Work Text:
Frodo stood in the doorway of the dining room, two unlit candles in his hands, each one with a lovely red ribbon tied to the bottom.
He looked at the dining table laden with the best tablecloth, plates, glasses and silverware Bilbo left him all those years ago and thought, for a second, that Lobelia Sackville-Baggins would have fainted at the sight of it, or toppled over in jealousy, and felt a tiny sting of guilt in his stomach.
He set the candles in the middle of the table and lit them, then stepped back and started fluffing the cushions on the four chairs, just to keep himself busy. The knot in his stomach eased a bit when Sam appeared in the doorway, wearing an apron and carrying a very heavy and very steamy casserole pan that he then placed on one end of the table. He put his hands on his hips and sighed, looking proudly at the display before him. Frodo smiled and moved closer, resting his chin on Sam’s shoulder and hugging his waist.
“All done?” he asked.
“Mm-mmh” replied Sam, placing a soft kiss on Frodo’s hair “They should be here any minute now.”
Frodo wondered, for the millionth time, if it would be like this forever, if he was destined to feel like a ghost even on these occasions, even when he was sitting at the table with the three people he loved most in the world, even when in front of him were countless, exquisite and overflowing dinner plates, filled with the most delicious dishes that the most incredible hobbit in Middle-Earth had prepared with infinite care, patience, and love.
Merry and Pippin talked loudly, glasses full of wine in one hand, napkins tossed carelessly on their laps, plates piled high with stew and puree, and Sam laughed heartily between bites, and with each laugh he looked at Frodo with eyes full of contentment and warmth. Frodo gripped his fork in one hand and his knife in the other, so tightly that his knuckles turned white, trying his very hardest to remember how a hobbit behaves on such occasions. Eat, laugh, answer, ask questions, smile when others speak, first a bite, then a sip, wipe your mouth every now and then, "More wine, Merry?”.
Yet he watched the scene from the outside, he could see himself sitting there, at Bilbo's magnificent wooden table, the dining room lit by warm candlelight and decorated with red ribbons and garlands. It was a feeling so eerily familiar, he knew that if he didn't act now, he would drift further and further away, so far away that he could no longer see anything, not himself, not the decorated room, not his friends.
He reached under the table and placed a hand on Sam's thigh, gripping him perhaps a little tighter than necessary. Sam turned to look at him again, his eyes still full of warmth and understanding and a gentle smile on his lips, and intertwined their fingers on his thigh. Frodo took a deep breath and focused on the sensation of Sam's thumb gently caressing the back of his hand, slowly and rhythmically. He could see the scene moving a little closer, the outlines of things becoming a little more vivid, Pippin's voice sounding clearer, the taste of wine in his mouth becoming stronger.
Sometimes he wished things were easier, sometimes he thought the fact that Sam was able to bring him back to reality so quickly, able to give him the best life he could ever have dreamed of, was an injustice. How much easier would it have been to have nothing to lose, to have been able to run off without regrets, leaving nothing behind, embracing whatever awaited him.
And yet he stayed, because he had everything to lose, because even though each new morning reminded him how incredibly difficult it was to exist, to walk, to eat, to breathe, as if nothing had happened, it also reminded him how none of it mattered in the warmth of Sam's arms. How his scent was truly the only real thing in the world, how his voice was the only sound he could hear, how he, Frodo, only began to exist when Sam's hands moved on his skin. And maybe it was selfish, but if everything felt perfectly real again when Sam reminded him of his own existence, then maybe it was worth it to keep trying, to promise Sam a life together.
And Frodo wanted that life, he wanted it more than anything, and he clung to it every second of every day with tooth and nail, and he kept on hoping that sooner or later it would get easier, and easier and easier, until he forgot he was even trying at all. One day, Frodo knew.
The wine and Sam’s presence carried him throughout the meal and the pipe that inevitably followed. He felt a bit guilty when Merry and Pippin announced their intention to go to the Green Dragon for a celebratory pint and invited them along, but a single glance at Sam was enough for him to politely decline with a "Thank you, but it's late and we'd rather get on with the cleaning."
When the door to Bag End closed behind Merry and Pippin, the air inside the house seemed lighter. Finally, Frodo could unbutton the vest that was constricting his ribcage, loosen the belt of his trousers, undo the bow that held his hair in a low ponytail, throw himself onto the sofa, and breathe.
Sam sat down next to him, putting an arm around his shoulders, and drawing him close, guiding his head to rest upon his chest.
“Thank you,” Frodo murmured. “Dinner was lovely.” Sam looked down at him and kissed him between the eyebrows.
“Was it, my flower?” he asked softly, playing with Frodo's hair. He paused and then whispered, “Where did you go?”
Frodo looked up at him and slowly lifted a hand to trace Sam's jawline and lips. “I don't rightly know, but I'm here now.” He gently pressed his mouth on Sam's, who returned the kiss cupping his face with one hand and slipping his other one into his hair.
“I’m going to start cleaning up some things now. Why don't you go get some rest? I'll join you when I'm finished.” he said.
Frodo opened his mouth to protest but was promptly silenced by another gentle kiss and a “Shush” murmured against his lips.
So he stood up and walked toward the study, removing his vest and belt and dropping them unceremoniously onto the armchair that sat beside his desk. The fire inside the study was lit, and the room was filled with a pleasant warmth, in stark contrast to the sound of the howling wind outside the window: it had been snowing for days, and all of Hobbiton was silent and still, wrapped in a thick blanket of snow.
Frodo approached his desk and ran a hand over the large, red leather-bound book that lay on top of it, opening it at the very beginning and tracing his fingers over the first few pages, along the ink lines left there by Bilbo so long ago.
He thought back to his first Yule at Bag End, just him and Bilbo, in a large house filled with books and objects from distant and mysterious parts of the world, which frightened and fascinated Frodo in equal measure. Bilbo had prepared a simple but delicious dinner of pumpkin and lentils, and they had eaten it sitting at the kitchen table, sipping red wine and talking about dragons and elves and that year's harvest, and in that moment, Frodo thought, he had truly felt at home, in his home, in the presence of a hobbit who seemed to recognize and understand him.
Once dinner was over, Bilbo had risen and disappeared into the study, reappearing shortly after and carrying something heavy and wrapped in elegant green paper in his arms. He had placed the mysterious object on the table and looked at Frodo with a playful and affectionate smile. “Well, open it!” he had said, and Frodo had obeyed, carefully unwrapping it so as not to ruin the beautiful paper. It was a stack of books, all meticulously bound in velvet and leather covers. “These were my favorites when I was your age. Of course, I expect you’d already know some of them—you’re a Baggins, after all, and a good one at that. But it seemed right to give them to you. My parents had a tradition of exchanging gifts at Yule, and as I’ve gotten older, I’ve discovered that I quite like giving gifts to people I find interesting, so I’ve kept at it.”
Frodo opened the bottom drawer of his desk and took out a bundle covered in rich dark brown wrapping paper, and a yellow bow. He placed it on the desk and carefully attached the bow to the bundle. Inside of it was a soft, gray wool sweater: it was the project Frodo had been working on in secret for almost a year, ever since Solmath, when Sam had complained that he didn't have a scarf warm enough for the colder season, and that all his sisters were now too busy with families and children and lives to make him one. And Frodo had decided to make Sam the scarf he wanted. How hard can it be to learn to crochet?, he thought.
Turns out, very. Especially when you only have nine fingers.
He spent the whole of Solmath alone trying to figure out how to hold a crochet hook in his right hand, and by then Rethe had arrived, and the cold had all but gone, and Sam no longer needed a scarf. But, Frodo thought, the cold would return, and seeing how slowly he was making progress, he told himself he'd better get started or, come Blotmath, Sam would be cold again.
But then Sam accidentally ripped his favorite sweater, and Frodo's scarf soon got sleeves, a collar, and cuffs added to it.
It wasn't easy working in secret, not when Sam loved dropping into his study around mid-afternoon to bring him something to drink and exchange a few words and a kiss, and Frodo had to throw his wool, crochet hook, and sweater haphazardly into his desk drawers as soon as he heard footsteps in the hallway.
Winterfilth passed, and the sweater was still only a little more than halfway finished, and Frodo accepted that it would never be ready in time. Foreyule then, he told himself, but not later. It was bad enough that Sam would have to wear his brother's itchy old sweater for a couple of months.
So Frodo quickened his pace, picking up the hook instead of the quill, sneaking to the market while Sam was working in the garden to get more wool, taking fewer breaks to massage his hand when the cramps inevitably set in, crocheting until the light in the study dimmed, until his eyes grew tired and all the candles burned out.
Every stitch was a thank you, a kiss, a promise, a premeditated and voluntary gesture, a "I'm doing this because I want you to have it, because look, things can be easy this way, don't you see? Now I know.”
And when, in mid-Foreyule, the sweater was finally finished, Frodo didn't stop, adding small embroidered sunflowers on the cuffs of the sleeves and on the sides of the neck. And on the inside, exactly in the spot that would rest on Sam's heart, he embroidered a small white daisy.
My flower. Sam called him that.
And that's where he wanted to be, pressed against Sam's heart, close to his chest, cradled by his every breath. And that's where Sam held him, Frodo knew.
He inhaled slowly, closed the desk drawer, took the soft brown package in his arms, and left the study.