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Sam had thought it was the end of them, which was why he had confessed to Frodo as the ground shook and melted beneath them. He confessed that it was him, Frodo, dancing under the Party Tree that he recalled as the world came to an end, and he wished they were not both lads and Frodo not a Baggins.
Frodo had not said anything in return, except “I am glad you’re with me, Sam.” But his eyes had uttered things that Sam was afraid to believe: tender things, loving things, things that made him feel that if not for the flames arcing across the sky, life might have been possible, together.
Now that they were here in Minas Tirith, however, he could not know what Frodo felt, since Frodo did not seem to recall what happened. Or maybe he pretended he did not—Frodo was like that, always keeping something to himself. And a part of Sam was glad, for otherwise it might have been right awkward.
After being released from the Houses of Healing, Frodo was still weak and needed help with many a task: bathing, changing, eating, getting around—which he sometimes did in a chair equipped with wheels. Sam saw his master’s pearly skin many times in the course of a day, and he felt the smooth, raised scars on his neck and chest, and he held his hand with the beloved slowly-healing fingers.
If it was known and acknowledged that Sam had an unrequited love, he would have prayed to fall through the earth a thousand times a day. But Frodo saved him the embarrassment in his delightful, Frodo-gentle way, and so it might have continued, until one night all four hobbits drank together.
If there was one thing they could do in Minas Tirith that was decently Shire-like, it was drinking in pubs. So they gathered at a place some hundred paces away from their hobbit house, and took a table in an alcove where the beams made a cozy arch.
When the ales arrived, they toasted, first solemnly to the things that had gone, and now lay between them and another pub far away. Then they toasted with sentences unfinished to those who were not with them anymore. They toasted to things they still had, and to things they were glad had come to pass, and after the third ale—a full pint, as Men served them—Sam’s vision began to wobble.
It looked like it was raining at the edges of his sight, and he gazed at Frodo turning his mug this way and that. And he thought, why not?
After the roads they had walked, though rain, cold, ash, fog, and fire, with the way Frodo let him hold his hand, long after he climbed into bed, was it really beyond them to speak plainly?
Even if Frodo did not return his feelings, and even if he misunderstood his words at Mount Doom, the eddies of pleasure on his skin egged him onward.
Oh, to have Frodo on his chest and lap, resting and shining from within, and not by necessity or accident. To draw his fingers through his hair, and not just while working up suds. To have no words forbidden between them.
Pippin said something he barely heard, and with a grinding sound, Sam pushed his mug away.
“Frodo, can I—sorry, Pippin…”
Pippin fell silent and smiled his long-lipped smile. Frodo looked up, his eyes large and blue like evening.
“Yes, Sam?” He had not drunk much, but his speech was slow, as it often was after Mount Doom.
“Mr. Frodo, may I speak to you outside?” Sam pitched as he stood and scraped his chair over the floorboards.
The ale sent shocks through his limbs and lent him a dogged strength, but made him oddly indifferent to sound.
Frodo nodded and got up, and Merry and Pippin glanced at one another. Sam did not pause to see their faces.
Frodo followed him to the back of the pub, where the establishment emerged into a close-walled courtyard. Here, there were tables not in use, a small, gurgling fountain embedded in the wall, and a pair of barrels, likely empty. Above them, a small tree hesitantly bloomed, and the smooth, round stones underfoot reflected the torchlight.
Frodo looked at him with tented brows and did not speak. His eyes were darkly blue and lips held a sad, simple sweetness.
“Ehm, well, Mr. Frodo...” Sam cleared his throat, willing away the complicated echoes from the pub. A door creaked close at hand, followed by a scrape and a rustle.
“Yes, Sam?” Frodo inclined his head.
Sam could not place the sounds, and did not think much of them.
“Well, Mr. Frodo,” he lifted his chin, another surge rushing through his limbs. He extended his hand and took Frodo’s. “I mean—that is—I wanted to say, there was somethin’ that I told you at Mount Doom, though you may not remember. I thought if maybe you don’t, I should not repeat it, for I said it when I thought it was the end of us, and it did not matter anymore. But then, the more time passed, the more I thought, I want to live, but I don’t want to live with you not knowin’—”
He paused, squeezing Frodo’s hand as heat overtook his temples and ears. Frodo’s mouth softened at the corners.
“I love you, Mr. Frodo,” Sam gasped. “Love you that way, and have for many years. An’ look, I think, whatever comes to pass, a body mustn’t go through life not-knowin’ that he is loved. He should know just how loved he is, even if it’s ’nconvenient, and even if nothin’ ever comes—”
Frodo brought Sam’s hand to his lips. His cool, soft lips brushed his knuckles, and Sam forgot every word he ever knew.
“Well, Sam, I thought you’d never say it.”
Sam’s stomach plummeted, and his heart nearly choked the breath out of his throat. He might have toppled, and he wanted to blame the ale.
“Oh, Mr. Frodo,” he gasped.
Frodo smiled more fully now.
“And I love you too, my Sam,” he said. “I’ve been waiting for you to say it when not under threat of death. And it’s not inconvenient at all. Why would it be?”
“Well—ehm—I don’t know”—Sam glanced around, feeling very much like a young hobbit caught stealing mushrooms—“because we are a servant and a master? A Baggins and a Gamgee? Both lads?”
“Nonsense.” Frodo stepped toward him. “My dear Sam.” He drew a hand over Sam’s brow, and landed a kiss, summer-soft on the edge of his lips.
Sam thought he heard a giggle and a scuffle close at hand, but did not understand its meaning and did not care.
Frodo twined his arm around his back, and Samwise Gamgee melted: first his arms, then his legs, then his chest and his heart inside it. Frodo held him, gently by the bottom of his back, and they kissed, like flowers brushing petals in the wind.