Work Text:
Bilbo wasn’t much a fan of sharp things.
Adventuring in peril would do that to a hobbit. The crash of metal, the glint of steel, many memories became uncomfortable in the least and unbearable in the worst - not to mention the flipping-twisting-upside-downing feeling in Bilbo’s stomach at the sight of blood. Any blood greater in volume than a teaspoon, and he was out like a lamp.
Sometimes, though, blades were necessary around Bag End. The preparation of food was an easy example, as were letter-opening and paper-cutting, but known and not discussed in Hobbiton was that Bagginses had a lineage tracing back partway to the old Stoors, before they crossed the mountains, so every now and again Baggins’s jaw would go nearly as fuzzy as their feet, and so often a straight-razor could be found somewhere in a Baggins’s cabinet, facial hair or no.
Of course, most Bagginses would posit that they were far more Harfoot than Stoor, and if you wanted to see some real hobbit beards you ought to head down to the South Farthing and give a how-do-you-do to the Brockhouses, and what did these old-old-old ancestral ties mean anyway when the names of living hobbits were more important than the names of hobbits who, when you think about it, weren’t much of hobbits at all, but lately Bilbo had found in himself a renewed appreciation for beards. Warm, pleasantly-textured things they were, and anyways, Bilbo was scarcely on the lookout for a partner.
He used to shave rather often, whenever the peculiar shadow of facial hair haunted him, but as of late his aversion to the straight-razor on his sink and his recently-opened mind had culminated in a forgetting, almost, a slip-of-the-mind when it came to shaving.
“Oh.” Bilbo stood in the mirror now, on a hazy summer morning, and ran his hand along his cheek. “Well, isn’t that something new.”
Thorin was still asleep in bed, so Bilbo didn’t make too much of a fuss, but he stared at himself and turned his head back and forth for so long that he felt both frozen in time and lingering beyond reason at this mirror. He’d known for a while that his cheeks were getting fuzzier, in the manner of a peach or a nectarine, but overnight there had appeared a splash of color in each hair, and now he felt almost a different hobbit.
It barely reached to the turn of his jaw, and it was thin enough that his skin showed through behind it, but it was a beard, light and far softer than the coarse hair Bilbo had come to be familiar with of beards. He was most stunned by the mustache, which was not thick at all, and yet defined against his pale skin. Unthinkingly, he pinched the left end of it and twirled it between his fingers, then again on the right.
“How odd!” He remarked to himself. “How odd!”
He wondered whether he should shave it off. It didn’t feel at all inconvenient, though he figured it would need to be cleaned and kept proper, but he’d never had a beard before and even its presence was jarring to him. He’d go looking in every reflective surface he passed, curious as a child, if he kept it. Not to mention, he had a husband in the other room to which beards were culturally significant. What might Thorin think?
Bilbo picked up the straight-razor and tilted it back and forth in his hand, watching light catch and run across its shiny grey blade. He feared to cut himself with it, knowing it would probably ruin his day and leave him with a lopsided beard otherwise, but perhaps it would be best to wack it off and pretend as any Baggins would that he’d never had a whiff of facial hair. Perhaps he could go about styling it in some way, or ask Thorin to style it for him. Undoubtedly Thorin would be delighted to put some dwarven design into Bilbo’s beard, short and scruffy though it might have been.
Bilbo frowned. Thorin kept his beard tightly shorn, so he might understand the nature of Bilbo’s own, but what if Thorin found it unsightly? That would be unpleasant, most unpleasant, and to keep it likely wouldn’t be worth the emotional disturbance to follow. In the mirror, Bilbo’s downturned mouth was emphasized by the hair around it. He curled the longest bit on his chin around the tip of his finger, deep in thought.
There was a knock at the threshold, and Bilbo nearly jumped out of his skin at it. “Sorry,” came Thorin’s voice with a tender cadence to it. “Come back to bed, your spot has gone cold.”
Bilbo waved a hand over his shoulder. “Come here, would you?” Thorin came as requested, and Bilbo indicated to the mirror. “What do you think of that?”
Thorin squinted at it, not so gifted with visual clarity as a hobbit, but then his eyebrows jumped up and he turned to face Bilbo and get a look at him proper. His thumb rubbed back and forth over Bilbo’s chin, just beneath the corner of his lip, and Bilbo waited patiently for him to articulate himself yet couldn’t shake the discomfort of close scrutiny.
“Do you have any thoughts about it?” Thorin asked. He worded his question thoughtfully, wanting to know Bilbo’s opinion before voicing one of his own as he had rather a few.
“I’m surprised,” said Bilbo plainly. “I haven’t wanted to shave-” At that word, Thorin’s nose wrinkled, “-because I’ve been more aloof about upkeep and less aloof about sharp things, but I suppose I forgot that not shaving leads to.. you know, this.”
“Hmm.” Thorin had never seen a hobbit with so much as a whiplash mustache before. “How did you get it? I have heard that strong draughts put hair on one’s chest before, but-”
Bilbo just laughed. The sound was a relief to Thorin, who worried that Bilbo found the beard’s appearance rankling. “Old Baggins trait from before Shire-times,” he answered with a shrug, “though you shouldn’t ask Otho about it, or he’ll have a right old fit. No Baggins is much keen to talk about our trait of growing hair on the chin, or any hobbit besides.”
As Thorin wondered about old dwarven myths of short Men-like things living on the rivers between Rhovanion and the Misty Mountains, Bilbo turned back to the mirror. He tilted his head this way and that, nose wiggling in perplexion every now and again, and Thorin was distracted from his ruminations. He pressed his lips into Bilbo’s shoulder, the tip of his nose resting atop it.
“I rather like it,” he said quietly, “but sooner I would take the razor to my own beard than stop you from getting rid of it, if you wish it gone.”
“Oh, I’m not hateful of it or anything like that,” Bilbo said with a shrug. “It’s… new. Exotic fashion for a hobbit to wear. Would it bother you, to see a beard shaved off?”
Thorin thought about it. “No,” he decided, putting his chin on Bilbo’s shoulder and his hands on Bilbo’s waist. “Hobbits ascribe less significance to beards than dwarves, and so yours has less significance to me. It is only very new, and does not have a history woven into it.”
“But you like it,” Bilbo clarified.
“Not so that you should feel obligated to keep it.”
Bilbo hmm- ed, and plucked a small comb from the bath cabinet to smooth it out a little bit. “You’re all very lukewarm about this,” he remarked.
“I would feel guilty to pressure you in one way or another,” Thorin admitted, moving his chin to the top of Bilbo’s head and resting there like a perching bird. “I do not like to influence your choices. It makes me feel manipulative.”
Bilbo reached up and patted Thorin’s cheek, a silent consolation. “You aren’t,” he said, which was an objective truth. “But you do have a guilty conscience.”
“How burdensome.”
In truth, Bilbo was feeling rather lukewarm about it as well, yet beneath his wishy-washy opinion was a dreadful Took-like curiosity. He doubted a hobbit beard could grow very long at all, but if it did, what would it look like? Would Thorin like it? Would Thorin show him how to put little beads and braids into it? And, goodness, what would the neighbors have to say about it?
Well-styled, Bilbo thought, it would look rather dashing.
“I’ll keep it for a week,” he decided. “If it turns out dreadful, then away it goes and I remember to shave next time.”
Thorin smiled. He reached up and thumbed the softer hairs on Bilbo’s cheek again. “I think it will look nice.”
“Am I more attractive to you now that I’ve got something of a beard to speak of?” Bilbo asked playfully as he tilted his head into Thorin’s hand.
Thorin scoffed. “Dwarven conventions of beauty do not delight me the way you do, and that will never change,” he said, firm and full of conviction as though he were defending himself on trial. Then he paused, and gave some thought to his next words. “It is new, as you said. You and I have always been curious in the same way about the same things, and this is the same.”
Bilbo chuckled, and turned around to lean against the sink so he could kiss Thorin proper. “Is there some term for a not-quite beard? Something like Kili’s?”
Thorin listed some terms (in the Shire, no dwarf could scold him for sharing Khuzdul with Bilbo) and defined each of them. “Though, here,” he said, pressing his finger to Bilbo’s chin, “the hair is longer than Kili’s.”
At that, Bilbo had the immediate instinct to shave his face and keep it bare if only for the sake of his dear nephew-in-law. But Thorin caught his sudden frown and laughed, pressing his thumbs against the downturned edges of Bilbo’s mouth. “Peace, Bilbo, peace. I think Kili would be happy for you, truly!” At that, Bilbo began to laugh and Thorin grinned, his antics soundly encouraged. “He would ask to make a bead for you. Perhaps put a braid into your chin himself! He and Fili always seek to undermine me, don’t they?”
Bilbo pressed his forehead into Thorin’s shoulder, still laughing. “Stop!” He cried, finally wiping his eyes and taking a breath. “You know they’re only ever kidding, asking to do things like that. And, besides, it’s not as if I’d let them.”
“Beads and braids are not always romantic to give to another,” Thorin noted. “My brother gave me my braids. More significant are the nature of the decorations.”
Interesting! Bilbo nodded, idly passing his hand back and forth over his cheek. “I don’t know how I’d feel about being given decorations I don’t fully grasp the meaning of,” he said slowly, “but if you would like it, I’d enjoy learning how to give you those things.”
Thorin’s eyes softened. “I would like that,” he said.
“Then perhaps that can be our activity for the day,” Bilbo said. “After breakfast. I’ve been in here for so long I forgot to get hungry.”
“Oh, my love-” Thorin was always sympathetic when Bilbo was late for meals - he often became surly and uncomfortable the longer he went without food. “Go and eat! The mirror will be here when you are finished.” To entice Bilbo out, Thorin went away and stood in the threshold, tilting his head this way and that in a way that seemed odd at first, until Bilbo remembered that his features had rather changed since the night before.
Bilbo followed him to the door and passed him by, waving over his shoulder for Thorin to follow him. Thorin watched him go, watched how the morning sunlight caught on his hair and his beard in nearly the same way, and trotted after him.
“I like it,” he said, squeezing Bilbo’s shoulder.
“I’m glad,” Bilbo chuckled, leaning to the right and rubbing their cheeks together. “Now, what do you want for breakfast?