close to his heart. "Merry, yes. Pippin..." He opened his eyes and saw Pippin, dishevelled and beautiful, ivory skin and copper-and-rose loins, mouth curving wide and eyes narrowed in concentration. "Pippin," he moaned, when a long-fingered hand closed around the base of him. "More."

"More..." echoed Pippin, his touch sliding lower. His fingers smoothed around and under and inward without a perceptible pause until Frodo felt a hot sliver of sensation easing in and out. It wasn't enough.

"More?" asked Merry, and Frodo nodded wildly. Merry chuckled. "Don't be in a hurry." A hand slid down his chest, circled his belly, and closed slowly around his aching erection: strong fingers slipping and catching around him in Merry's favorite trick of squeezing just hard enough to make him gasp, not enough to make him cry out, all uncannily in time with Pippin's fingers melting the last coldness out of him.

That was enough. Just. Frodo felt poised between the two pleasures: stroked and filled, invaded and encompassed, while Merry's voice breathed in his ear: "Don't make a sound. Not yet."

Frodo didn't make a sound. Yet. He wouldn't be able to stop himself soon, when his body and his cousins took him to pleasure beyond his own making or control. Clever fingers moved inside him, strong ones around him, and he felt himself flush hot with need from deep in his belly up into his throat. For the moment it choked him to silence, and he let it.

He could just touch Pippin's hair where it fell over his face, but it was easier to clutch at the shoulder of the fine-woven shirt and crumple it in his fist while hot pleasure spiked into him, the opposite of an icy phantom sword-blade. He fell back against Merry, panting voicelessly, giving himself into Merry's arms. Merry crooned in his ear: "Good, isn't it good?"

He was past responding, except with a surge of his lower body, clenching around the hot fingers inside him and pushing up to the offered heat of Merry's hands. There was a low chuckle, not beside his ear, and he knew after a moment that it must be Pippin.

Merry's breath gusted over his neck, cooler now than his skin, but Merry's hot, sucking mouth on his nape tickled fiercely, an echo of the need deep behind his balls and the rising heat that wanted to push up and out. There was a rasp of a whisper in Frodo's throat, too low to be heard but he knew it would grow.

A hard palm closed around the swollen ache of him that begged without words for more, and the heat sucked in everything that filled him and touched him, all of it trembling on the verge of spilling over. His throat caught in a sob, let go in a cry, and caught again.

He felt a buzzing voice beside him, squeezing pressure around him, a searching thrust within. He broke into a keening wail as the heat rose and fountained through him and finally found release before he shuddered into silence.

Frodo groaned softly in Merry's arms, and heard his cousin's satisfied voice: "It's good to have you back."

"So it is," said Pippin, both hands cupped around Frodo's groin where everything was rather sticky.

Frodo sighed and couldn't move and sighed again. "I like your hands."

Pippin said something, but Merry cut in, "Mine or his?" There was a rustling of cloth, soft sensation on his skin. Frodo felt warm everywhere, even his sore shoulder.

"Both, I suppose." He let his eyes stay closed, feeling sun on his eyelids and smelling a hint of pine as well as hobbit. "Don't think I can't tell which is yours."

Merry went on wiping up, moving gently where Pippin's hands had been. "I'd be disappointed if you couldn't. Do you know, I think there's a bit more wine and some bread and jam we haven't finished off."

"That's Merry speaking. I can tell."

Merry patted him a little harder than necessary on a tender spot. "That is, if Pippin hasn't found it first."

Frodo squinted up at brightness through shifting branches and succeeded in turning his head. "He's looking for something. Is it food or his clothes?"

"Food," said Merry, with certainty.

"He'll bring it over here," said Frodo, equally certain. One hand pressed on warm meadow-grass and the other on an Elven-smooth cushion as he pushed himself up to sit. He was still wearing his velvet jacket with its buttoned pockets, and the ache in his shoulder tugged distantly, no longer burning cold.

"Yes, he's doing that." Merry's voice held a touch of surprise.

Frodo smiled, and laughed when he realized he had. "Thank you both."

# # #

That night Sam breathed quiet dreams at his back in the too-large Elven bed, but the sound of breathing was warm and alive. Frodo slept peacefully.

# # #