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When Bilbo finished explaining, Thorin could not stop himself from wrinkling his nose in disgust. “Really?” Thorin asked.
“Really!” Bilbo replied, giving the instrument a shake in his little hobbit hand.
Thorin remained unconvinced. “And you want to put that…in my ears?”
“It won’t hurt one bit, I promise! I’ve done it loads of times, and everyone said that I was the gentlest they ever had.”
A small sting of jealousy jabbed Thorin in the gut. “You’ve done this to other hobbits before?” he asked. Despite his instinctive aversion to the practice, thinking about Bilbo engaging in it with anyone else but him, showing affection to another, did not sit well with him at all. He knew that his possessive nature was one thing that Bilbo disliked quite a bit, but there were always times where Thorin couldn’t help but think of nothing except Bilbo being his, and him being Bilbo’s, with no one else in the equation. At least not where love and sex were concerned.
“Oh yeah, loads!” Bilbo grinned. “It’s great fun. Sometimes we used to have get-togethers in Hobbiton just to clean each others’ ears!”
Thorin let his gaze slide to the instrument that Bilbo was holding. Made of smooth wood, the ear pick was a few inches long and very slender. At one end of it was a tiny scoop, and a down puff was attached at the other end. Initially, he’d balked at the idea of having the whole of the puff stuffed into his ears, until Bilbo had told him that it was the other end that went in and how the process generally went about. “And — and this ritual is how hobbits show affection?”
“I’ve said a million times, yes.”
“Cleaning out wax,” Thorin said bluntly. “From your ears.”
Bilbo gave an exasperated huff. “If you don’t want me to, then —”
“No,” Thorin cut in sharply. Misgivings or not, he could see that this clearly meant something to Bilbo. And he would sacrifice so much more than this for the little hobbit he loved; what was a little bit of ear-cleaning to him? Thorin considered the possibility that he might even find it enjoyable, as little as he could imagine that happening. “I — I want you to.”
A smile stretched Bilbo’s lips as he sat with his legs straight on their bed. He patted his thighs, signalling to Thorin to come closer. “Put your head here in my lap, and then we can get on with it.”
Feeling rather foolish, Thorin clambered onto their bed and lay his head on Bilbo’s lap, his face turned away from his tummy. Bilbo was warm to the touch, just as he liked the hobbit against him. He wondered for a moment how he had ever allowed himself to be talked into this when Bilbo said, “Now just relax,” and swept his long hair away to expose his ear. Thorin did not know if he should close his eyes or leave them open, but before he could decide, he was struck by the realisation that Bilbo was combing his fingers daintily through his hair.
“Bilbo?” he murmured.
“Hmm?”
“I thought — I thought you were going to. Um. Clean my ear?”
“Of course I’m going to, silly,” Bilbo cooed, his fingers now patting the top of his head. “This is just the beginning of it.”
Confused, Thorin decided to just go along with it and see what happened next.
After the hair-combing came even more strange, but endearing, actions that couldn’t have anything whatsoever to do with ear hygiene, like how Bilbo let the back of his fingers trail over his cheek and down into his beard, where he scratched gently at his chin. Thorin let out a tiny moan at that — it was where Bilbo often pulled at with his teeth whenever they kissed. Then, the same hand dipped under his jaw and traced over his neck, back up to the side of his head, and stroked at the shell of his ear. He tried very, very hard not to squirm, and only succeeded partially.
“Oh, look at you,” Bilbo whispered softly. “So relaxed and eager. Do you want me to clean your ear now?”
Thorin swallowed, unsure of anything at that point. “Yes,” he replied, thinking that he really may as well go ahead with the whole thing.
“A bit more, you can wait that longer, can’t you?” Without waiting for a reply, Bilbo had Thorin’s earlobe trapped between his thumb and forefinger, tugging lightly on it. He released it and dipped one warm finger into the outer surface of his ear, pressing and running it along the curved, pliable flesh, lifting out just before the entrance to his ear canal. Above him, Bilbo tutted disapprovingly. “Thorin Oakenshield,” he said sternly. He let Thorin see the ball of wax accumulated on the tip of his finger. “No wonder you’re always so thick-headed. It’s a wonder you can get anything through your skull with this much gunk in your ears.”
He blushed furiously, abashed. “A king has much more important matters to attend to than cleaning his own ears.”
“No,” Bilbo agreed. “That’s the job of the king’s consort, isn’t it?”
Thorin had nothing remotely snappy or defensive to say to that, and opted to just sulk quietly.
“Don’t be like that,” Bilbo said soothingly, and Thorin felt him bend over and a kiss brushed against his cheek. If anything, it made him blush even more, but Thorin could not help but smile fondly.
“Are you going in now?” he asked with a curious sense of anticipation.
“Yep.”
True to his word, Bilbo was exceedingly gentle with the scoop. The pick sank into his ear slowly such that he was only aware that it was inside by Bilbo’s hand resting on his cheek, and then it started to move about. The scoop nudged at the walls of his inner ear, scraping, prodding, until it was pulled back up to more tutting from Bilbo. “As I suspected,” he said, but he did not let Thorin see exactly how much wax he had excavated. Thorin held his breath, awaiting the pick to reenter, but instead of that, a ticklish sensation danced all over his face, and he took a few seconds to realise that it was the puff.
“You can hold me if you want to, you know,” Bilbo said, continuing to twirl the puff on his ear, which, oddly, was becoming increasingly sensual with every bristle against his skin.
“Hold…hold you where?”
“Think of my lap as your pillow.”
Following this instruction, Thorin moved his hands up to rest one on Bilbo’s kneecap and the other against his back. He squeezed the spots he had managed to get a hold on, eliciting a giggle from Bilbo.
“Going back in,” Bilbo said, and the scoop was inserted back inside his ear. Having the sensation of wood poking about in a place that he’d never thought could experience touch was strangely enjoyable. Up till then, Thorin had never had anything so deep inside his ear before, and was shocked at how sensitive he could be in there. The rounded, blunt edge of the scoop pressed into his skin and dragged upward in a long, languid stroke, sending a tingle that seemed to buzz into his skull, and Thorin curled his toes inward and tried not to moan.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Bilbo murmured, stroking his hair with his other hand. “If you feel like it, just let it out.”
“This is nice,” Thorin said sleepily, his eyelids fluttering.
“I told you so.”
For a few more minutes, Bilbo continued to pick his ear, and told him to change sides when he was done. Thorin complied readily, snuggling closer to Bilbo’s body now that he was facing him. The procedure unfolded very much like the first time — Bilbo touched him, whispered to him, then scooped the wax out of his ear with painstaking care. How Thorin had ever thought that this could have actually hurt was a mystery, and he found himself looking forward to the graze of fingertips over the tip of his ear, loving kisses speckling his bearded cheek, and the movement of that pick inside his ear canal, accompanied by the puff dusting away flakes of stray wax from his face.
All too soon, Bilbo murmured, “Done,” and kissed him one more time. Unwillingly, Thorin sat back up and rubbed his ears one at a time, completely and utterly mystified. A thought occurred to him.
“Bilbo,” he said. “Would you…would you let me clean your ears?”
Delight shone brightly on Bilbo’s face. “Would I! I’d love for you to do that!” He handed the ear pick to Thorin and waited for him to position himself properly before lying in his lap with his legs pulled up and his arms wrapped around Thorin’s thigh. “Whenever you’re ready,” Bilbo whispered excitedly.
Thorin hesitated, trying to remember exactly how Bilbo had started out. He supposed that some touching before the cleaning was probably the standard method of introduction, and settled on laying a hand on the top of Bilbo’s head. Then, he moved it in circles over his scalp, pushing his fingers into his curly, brown hair.
“Mmm,” Bilbo mumbled, his fingers drifting over Thorin’s shin.
Heartened by the response, Thorin migrated his fingers to the shell of Bilbo’s ear, and he swore that the hobbit positively shivered at first contact of his forefinger moving over the pointed tip of his ear. “You like that?” he murmured, repeating the motion.
With what sounded like a purr, Bilbo nodded his head in Thorin’s lap, his eyes drifting shut.
It didn’t take very long for Thorin to discover that while his own ears were rather sensitive, Bilbo’s were even more so, as if they were just made of bare nerves. The slightest touch could make Bilbo squeal and clutch at his thigh a bit tighter, with prolonged touches reducing Bilbo to a babbling mess of pleas for Thorin to keep going. Without even getting the pick in, Thorin was soon holding a wriggling, mewling Bilbo in his lap, grinning broadly as he stroked his ear over and over again at what he found were the ultra-sensitive spots.
“Thorin,” Bilbo moaned.
“Not long now,” Thorin whispered back, giving his outer ear one more poke and then withdrawing his hand entirely. He held the scoop of the pick above Bilbo’s ear and lowered it in slowly, trying not to touch skin as he searched out wax to remove. Spying one such chunk, he dug the scoop into it and swept it up gently.
On his thighs, Bilbo made a breathy sound, similar to those he would make when they had sex. Thorin seriously considered turning ear-cleaning into a sort of foreplay, vowing to try it out the next time the mood struck the two of them.
“How does that feel?” Thorin asked, going after another deposit of earwax.
Bilbo’s response was a low, satisfied sigh.
Apart from cleaning out Bilbo’s ear, Thorin experimented with the down puff. Not just content with using it to dust away crumbled earwax, he tried using it to tickle Bilbo’s neck and chin, with immensely pleasing results. “Stop it, stop it!” Bilbo gasped, though he made no move to put an end to it himself. Other things which Thorin thought of were to massage Bilbo’s temple with the thumb of his unoccupied hand; to scrape his beard across his cheek as he pulled up from a kiss; to hold one of Bilbo’s hands in his own while he mined for something no dwarf had ever sought out, at least not to the best of his knowledge.
“Change,” Thorin said, rolling Bilbo over on his lap. Now with Bilbo’s face near his groin, he felt himself go a little bit hard and bit his lip and tried not to think about having the hobbit’s lips encircling his cock, sucking him off. Certainly not now where they’re locked in what might just be the most chastely sweet and non-sexual thing they could ever do to each other. Still, he felt his face heat up and strove not to dally about with the cleaning, diving straight in to remove all the wax from Bilbo’s uncleaned ear.
“Almost done,” he informed Bilbo, once the supply of wax began to thin out. He smiled as Bilbo groaned in frustration. The last of the wax emerged from his ear in a small glob on the end of the pick, glistening the same way gold does when freshly hewn from stone. He let Bilbo sit up and wiped the pick on the damp cloth which was smeared with earwax from them both, then they sat cross-legged facing each other on the bed.
“You’re really quite good at it!” Bilbo told him. “For a beginner, I mean.”
Thorin rolled the pick between his fingers. “That was…not what I had imagined it would be.”
“Did you like it?”
After a moment’s thought, Thorin nodded. “I admit that it was unexpectedly pleasurable. Rather pleasurable, as a matter of fact. We should do it more often.”
A mischievous glint flashed in Bilbo’s eye. He grinned. “Like right before sex?”
Thorin smiled back and laughed. “How you can read my mind is beyond me, Bilbo.”