Archive of Our Own

Sam wakes up to the feeling of warm, calloused fingers brushing the curls from his forehead. A blackbird is singing a little too cheerily outside their bedroom window given the circumstances.

The sheets need to be washed. They smell stale to his nose.

“Sorry to wake ye, lamb,” Dwalin says in his soft gravely voice. “But I have your tea.”

Sam closes his eyes again and lets himself soak in the weighty feeling just on the other side of sleep—Dwalin’s hand really does feel nice—but then he opens his eyes again and forces himself to sit up. Just a little.

It’s enough to make him aware of his cramps again. If he didn't need a new cloth before, he knows he will soon—he feels a rush of blood as he adjusts and what's definitely a clot as he briefly bares down. A sharp pain joins the deep, dull ache that hasn't left him for the last week. 

He winces, which makes Dwalin wince.

He carefully hands Sam the mug of tea he’s holding. The mug is one of Sam's favorites: a brown ceramic cup with a large, loopy handle that fits perfectly in his hand. Dwalin made it himself with some of the local hobbitesses down at the Shire's pottery kiln. He runs the pad of his thumb over the dwarvish symbols along the bottom out of habit.

The tea smells floral. It's minuō blossom tea, to shrink his cysts. The doctor left them with a small wooden box of it yesterday—along with a little pouch of Southfarthing Midoleaf to smoke or chew for pain relief—after what felt like an hour of pressing and feeling along Sam's lower belly and humming after each hiss he made.

"There's not much we can do, I'm afraid," she told him, her brown eyes ginormous behind the largest glasses he had ever seen. "All we can do is wait it out. Drink the minuō blossom tea once a day, and fetch me if you run a fever."

Luckily, no fever has creeped up on him just yet. 

Sam takes an experimental sip of the tea, expecting something medicinal at best and bitter at worst. Instead, he's pleasantly surprised.

"You didn't scorch it," Sam says, looking into his cup.

Dwalin frowns at him. "Aye, I know how to make tea."

"Do you? Mr. Bilbo said he doesn't let you make tea anymore on account of the time you scorched his tea and then oversteeped his chamomile."

Dwalin's jaw flexes. Guilty.

Sam smiles wryly. "You fibbing bastard."

"Aye, well, he never asks me t' make it now, does he?" He gestures to the mug. "How's it?"

Sam takes another sip. It really is good. A bit like lavender, but lighter. There's also the distinct flavor of honey and…

"Is that my mum’s ginger honey?" Sam asks, startled.

"Aye," Dwalin says. "Ye usually take your tea with honey, and ginger's 'sposed to be good for blood."

"When did you get that?"

"This morning. Your mum lives a stone's throw away."

That's certainly true, but it doesn't stop the tears from brimming. He sniffles and wipes his eyes with his sleeve, embarrassed. His cycles always make him a little watery. "You didn't have to do that."

Dwalin places a hand on Sam's thigh over the blanket. "Lad," he says earnestly, "the day it's a fuckin' burden for me to take the 10 steps to your mam's house for some honey is the day ye ought to kill me dead with my own axe."

Sam laughs wetly and wipes his eyes again. "Thank you," he says. "The tea's good."

"Course it is, I fuckin' made it." But Dwalin kisses him on the cheek as he says it.  "Are ye hungry? Ye've missed fifteenth breakfast or what have ye."

Sam takes a sip of tea. "I am, but I'm not sure what I can keep down."

The night before had been a nightmare. Even with the number of times Dwalin assured him, "I'm an uncle, lad, I've seen it all," it would be a while before they would be able to joke about it.

"I'll make ye something light then." Dwalin kisses the top of his hair as he stands up. But then he stops. "Ah… What's light for a hobbit?"

"I'll just have some bread and butter. Maybe some eggs if you're making 'em."

"Aye."

"And maybe some bacon, if you'd be up for it."

"Aye."

"And maybe some potatoes."

Dwalin puffs a laugh. "Aye, and a pastry?"

Sam sips his tea. "We have pastries?"

*** 

The nausea comes back that night.

Sam can't tell if it's better or worse that he isn't sick. Even though he knows he'll likely still be nauseous, part of him thinks if he pukes then everything will be right again.

He breathes in slow, shaky breaths, nose pressed to Dwalin's collarbone. 

The dull throbbing pain has eased, at least. Dwalin convinced him to bake the Southfarthing Midoleaf into scones and now the pain isn't so much an aching grip on his innards so much as a painful memory in another room.

The nighttime breeze from the open window is cool on his back. It feels good in contrast with Dwalin's warm, firm grip—at Sam's request—on his lower back and his knee between his legs.

He tries to focus on the sound of Dwalin's breathing and the soft crackle of the fireplace. Somewhere out along the neighbors' fence, there's the soft warbling of a tawny owl.

None of it is loud enough to cover up the sound of Sam's tears.

"I'm sorry," he whispers when he feels Dwalin shift. He's miserable and tired, but with his stomach sour as it is there's no sleep in sight.

"No shame in crying, lamb," Dwalin says. He tilts his left arm down to gently stroke Sam's hair. "Ye want to smoke? I can draw ye a bath."

Sam shakes his head slowly. "I just want to feel better."

"I know, love." Dwalin traces over his eyebrows with the side of his thumb and then strokes slowly down his nose—down and up, down and up. He waits for Sam to close his eyes again and then he begins to hum a song in his deep, deep voice. The deep-throated singing of the dwarves.

Oh.

Sam blinks. 

He knows this song.

All at once, he's very small and huddling on the rug around the fire with Mr. Frodo, Merry, and Pippin at Bag End listening to Mr. Bilbo's tale of the time a troop of dwarves came to his home in a grand, unexpected visit.

Far over the misty mountains cold, Mr. Bilbo sang in a deep, playful imitation of Mr. Thorin's baritone. To dungeons deep and caverns old. We must away, ere break of day to find our long-forgotten gold.

It's one of Sam's favorite stories. He loved to look at Mr. Bilbo's maps and swords, loved to imagine what it would be like to visit the elves and the dwarves in their ancient homes.

The dwarves of yore made mighty spells,

While hammers fell like ringing bells

In places deep, where dark things sleep,

In hollow halls beneath the fells.

Nostalgia trails its gentle fingers over him just as Dwalin trails his thumb up and down, up and down the bridge of his nose.

And despite the nausea and the creeping pain—with Dwalin's dwarvish song in his ears—sleep slowly, slowly finds him like a sigh of relief.

"Goodnight, wee dormouse."