Title: Endless
Author: Majenta
Rating: PG
Contains: romance, sap, angst (the usual)
Disclaimer: yadda yadda yadda, okay, on with the show.
Frodo had Sam's hands to hold and little else. He swayed when he walked, his eyes falling closed. The marshes were a day behind them. Gollum was quiet, he kept his lamp-like eyes flickering downward, dulled of their light, and when he spoke he spoke sullenly. His voice was quieter now, stranger. Sam was unnerved by the change in him, and the quiet. He helped Frodo to sit back against the rock wall and slid his pack to the ground, "We'll rest here for a while."
"Not safe," Gollum murmured, looking over his shoulder, "Not covered."
"Frodo has to sleep a while," Sam narrowed his eyes, fighting with his uneasiness. "We have to eat something. You can have some lembas if you want, or you can make a fuss of it and starve, for all I care."
Gollum bared his teeth, sinking down with his knees to his chest. His milky eyes drifted over Frodo's shaking tired body and a tremor in him silenced his anger and his hunger. His fingers quivered helplessly beside Frodo's hand, wanting to take it. Frodo stirred and his eyes fluttered open. Guilt blossomed in his stomach like fire and he turned his face away, stretching out his arms to Sam. Their secrecy and their self-consciousness had quickly melted into the dark, glistening shadows of the marshes and now, with those shadows far behind them, they still took hands. Sam kissed Frodo's cheek. Gollum rose unsteadily, "We gathers food, we finds our own food."
Sam grimaced and sat beside Frodo stroking his fingers, "He's been acting queer ever since I came back."
"Sam-"
"He's got it in for me, I'd
bet you anything."
"Sam, not tonight. I'm too tired to argue tonight." He kissed Sam's honey mouth, red from the cold wind off the mountains flowered in his lips and cheeks. Frodo remembered the sun in the Shire, the warmth there. He tucked his head beneath Sam's chin. "Let's rest tonight."
Stars flickered and vanished between clouds. Gollum watched Frodo curl against Sam's shoulder from where he perched above them, his feet placed carefully between the jagged rocks. He put his hands into fists, he remembered the taste of Frodo's body. He wasn't hungry.
Below, Sam was separating the way bread into parts, crumbs in his lap, and Frodo was taking small, sleepy bites, his eyes rolling and fluttering. They were sinking back into his face, like burrowing spiders. His skin was stretched thin. Gollum wanted to touch his soft hair before it turned frail and breakable, he wanted to feel the warmth of his hands the last time they were really warm.
Sam was singing softly, one hand cupping Frodo's bent knee while the other put the water skin to his lips. Gollum nearly reached down to take a little water for himself, but forgot his need for it suddenly, and watched instead as Frodo's throat quivered delicately where he had bit down with his kiss and left tiny cuts that would become tiny scars. He sat where he was and curled into the shadow of the rocks, putting his chin between his knees. The crescent moon frowned at him and he covered his eyes.
*
Frodo was weary and sick at heart when he awoke at dawn, his body aching. Sam was curled on the ground near him, his pack beneath his cheek. Frodo touched his soft cheek, his mouth, and a trembling of love and desire swept him over like the feeble sunlight that still remained in the shadow of Mordor's borders. He pushed himself to his feet and peered carefully over their stone enclosure. There was nothing. Dust filtered through the air in shafts of broken light and Frodo stumbled back towards the mouth of the passage through the mountain, wanting so badly to see the sun again, but afraid. He clutched at his chest, then slipped his fingers inside to find the ring. Its touch was good poison. He closed his eyes.
"Master should rest."
He
spun about, then stumbled, "Sméagol . . . why aren't you asleep?"
"We cannot sleep, my love, we
watches for nice Master, beautiful Master . . ." his voice faltered, "And your
cross friend."
"Sam's just tired," Frodo lied, taking a few slow steps towards him. Gollum shuddered, taking hold of the rocks. He squinted into the awakening light but did not run away. The air between them trembled and came to life, like Gollum's hands in the dark, his mouth on Frodo's skin. Frodo shuddered, "Come watch the sun rise with me."
"Ah!
Sssss, no! We hates it, hates the nasty light-"
"You don't," Frodo
interrupted, "Not really." He extended
a hand weakly and it only took a moment before Gollum reached out to take
it. His fingers were dry and
surprisingly warm, just as Frodo remembered them. Gollum put a hand to his eyes as Frodo led him into the break in
the rocks where the blue of the sky fitted between the clouds and the sun
pierced down with a cold fierceness that it would have refrained from in any
other land. Frodo noticed, secret in
the heart of him, that he liked the feel of Gollum's hand. It felt more real to him than it ever had
before. "You haven't seen the sun in so
long."
Frodo led them to the edge of where the hill began to climb up towards the mountain, sharp and bare, and leaned back against it. He pulled Gollum's hand from his eyes.
"It stings," he moaned miserably, turning his face away.
"No, just look one time, for the precious . . . for Master."
Gollum bit his lip with his tiny sharp teeth and turned his face before he tried opening his eyes. His body shook and Frodo gazed at him for the first time in daylight. His body was not unnatural, only wasted and thin, his skin drawn out and thickened like parchment. Frodo felt the shiver of compassion he had felt in the forest when Gollum had leaned up over him, them both naked and trembling in the marsh dew of night, and touched his face with an odd tenderness. Gollum's eyes fluttered all the way open and they stood silent, gazing across the barren, sun-streaked plane. Frodo held his hand between them. "You never really hated the sun, did you Sméagol?"
Silence. Their fingers tightened together. "I remember," Gollum's voice was unusually clear and strange, "Remember a boy like you . . . and love, long ago. I remember."
After a while, Frodo started to sway with weariness again and he slipped back to the shadow of the rocks, curling into Sam's sleeping body, feeling the familiarity of him, and the permanence. He took his hands and kissed his mouth. He slept and a little of his guilt melted in the dim sunlight.
Gollum shrank back against the rocks for cover but did not take his eyes off the light, did not take his eyes off the day. Trembling, he tightened his fingers I a fist to cover the part where Frodo had touched him and he realized, vaguely, that they would not touch again. His mind began to cloud, his thoughts dimmed to the ring and of the dark night skies, the dark cave walls, but he looked still. He watched the sun rise in its tired arc over the distant marshes, fall again, and vanish in brilliant red against the trees.
Below, Sam awoke and tightened his arms around Frodo, kissing his cheeks. In the sky, clouds parted and vanished as the light died and Sam watched it go, his hand tangled in Frodo's dark curls. He thought of the change in his lover, he thought of the change in himself, even the change in Gollum, but with Frodo's soft breath on his neck, he remembered that some things are endless.
Some things are endless.
Okay, I think that's the end of these fics, unless anybody wanted to hear more? . . . okay, didn' think so =)