A/N: I've wanted to write this since I saw the Hobbit for the first time. And second. And read the book. And saw it again. And again. This is from Gollum's point of view after Bilbo escaped with the ring. I'll explain my... little theory... at the end. So... enjoy!

Taste of Poison

"THEY STOLE IT FROM US! Nasty hobbitses! They stole our precious!"

"Shut up! How? HOW?"

"H-how what, precious?"

"How did Bagginses get in...?"

He paused. "Good question... Not from here, precious. Didn't know the way out. Couldn't know the way in..."

"Then HOW?"

"M-maybe... Bagginses fell in like the goblinses do sometimes..."

"Go check."

"Yes! We will go check."

He turned and quickly hobbled back down the tunnel. When he got back to his cave, he looked.

"Must have fallen in with the goblin, precious..."

"Go back to where we found it...? Yes! Go back!"

He nodded and crawled back in the direction of the tunnels, following the faint footprints and the strange scent of the hobbit. He followed them until he came to a wall. A dead end.

"Look up."

He looked up and saw the open end of the tunnel that the goblin had fallen down earlier.

"But... Bagginses fell at the same time. Why didn't we see him, precious?"

"Look! Look! He fell in those!"

He looked and saw a large growth of brightly colored mushrooms. The center of the patch was flattened from where the hobbit had landed on them.

He found himself laughing, a shuddering, maniacal laugh that echoed throughout his quiet cave. For he had lived in his cave long enough to know exactly what grew inside. He had lived here long enough to become immune, but the hobbit would have nothing to protect himself. These mushrooms were poisonous. Deadly poisonous. He had been sure he had smelled something on the hobbit's breath, and now he knew.

These mushrooms were poisonous to the touch, and the hobbit had gotten some in his mouth.

Another long, loud wheezy laugh escaped him.

"The taste of poison... sweet and swift... Oh yes, my precious, Bagginses does not have long now!"

"But how much longer?"

"If he is not cured, precious, then he will be dead by the next sunset!"

Another wicked laugh.

"He will not keep our precious for long, no. No. No..."

"He probably won't even survive the night!"

"Hehe, dead! Cold as death with poison on his breath! Hehe, yes, precious. YES!"

He started to hobble back to his lake, singing as he went.

The cold hard lines
They bites our hands
They gnaws our feet!

Rocks and stones
They're like old bones
All bare of meat!

Cold as death
We have no breath
It's good to eat!

And so Gollum and Sméagol sat in their cave, laughing in the darkness.

A/N: Possibly the shortest story I've ever written. Ever. But let me explain. For the past few months, I've been under the impression that Bilbo got poisoned in Gollum's cave. I got this behind the scenes art book for the Hobbit, and there was a section about Gollum's cave and the design of it. Page 188, paragraph 2. It said this:

"There were also mushrooms. Bilbo falls down into them and ends up with some in his mouth. We started out painting them a certain way, but had to bump the color up to make them look more visible and poisonous."

…...

Guess who freaked the crap out when she read that? Me. If Bilbo actually DID get poisoned, that would be the most subtle poisoning in movie history! Or the most subtle poisoning since that one episode of Doctor Who titled "Let's Kill Hitler."

For the sake of my insane fangirlism, I REALLY hope he did get poisoned! Just because I'm crazy like that.