Summary: Frodo likes that Elven rope of Sam's. He *really* likes it.
Author's note: This is a little holiday gift for those of you with tie-me-up-tie-me-down fetishes. However, I kept the hobbit bondage light, so that those of us who are untrained in this kink can also enjoy it without being overly weirded out. By the way, I think this fic would look especially good with illustrations, in case any of you artists want to try it out. *wink*
Disclaimer: I invented practically nothing in this story; Tolkien did. Except for the sex. Even so, no one pays me for writing that.
Dedication: For Europanya, whose tied-up!Frodo in "A Fallen Candle's Flame" was the hottest thing ever, and who helped encourage me to write this little threesome (Frodo/Sam/rope).
* * *
'Had we known that this craft delighted you, we could have taught you much. But now alas! unless you should at some time return hither, you must be content with our gift. May it serve you well!' - a Lothlorien Elf, giving the rope to Sam. ("Farewell to Lorien," FOTR)
'I do know something about rope and about knots.' - Sam, to Frodo. ("The Taming of Smeagol," TTT)
* * *
Honestly, Frodo didn't even think of it at first. When Sam took that coil of rope from the Elf's hands in Lothlorien, Frodo was right there, but didn't give it more than a second's thought. He was busy examining his own gift, the glass phial that somehow contained the light of Earendil. Most strange, this magic of the Elves! Even after all of Gandalf's magnificent spells and tricks, there were still powers that impressed Frodo. Some were evil, like the Ring; but others were good, like the things the Elves made.
Not until they were in the boat, with Aragorn paddling them along, did Frodo think of another use for that rope. Sam was running it through his fingers, looking close at the weave and murmuring about the fine craftsmanship. Then he turned toward Frodo and said, "Feel that, Mr. Frodo - it's finer than silk; soft as whipped cream!"
Frodo innocently reached out and closed his hand around the rope, and - oh, my. His brooding mood vanished instantly, supplanted by a lightheaded joy. While he rolled and tangled his fingers in the soft, silvery rope, with Sam holding the mass of coils at the other end, a comfortable, lazy longing seeped over him. It felt oddly as if...as if he were in love. Well, that was ridiculous - with whom could he be in love? And then his eyes moved along the rope from his own hands to Sam's, and suddenly he wanted to tug the rope and bring Sam closer, so that he could seize Sam's hands and kiss them.
Startled, he looked up. Sam was watching him, with a becoming flush to his cheeks and a golden haze in his brown eyes. Did he know what Frodo was thinking?
At the same moment, they both lowered their eyes.
"It's a beautiful rope," Frodo said, very politely.
"Indeed it is, sir," Sam answered, with perfect propriety.
Frodo let go of the rope carefully and turned to face forward. The pounding in his heart ebbed somewhat, but the confused happiness and secret pleasure remained.
Samwise. Rope. Of course. Oh, dear, how could he have forgotten?
* * *
There had been a time when rope, Sam Gamgee, and erotic pleasure were a common trio in young Frodo's mind. And it started with something as wholesome as a three-legged race.
There was a Harvest Festival on a sunny day. Sam was sixteen. Frodo was twenty-eight. He had noticed that Sam lately had blossomed into a good-looking lad, and had grown nearly as tall as Frodo himself, but the observation hadn't meant anything. To Frodo, Sam was still just a child.
The younger hobbits started throwing ropes to each other and pairing up for a race. Sam was standing with two companions; these two joined up and started tying their legs together, leaving Sam to dash about for a partner. He skidded to a halt in front of Frodo, who was sitting in the shade on a hay bale with a mug of cool cider.
"Will *you*, Frodo?" Sam asked, all out of breath, still child enough to forget to use formalities. "Please, please? They're starting any second."
Frodo set aside his cider. "Of course." He hopped down and followed Sam out, at a jog, to the starting line of the race. Someone pushed a worn, prickly rope into Frodo's hand. Sam took the rope from him, pressed his right calf against Frodo's left, and bound them together with quick, sure hands. And Frodo could only stare with his jaw hanging open, because the feeling of being tied to Sam's warm flesh, from ankle to thigh, was shockingly arousing, and to make matters worse he could see down Sam's shirt as Sam bent to secure the knots: young golden-tan skin, smooth as a lass's, but firm with muscles; nipples casual and brown and intimate. Frodo found himself wanting to slip a hand down there, like he'd done with a lass at a summer-night party when he was twenty. He wanted to tug that tied leg to throw Sam off balance and knock him onto his back, and sprawl with him on the grass and caress his bare chest.
Sam was oblivious. He stood upright and wrapped his arm around Frodo's waist, eyes on the finish line. "Arm around me, come on; it helps us balance."
Frodo put his arm across Sam's back and clasped his shoulder, feeling the sweat-damp muscle moving under that thin shirt. He inhaled and exhaled a deep breath, trying to focus. *Not Sam! He's a child, a child!* his mind protested. But his body did not want to listen.
Naturally he didn't do very well in the race. Try as he might, he couldn't keep the quick-paced rhythm that Sam set for them. They loped unsteadily for about ten paces before Frodo stumbled, and brought them crashing to the grass. Despite his bewilderment, Frodo was laughing, and Sam was too - you had to laugh when you were running a three-legged race; there was no helping it. They were even laughing when they rolled to a stop, and found themselves in a tangle, Frodo lying on top of Sam, face to face.
And then they stopped laughing. Breathing hard, they just looked at one another.
Frodo was not fully physically aroused at that point, but all the same he modestly tried to lift his body away from Sam's. Surely the lad didn't want an ancient tweenager pressing against him. But with their legs tied he couldn't get away: he pulled up but then fell back down onto Sam.
"Here," Sam laughed. "To the side." He tipped Frodo over onto his back, so that they lay side by side, and then he sat up and started untying knots. "Ah, well, we gave it our best, sir." He threw Frodo a crooked grin.
"Yes," Frodo said. "Yes, we did."
That night, while promising himself the whole time that he didn't really want to do such things to an innocent lad, Frodo fantasized in his tangled bedsheets about being tied to Sam, face to face, all four legs this time; and their hands bound behind their backs too, so that neither could undo the knots. They would feel the shapes of each other's bodies; they wouldn't be able to help it; they would start moving against each other, kissing maybe, squirming until...until...
Frodo could hardly look at himself in the glass the next morning. He felt wicked, and even doubted he was mentally stable, letting such an idea excite him. He avoided Bilbo and everyone else, and took a long walk in the woods, not returning till nearly sunset.
It made him feel a little better, though not much, when he reminded himself over the course of that walk that Sam was probably not as innocent as Frodo thought. Frodo had been fifteen when he first discovered that kind of pleasure, so it was quite likely that Sam, at sixteen, knew of it as well. *Yes,* his mind retorted, *he may know of it, but that doesn't mean you're allowed to do anything with him.*
Well, he wouldn't act on it. He couldn't imagine making such a move anyway. But since those thoughts seemed to keep returning over the next several days, no matter what resolutions he made, he came to an agreement with his dark side: he would allow the fantasies, but only alone in the privacy of his own room; and in Sam's presence he would not do anything untoward. Not until Sam came of age - but since that wasn't for another seventeen years, Frodo considered it basically a moot point. Hopefully by then he would have forgotten this nonsense.
His allowance for those fantasies took dramatic shape during the next handful of years, on the occasional restless night or early morning that Frodo lay in his room letting his thoughts run wild. It wasn't the only thing he thought of, nor did he think of it constantly, but it quickly became his favorite fantasy: some combination of himself, Samwise and restraints. (Rope was the most common, but he had pictured chains, pieces of clothing, vines, and leather reins binding them as well.)
On the most daring occasions he would even bind himself, to act out the fantasy as closely as he could. With his bedroom door securely locked, he had seated himself naked on a chair, tied his ankles to the chair's legs with handkerchiefs, and tied his torso to the chair's back with a rope swiped from the shed. He would then pleasure himself, imagining Sam's hands in place of his own; or he imagined Sam tied down in this fashion and begging to be touched. He experimented with slipknots that would let him tie up his own wrists without needing anyone else's help getting into or out of the knots. Without his hands it was much harder to reach a climax, of course; he generally had to do it by lying on his front and writhing against the edge of a cushion, his wrists tied to the bedpost.
Sometimes he thought of someone else, a lass or lad who had caught his fancy; and sometimes restraints weren't involved at all. Sometimes he pictured doing things with Sam, and both of them unbound and free - it was all pleasant. But for twisting his insides with that delicious catch of highest excitement, there was nothing like that original scenario: Sam, Frodo, rope. That one afternoon at the Harvest Festival seemed to have welded those circumstances onto the most private part of his brain, and there was apparently no getting rid of them.
They did slowly recede, with time. Frodo became accustomed to being a bachelor, and to behaving properly around everyone, and he also became accustomed to viewing Sam as a peer, a friend. The more he grew to care about Sam, the less proper it seemed to enjoy reckless fantasies about him. Still, there were moments...still...Frodo may have been in his 40's, but the right dream could bring that surging arousal back to him as if he were an exploring tweenager again. It happened less with the years, and not at all since beginning this perilous quest, but always, beneath it all, there lurked things that could set fire to the flesh of Frodo Baggins, if only anyone knew. And if anyone had to know, Frodo would want it to be Sam.
* * *
But to call it "love"? That had been the feeling in his heart when he found himself fondling the other end of Sam's rope, and in some ways it was no surprise. Certainly, it was easy to believe he loved Sam, for who had ever been a truer companion to him? However, he had thought that his erotic fantasies were a thing apart from love, and probably should not be allowed to intrude upon love with their wicked taint. Now, with the memory of the smooth Elven rope still tingling on his hands, he began to see how silly this idea was. Naturally the person you loved best, your life's mate, should also be the person you shared your innermost desires with. And it wasn't as if it was wicked anymore to think of Sam, for Sam had been of age for five years now.
Frodo, still gliding down the River Anduin in a Lorien boat, shot Sam another glance. Sam had the rope draped over his knee, and was twining his fingers into it absent-mindedly as he looked out at the scenery.
Frodo reached out and picked up the nearest end, pulling a length onto his own lap. The slither of it against Sam's leg caught his attention; he turned and cast Frodo a quizzical smile.
Frodo had already looped it around his wrist, and was tying it into a knot his fingers knew well, just to see if he could still do it. He could, and it brought that delicious longing back into his belly.
"Basic slipknot," Sam commented, watching him.
"Yes," murmured Frodo. "Seeing if I remembered how."
"That's a useful one. There's another slipknot that's a mite faster, though." Sam picked loose Frodo's knot, and deftly re-looped the rope around both of Frodo's wrists. "Slide it under here...and through the loop there...and double back right here...and there you are." Sam pulled on the loose end, and the knot tightened instantly, cinching Frodo's hands together.
Frodo was becoming somewhat breathless. "Excellent work, Sam. You're quite good at this."
"Aye, well - the Tighfield relations, you know." Sam modestly unraveled the rope and handed it to Frodo. "Here. You try it."
Oh, dear - Sam asking to be tied up - this was an unexpected treat. If only they weren't in an open boat, in plain sight of six other companions. Frodo bravely cleared his throat, and wound the soft length around Sam's wrists. "You'll have to be patient with me. I only saw you do it once."
"I shall," Sam promised. "We'll take as long as you need."
He talked Frodo through the knot, and Frodo did his best to concentrate. When he completed the last step, he pulled gently on the rope and watched it tighten around Sam's willing wrists.
"It's all right; tug tighter," Sam encouraged. "You shan't hurt me, not with something as soft as this."
He really had to stop saying things like that. Frodo couldn't very well pounce on him while Aragorn was there watching. He only breathed a light chuckle, and tried to untangle the knot.
"Mr. Frodo? You all right?" asked Sam, now sounding a little concerned.
"Oh - yes. Quite all right. I was just...thinking of something else."
Sam nodded, looking grim. "It's that Ring, isn't it."
Frodo hesitated, then lied, "Yes. The infernal Ring."
"Better this rope than that Ring, if you ask me," Sam said, holding up a silvery-grey loop to make his point. "Learning knots with an Elven cord is far healthier than brooding over that evil thing."
"Wise words, Master Gamgee," commented Aragorn. "And on a journey such as this, Frodo, when you're likely to find yourself in danger, it can be very useful to know the ways of tying and untying knots."
"That's how I see it," Sam agreed.
Frodo was speechless. Why was everyone in his boat suddenly encouraging him to think about ropes? Had they found out somehow? Were they playing a joke on him? Impossible. Nobody could have known.
All the same, it was disconcerting. He murmured something pointless like "Yes, quite," bowed his head, and silently tried Sam's slipknot again.
* * *
It was not just his imagination. He was quite sure of that, by the time they rowed ashore that evening to make supper and set up camp.
It was not just his imagination that when he held one part of the rope, and Sam held another, his arousal actually increased; and when either he or Sam let go of the rope, it declined a little. There was something going on with that rope - magic, most likely.
It was also not just his imagination that Sam had been very involved in the knot lessons, had moved closer to Frodo on the boat's bench, and had tipped him a shy and secret wink when winding up the rope to stow it in his pack.
Sam sat close to him at the cook-fire that night, and they glanced frequently at one another. Frodo was thinking that it wouldn't actually matter very much if Sam did find out how he felt about knots and about ropes, since their chances of surviving this mission were looking rather slim lately. The Elves could see the future, to some degree: were they trying to do him a favor in his final weeks by sending along such a rope with such a companion?
"Sam," Frodo said. "Show Legolas your rope. I'm curious what he could tell us about it."
"Yes, and our daggers," chimed in Pippin.
"And that phial you were given," suggested Merry. "That should be quite interesting."
"Yes, yes; but let's see the rope first," Frodo said, reaching for it as Sam pulled it out of his pack. As they touched it, a momentary ripple of pleasure climbed up Frodo's arm and down into all his body parts. Sam, still holding onto it, seemed to be similarly lost in thought. Then Legolas leaned forward and plucked it from them, and they both recovered their focus and looked at him.
"Ah. A very ancient and traditional rope," Legolas said. "Into its threads is woven much magic."
"What can it do?" asked Pippin, interested despite his apparent preference for daggers.
"Its powers are threefold." Legolas smoothed the loops as he spoke. "It shows loyalty: it stays close to its bearer. It repels evil: its very fibers are loathsome to any fell creature. And it binds love to love: it has long been used to heighten affection; in marriage ceremonies, for example."
Heighten affection? Did that mean what Frodo thought? And was he seeing things, or did a sly smile just glimmer on the Elf's lips?
"What use do you fluff-brained Elves find for rope in a wedding?" Gimli scoffed.
Legolas did not favor him with a glance, but answered calmly, "The wrists of the two betrothed are bound together. 'Tis a symbolic gesture."
"Men do the same in some parts of Gondor," Aragorn said, "or so I am told."
"It is true," said Boromir; "I have seen such ceremonies."
"And how long does the poor couple have to be tied to one another?" Merry inquired.
"Different families do it different ways," Legolas said. "In some, only a few minutes, just as long as it takes for the vows to be spoken. In others, the entire night."
Yes. There it was again: that smile.
"The entire night!" spluttered Merry. "But surely...oh." His voice became different on that last note.
Frodo looked at him in shock. Apparently these ideas had occurred to cousin Meriadoc as well.
Legolas handed the rope back to Sam. "I'm sure the first two powers will be of more use to you here, Master Gamgee."
"Er - yes, sir," Sam stammered.
Frodo timidly cleared his throat. "Legolas...you say a wedding ceremony is only one way it might 'heighten affection'...in what other ways might it do so?"
Now Legolas's smile was plain for all to see. "It is oft employed by regular lovers as well - those not yet married, or already married; or any pair sharing a certain bond."
Frodo, blushing, tried to form a scholarly-sounding answer, but was saved by Boromir, who suddenly burst out laughing.
"'Tis a love-charm, in rope form!" said Boromir, slapping his knee. "I understand it now! Ah, if only a fair Elven maid were here - I would gladly offer myself up to test it."
"It is not a love-charm as you seem to intend it," Legolas answered, smiling; "creating love out of thin air. It can only strengthen feelings of love that already exist."
Frodo prayed that the deep blush on his face would go unnoticed in the firelight. "Interesting," he murmured. Feelings that already existed? Oh, yes, he had some of those, to be sure. Had them for approximately twenty-two years now, in fact.
"Take that rope back to the Shire with you, Sam," Aragorn suggested, lips curling in a smile around his pipe. "I'm sure there's some hobbit lass who could appreciate it."
Frodo sent Sam a glance, sorry for having gotten him into this subject in front of everyone. Sam, however, who had just finished putting the rope away, seemed to be taking it well. He ducked his head with his shy smile and answered, "Ah, I'm none too sure of that. But I'll keep it if I can, just on account of it's Elvish, and a very fine piece of work indeed."
* * *
Frodo was having trouble falling asleep that night. Sam was right there, and the rope was right there (in Sam's pack, leaning against that tree), and Frodo required more time combining the two and examining the effect upon himself before he could rest.
Finally he decided that if he could not have them both that night, he would at least study one. He stole out of his blankets, sat down next to Sam's pack in the shadow of the tree trunk, and took a stealthy look around. Nobody else stirred; they were asleep, except for Gimli, who kept watch at the other side of the camp, facing outward. Frodo slipped his hand into the outermost pocket, where he had seen Sam stash the rope, and immediately met its cool, silky fibers. They comforted him; he pulled the whole coiled-up length out of the pocket and draped it over his lap. In the moonlight-dappled shadow, he started running it through his fingers, loosening the coils. Some of them slithered to the ground between his feet, and he slid his toes into them, tangling up his ankles.
He leaned his head back against the tree, closed his weary eyes, and breathed in the sweet, chilly night air. Holding the rope didn't feel the same without Sam, but it was still relaxing.
There was a rustle, near him. Frodo's eyes flew open to see Sam lifting his head from his blankets and staring straight at him. Frodo twitched and tried to drop the rope, but of course it was looped all over his limbs, and he couldn't very well plead total innocence. He tried to look distant and serious instead, as if he had just happened to pick it up absent-mindedly while sitting here brooding.
"Are you all right?" whispered Sam, across the few feet that separated them.
"Yes," Frodo whispered back. "I...couldn't sleep, that's all."
Sam crawled out of his blankets and came to sit next to Frodo, who was unobtrusively trying to put the rope back into its tidy coils. Sam looked at it, then at Frodo questioningly.
Frodo returned a slightly guilty glance. "I remembered talking about it at supper, and I thought I'd have a look at it, since I was just lying there awake..."
Sam slowly reached out and took a section of it onto his knee, and began plucking off bits of grass without answering. The moment he touched it, Frodo felt the familiar longing race into his blood again. He took a breath and closed his eyes for a second.
"I'm..." he added, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't go through your things. I shan't do it again."
"I'm not bothered," Sam answered softly. He still stroked the rope, watching his own fingers. "I wasn't asleep, neither."
"Oh? Something bothering you?" Frodo asked. The smell of Sam's warm wool-and-linen clothes and healthy skin was wafting into his nostrils, making it hard to hold up his end of the conversation. All he wanted to do was clamber into Sam's lap and create a tangled sculpture of rope and hobbit limbs.
Sam wound and unwound a bit of rope around his finger, over and over. The threads seemed to glow a faint silvery-blue in the dark. "Why did you ask about it?" he said. "About the way it affects people?"
Surprised, Frodo tried to read Sam's face before he responded. But he couldn't tell whether Sam was asking out of annoyance, or out of romantic interest. Sam was agitated; that was all he could decipher.
Frodo sighed, bowing his head. Sam deserved honesty, he knew that; and it was time to deliver it. "Because when I touched it, I felt something. I still do. Apparently it's Elven magic, and not my imagination."
"What is it you feel?" Sam whispered, eyes cast down.
Frodo drew his knee up slowly, so that he could catch hold of the rope with his toe, and draped it over Sam's foot. With the other foot, he grasped the rope and pulled it beneath their ankles, so that it wrapped them together. Sam watched, his eyelashes bathed with moonlight.
"The third spell," Frodo answered softly. "Pleasure."
To Frodo's utter shock, Sam moved closer, still without even looking at him, and rested his head on Frodo's shoulder. Sam's face turned, so that the warm breeze of his breath skipped across Frodo's collarbone. "I feel it too," Sam said. "When you and me touch it at the same time."
Shock was quickly melting into tender joy. Frodo turned and pressed a kiss onto Sam's head. The curls tickled his lips. "Yes, with you; only with you," he whispered in assurance, slipping an entangled arm around his companion. Either the Elven magic or the sense of harmony he'd always felt with Sam was making it quite easy to nestle with him this way, even though they'd never done it before.
"I know I love you," said the meek Sam, toying with the rope on Frodo's thigh. "Didn't need no Elf to tell me that."
"My dear Sam -" Frodo placed another kiss between words, this time on Sam's forehead. "- I can scarcely remember a time when I haven't wanted or, indeed, loved you."
Now Sam lifted his head, smiling at him. "I was sixteen when I started thinking of you like that. Can you believe it? No pure-minded young lad was Sam Gamgee, no sir."
"I think I noticed you when you were sixteen, as well." Frodo found himself twining the rope around Sam's wrist - oh, goodness, that felt better than it had any right to. Would Sam mind if they kissed, while tangled up this way?...
Sam murmured a sigh of contentment, and clasped Frodo's hand with his own bound one. "Do you remember we ran a three-legged race together, once?"
"Of course. You remember that too?"
"Yourself, tied to me? And lying on top of me? As if I'd forget it in a hurry." Sam gave him a lopsided grin.
Frodo cinched the rope tighter. "You've no idea how often I've thought of that," he confessed.
Sam seemed entranced with Frodo's mouth; his eyes had fastened themselves there. "I remember I scented the cider on your breath," he said. "The spices - the clove-buds they'd put in it. I wanted to taste it right off your lips."
He was making Frodo's own mouth water. "I haven't had any cloves tonight," he answered, "but..." By way of finishing the sentence, Frodo moved in and kissed Sam on the lips. Sam's arm slipped around Frodo's waist, and his foot slid slowly up and down against Frodo's calf, ensnared in the silky rope. The sweet softness of mouth against mouth heated up as the kiss lingered, and became moist when Frodo parted his lips for breath and Sam flicked his tongue against them. A whimper slipped from Frodo's throat, against his will. He tugged the rope, bringing Sam's hand up against his chest, and quickly rotated his own hand so that the rope wound around it instead. Desire raced through him; he tilted his head and caught Sam's lower lip in his mouth, suckling and nipping at it; and then let it go so Sam could do the same to him.
They were both panting when the kiss was over. Frodo stared into Sam's eyes, feeling all too strongly the touch of the rope looped around their bodies. "Oh, dear," he said.
"Maybe, um..." Sam paused to swallow. "Maybe we ought to take this conversation to the other side of that log, there."
Frodo writhed a bit, noticing that he was getting hard, and deliciously sensitive even to the rub of his trousers. What might the feel of Sam's body do, moving against him...? He gulped down a breath, and pulled Sam into an awkward crawl toward the log. "Come on."
Tangled in the rope, they climbed over the massive moss-covered fallen tree, which formed a barrier at least two feet high, and fell to their knees in a bed of fragrant decaying leaves on the other side. They were silently laughing and out of breath, but now a thrill of excitement electrified Frodo, and he abandoned the mirth in favor of simply gazing at Sam as they knelt face to face.
"We had," Frodo began softly, "our legs tied together...that day..." And he reached down and drew the loops up, around and around their knees and thighs, until they were bound, Frodo's right thigh to Sam's left.
"Why stop there?" Sam purred, and pulled the rope around Frodo's waist, then his own, spiraling up around their chests, so that they were effectively tied together from knees to armpits.
"Oh," Frodo gasped. The sensitive ridge lying against his lower belly rubbed against Sam's pelvis. His heart pounded, and the tang of lust spread in his mouth.
Sam had both arms around him, and now he moved one downward until his hand was cupping Frodo's backside. He lifted Frodo up against him, then eased him backward into the bed of leaves. He let Frodo get his legs straightened, and groaned into Frodo's neck when Frodo used the leverage of his free foot to press into the ground and lift his hips against Sam's.
"Nay, you're not getting the upper hand, me dear," he growled, and in one strong lunge took Frodo's wrists and pinned them above his head.
Frodo's eyes went wide in delighted astonishment. It was as if Sam had read his mind. "How about," he suggested, "you tie me there..." He craned his neck to look upside-down at the branch behind him, protruding from the log.
"There?" Sam seemed a bit surprised, and as he hesitated, Frodo pleaded by twisting his hips and whimpering. He had the pleasure of watching Sam's eyes flutter closed, and feeling Sam twist his own hips in response so that - ah, there it was - his erection fitted and locked alongside Frodo's.
"Just for fun," Frodo breathed. "Just to see...what this rope can do..."
Sam planted a wet kiss on him, keeping Frodo's hands pinned. "Now, you'd be at my mercy if you were tied like that," he whispered, teasing.
"Indeed," Frodo said, through kiss-dampened lips; "you'd quite be able to have your way with me."
Sam ran his eyes up and down Frodo's face and arms, and then lunged upward and whipped the rope around the branch, securing Frodo's wrists there with a solid knot.
"Is that your slipknot?" Frodo asked, straining against it, trying not to betray his overwhelming arousal in his voice, and more or less failing.
"Aye," Sam said, settling down onto Frodo's body and favoring him with another long kiss. He was hard and hot against Frodo's groin, but his voice sounded anxious as he said: "Now, I'll let you go, anytime you wish. You just say the word. You understand?"
"You're the sweetest thing, Sam. I do understand, but I assure you this isn't hurting me at all. In fact, it..." He felt his face heat with a blush. "It makes me want you desperately. It's exactly what I've longed for. And with *this* rope - dear me...it's better than my wildest dreams."
Sam was now moving his hips against Frodo's, subtly but constantly, as if he couldn't help it. "It's doing its job, all right," he agreed, and with a soft groan pressed his mouth to the patch of skin exposed at the top of Frodo's shirt, his hand diving into the damp leaves to squeeze Frodo's rear. "I love being tied to you...feeling you..."
"Feel me all you wish," Frodo breathed, and then Sam's mouth was upon his, and they gave up talking for a while. Frodo's world became a cloud of sensation - the earthy spice-scent of the leaves; the cool damp against his back; the rough bark bumping his knuckles; Sam's mouth tasting like summer rain; the distant sighs of wind and their companions' snores, and the closer sounds of their own kisses and leaf-rustles and excited breath. And, above all, the heavy, lovely, living warmth pressing down upon him, kissing his mouth and neck, running up and down his tethered arms, rocking back and forth between his legs; all of it, the rope enhanced and heightened, tingling in the hundred little places it touched his body.
The strangest thing, and the most fascinating, was how the rope seemed to *know* what was required of it. Frodo was tied fast to the branch, yet no amount of twisting pinched his skin or made his arms hurt: anytime a shift of position threatened to make him uncomfortable, the rope adjusted itself slightly. He and Sam were firmly bound together, yet the rope gave just enough at their hips to allow them to move, without allowing them to get too far apart. When Frodo lifted his body from the leaves to press harder against Sam, it wasn't only Sam's arms holding him up - it was that slender, iron-strong length of rope. It did all of this, yet it was never intrusive. What it mostly served to do was to make Frodo feel Sam, feel this moment, more clearly and more deliciously than his fuzzy daydreams had ever devised.
"We should..." Sam whispered eventually, "we should probably get back...before they notice..."
"Not yet," Frodo groaned. He could barely keep his eyes open; they kept swooning shut; and all his attention was focusing more and more on the warmest, firmest, and most sensitive part of him, and on how it felt to crush and rub it against Sam's. Stopping sounded like a dreadfully cruel idea.
Sam strained upward to peek over the top of the log. The binding rope pulled Frodo with him, lifting half of Frodo's body from the ground and making him laugh breathlessly for a moment. Sam's arm cradled him, but now Sam was saying, "Strider's getting up to change places with Gimli...he'll notice we aren't there; any minute he'll notice..."
"Just...a little...longer," Frodo pleaded, thrusting shamelessly against Sam.
That got Sam's attention: he lowered them to the forest floor again, gazing in wonder at Frodo's face. "Oh," he said, sounding shaky. "You mean to..."
"Yes...kiss me... please..." Frodo had only to wait a split second before Sam obeyed, plunging him into the leaves with a passionate kiss. They writhed together, increasingly faster, until Frodo tore his face away to gasp for breath, and whimpered into Sam's shirt-collar, "Oh yes...oh yes...oh..." The heat building in his loins surged over the top then, rocking him in shudders, soaking the inner layers of his trousers.
As he sagged in the makeshift rope-hammock, savoring the relief and delirious pleasure, Frodo noticed that Sam was still writhing against him - more urgently than ever, in fact. "Are you..." Frodo asked, and he felt Sam nod his head, quickly, at his shoulder. Frodo's mouth fell open in a new rush of desire. He turned his face, seeking to see or to kiss the features of his dear friend in this most intimate of moments.
Sam had his eyes closed and his cheekbone to Frodo's collar, breathing fast through his parted lips. He squeezed Frodo's backside hard, with both hands now, holding Frodo's body up against himself, moving, gasping a soft cry with each thrust. By the time he reached his peak and shuddered over it, groaning with his lips engaged in Frodo's earlobe, Frodo was halfway to another climax himself.
"Sam," he purred, wrapping his free leg around his companion in the nearest thing to an embrace he could manage, given the circumstances. "Oh, Sam, Sam..."
"Frodo?"
The voice was, unfortunately, not Sam's. It was Aragorn's, and it came from the campsite on the other side of the log.
Two different curse words hissed from the lips of the two hobbits. Sam lunged to unwrap Frodo's hands, but the knot unraveled before he could touch it. Frodo collapsed into the leaves. Sam pulled him up to his knees. The rope fell away harmlessly into loose loops onto the ground around them.
"Frodo?" Aragorn's voice was more alarmed now. And closer.
Frodo popped up onto his unsteady legs, clutching the top of the log. "Here, Strider," he called softly.
Aragorn turned, and marched toward them, looking both relieved and angry. "Are you all right?"
Frodo, with Sam's help, was climbing onto the log and down the other side. "Yes. Sam and I were just...talking."
Sam dropped down beside him, rope in a tangle in his hand. Aragorn looked at it, and asked, "With a rope?"
"Well, just in case," Frodo mumbled.
"A sword would be a better choice for defense," Aragorn pointed out, "magical though your rope may be, Sam."
"Right, sir," Sam said, head bowed.
"Don't leave camp like that, without telling anyone," Aragorn chastised Frodo.
"I'm sorry," he answered.
Aragorn frowned at the pair of them. "Are you sure you're all right? You seem shaken."
"We're fine," Frodo said. He wished his voice didn't sound so defensive.
"You have leaves on your back," Aragorn noted, kneeling, turning Frodo around with one hand.
"I fell over. It was nothing."
Aragorn's hand moved down and caught Frodo's arm. "And rope marks on your wrists."
Frodo felt a blush flare in his face. "We were practicing Sam's slipknot."
Aragorn stood, with a look on his face that Frodo unhappily would have characterized as "knowing." "It isn't safe to sneak off as you did," he reminded them. "Don't do it again."
Frodo was too irritated to answer, but Sam, beside him, whispered, "Yes, sir."
"Go back to sleep," Aragorn said, and slipped away to take his spot as watchman.
"What is he - our father?" Frodo grumbled in an undertone to Sam.
"Well, we *were* taking a bit of a risk there," Sam said, as they crawled back under their blankets, side by side. "Not that it wasn't worth it, mind."
"We *will* do it again," Frodo insisted. "I don't care what he says."
Sam bit his lip. "I want to, truly I do, but he'll not be easy to get past."
"No," said Frodo thoughtfully. He lay back on his bedroll. "No, we must get ourselves entirely alone, Sam. The Fellowship, perhaps, has served its purpose and must now split up."
"Sir?" said the surprised Sam.
"Never mind," Frodo assured. "I'll speak to him. Goodnight, dearest."
* * *
Frodo did not bother saying anything about it to Aragorn the next morning, however, since Aragorn himself did not mention it. Besides, it was so much more enjoyable to sneak glances at Sam, and savor the way Sam glanced back. Life, today, seemed extraordinarily sweet and clear.
They got into their boats once again. Sam's pack rested at their feet, on its side. Aragorn sat behind them and paddled. Frodo and Sam amused themselves, for a while, by brushing their feet gently together under the bench; but then a familiar silky touch stroked the hairs on the top of Frodo's foot, and he sucked in a breath of arousal. Sam threw him an inquisitive glance. Frodo turned his eyes to the river, in a show of innocence, and with his toes pulled the coiled-up rope out of Sam's pack. He knew the moment it touched Sam's foot as well, for not only did he feel the vibrant thrill of increased longing, but he heard Sam take a quick breath.
For a few minutes it was enough to toy with the rope with their agile toes, rubbing a foot against an ankle, a shin against a calf. But Frodo could barely sit still before long, itching to do more; and anyway, worrying what Strider thought was ridiculous. Frodo was fifty years old, and had suffered quite a lot for this group of people so far, and therefore could damn well flirt with his gardener if he wanted to.
He leaned down and brought the rope onto their laps, while Sam watched. "Play cat's-cradle?" Frodo offered. "Or teach me some more knots, if you like."
Even the proper Sam could not resist that touch and that offer. A smile curled his lips. "Hold up your hands, then."
By the time the boats went ashore again, in the afternoon, the pair had become awfully brave. After a spell of wrapping and knotting and twisting rope around each other's hands, with their feet writhing against each other, Frodo murmured that he was cold, and Sam whipped out a blanket. They draped it around themselves at the shoulders, so that it covered them entirely from the necks down, leaving only a space between their heads. Aragorn could not have seen down it unless he had been standing directly above them. And a good thing, too, because they each began to notice that a section of rope left between one's legs, when one was in this mood, would press tight exactly where one wanted to be pressed. So while they mindlessly toyed with the end of the rope in their hands, staring at each other and laughing soft pointless words designed to sound like ordinary conversation, their thighs squeezed together, feeling the friction like a delicious burn.
Alas, it was time for lunch.
Frodo and Sam dragged themselves out of the boat behind Strider, holding their cloaks around themselves.
"Goodness, Sam," Merry remarked, "you look almost reluctant to leave that boat. I never thought I'd see the day you enjoyed being on the water!"
"I'm getting used to it," answered the blushing Sam.
Frodo followed him to a tree, where they both knelt down and pretended to be interested in the food Sam was getting out of his pack.
"I'll slip out into the woods after we eat," Frodo said quietly. "Wait five minutes and then follow me."
The heat in Sam's eyes was almost palpable. "Yes, sir," he echoed.
* * *
Things went quite differently than planned.
First there was the unexpected attack from Boromir. Frodo had no choice but to run. And then suddenly there was Aragorn, confronting him.
"That rope is not a toy," Aragorn said. And, "You must learn to control such impulses; they could be dangerous to you here." And, "I did not expect to have to tell you such things - you, such a well-behaved hobbit."
It took Frodo a full minute of indignant half-syllables of protest before he could get a word in edgewise and tell Aragorn that he had nearly just been killed by one of their own party, and that therefore lecturing him about his private life was especially unwelcome right now.
Aragorn had apologized, and had transferred his alarm to more suitable targets. But on one point they agreed: the Fellowship could not stay together any longer. Frodo must flee to Mount Doom, without the rest of them.
"I told him I was leaving you behind, as well," Frodo said to Sam that evening, hugging his sodden friend under a wool blanket on the far shores of the Anduin. "I told him you'd understand." Frodo chuckled, and kissed Sam's neck. "I think he actually believed me. Didn't find me capable of deception, I suppose."
"You didn't have to nearly drown me," grumbled Sam.
"I was only trying to get away from shore in case Boromir came back," Frodo defended. "I told you: the current carried me farther than I intended. I didn't *want* you to go diving into the Anduin, you know. That was not the plan."
"I know. I'm cold, that's all."
Frodo smiled at the humble tone. "Then I'm not close enough to you," he said, nuzzling Sam's lips.
Sam captured him in a kiss, which indeed warmed up their collective skin temperature in short order.
"Is that rope dry?" Frodo breathed.
"Aye. It sheds the water right quick."
"Then I shall have to tie you to me, to make sure you don't fall behind again."
"I'd follow you, tied up or no," Sam whispered.
Frodo had been reaching for the rope, but now he drew back empty-handed, relaxed alongside the warmth of Sam's body, and stroked Sam's damp curls with his knuckles. "Ah, Sam...you do know it isn't merely Elven magic that makes me feel this way? Even if we threw that rope into the fire, I'd still want you and love you. Ever so much."
"I do know. I feel the same." Sam ran a cool hand up Frodo's back, under his shirt. "I want you something awful right now, and we're not even touching it."
Frodo smiled again, rolled Sam onto his back, and lay atop him, kissing and embracing him, unencumbered by knots. After a while, he lifted his head, and mused, "Of course, since we *have* it..."
"Really would be a waste not to use it," Sam agreed, and lunged for the rope.
Author's note: This is a little holiday gift for those of you with tie-me-up-tie-me-down fetishes. However, I kept the hobbit bondage light, so that those of us who are untrained in this kink can also enjoy it without being overly weirded out. By the way, I think this fic would look especially good with illustrations, in case any of you artists want to try it out. *wink*
Disclaimer: I invented practically nothing in this story; Tolkien did. Except for the sex. Even so, no one pays me for writing that.
Dedication: For Europanya, whose tied-up!Frodo in "A Fallen Candle's Flame" was the hottest thing ever, and who helped encourage me to write this little threesome (Frodo/Sam/rope).
* * *
'Had we known that this craft delighted you, we could have taught you much. But now alas! unless you should at some time return hither, you must be content with our gift. May it serve you well!' - a Lothlorien Elf, giving the rope to Sam. ("Farewell to Lorien," FOTR)
'I do know something about rope and about knots.' - Sam, to Frodo. ("The Taming of Smeagol," TTT)
* * *
Honestly, Frodo didn't even think of it at first. When Sam took that coil of rope from the Elf's hands in Lothlorien, Frodo was right there, but didn't give it more than a second's thought. He was busy examining his own gift, the glass phial that somehow contained the light of Earendil. Most strange, this magic of the Elves! Even after all of Gandalf's magnificent spells and tricks, there were still powers that impressed Frodo. Some were evil, like the Ring; but others were good, like the things the Elves made.
Not until they were in the boat, with Aragorn paddling them along, did Frodo think of another use for that rope. Sam was running it through his fingers, looking close at the weave and murmuring about the fine craftsmanship. Then he turned toward Frodo and said, "Feel that, Mr. Frodo - it's finer than silk; soft as whipped cream!"
Frodo innocently reached out and closed his hand around the rope, and - oh, my. His brooding mood vanished instantly, supplanted by a lightheaded joy. While he rolled and tangled his fingers in the soft, silvery rope, with Sam holding the mass of coils at the other end, a comfortable, lazy longing seeped over him. It felt oddly as if...as if he were in love. Well, that was ridiculous - with whom could he be in love? And then his eyes moved along the rope from his own hands to Sam's, and suddenly he wanted to tug the rope and bring Sam closer, so that he could seize Sam's hands and kiss them.
Startled, he looked up. Sam was watching him, with a becoming flush to his cheeks and a golden haze in his brown eyes. Did he know what Frodo was thinking?
At the same moment, they both lowered their eyes.
"It's a beautiful rope," Frodo said, very politely.
"Indeed it is, sir," Sam answered, with perfect propriety.
Frodo let go of the rope carefully and turned to face forward. The pounding in his heart ebbed somewhat, but the confused happiness and secret pleasure remained.
Samwise. Rope. Of course. Oh, dear, how could he have forgotten?
* * *
There had been a time when rope, Sam Gamgee, and erotic pleasure were a common trio in young Frodo's mind. And it started with something as wholesome as a three-legged race.
There was a Harvest Festival on a sunny day. Sam was sixteen. Frodo was twenty-eight. He had noticed that Sam lately had blossomed into a good-looking lad, and had grown nearly as tall as Frodo himself, but the observation hadn't meant anything. To Frodo, Sam was still just a child.
The younger hobbits started throwing ropes to each other and pairing up for a race. Sam was standing with two companions; these two joined up and started tying their legs together, leaving Sam to dash about for a partner. He skidded to a halt in front of Frodo, who was sitting in the shade on a hay bale with a mug of cool cider.
"Will *you*, Frodo?" Sam asked, all out of breath, still child enough to forget to use formalities. "Please, please? They're starting any second."
Frodo set aside his cider. "Of course." He hopped down and followed Sam out, at a jog, to the starting line of the race. Someone pushed a worn, prickly rope into Frodo's hand. Sam took the rope from him, pressed his right calf against Frodo's left, and bound them together with quick, sure hands. And Frodo could only stare with his jaw hanging open, because the feeling of being tied to Sam's warm flesh, from ankle to thigh, was shockingly arousing, and to make matters worse he could see down Sam's shirt as Sam bent to secure the knots: young golden-tan skin, smooth as a lass's, but firm with muscles; nipples casual and brown and intimate. Frodo found himself wanting to slip a hand down there, like he'd done with a lass at a summer-night party when he was twenty. He wanted to tug that tied leg to throw Sam off balance and knock him onto his back, and sprawl with him on the grass and caress his bare chest.
Sam was oblivious. He stood upright and wrapped his arm around Frodo's waist, eyes on the finish line. "Arm around me, come on; it helps us balance."
Frodo put his arm across Sam's back and clasped his shoulder, feeling the sweat-damp muscle moving under that thin shirt. He inhaled and exhaled a deep breath, trying to focus. *Not Sam! He's a child, a child!* his mind protested. But his body did not want to listen.
Naturally he didn't do very well in the race. Try as he might, he couldn't keep the quick-paced rhythm that Sam set for them. They loped unsteadily for about ten paces before Frodo stumbled, and brought them crashing to the grass. Despite his bewilderment, Frodo was laughing, and Sam was too - you had to laugh when you were running a three-legged race; there was no helping it. They were even laughing when they rolled to a stop, and found themselves in a tangle, Frodo lying on top of Sam, face to face.
And then they stopped laughing. Breathing hard, they just looked at one another.
Frodo was not fully physically aroused at that point, but all the same he modestly tried to lift his body away from Sam's. Surely the lad didn't want an ancient tweenager pressing against him. But with their legs tied he couldn't get away: he pulled up but then fell back down onto Sam.
"Here," Sam laughed. "To the side." He tipped Frodo over onto his back, so that they lay side by side, and then he sat up and started untying knots. "Ah, well, we gave it our best, sir." He threw Frodo a crooked grin.
"Yes," Frodo said. "Yes, we did."
That night, while promising himself the whole time that he didn't really want to do such things to an innocent lad, Frodo fantasized in his tangled bedsheets about being tied to Sam, face to face, all four legs this time; and their hands bound behind their backs too, so that neither could undo the knots. They would feel the shapes of each other's bodies; they wouldn't be able to help it; they would start moving against each other, kissing maybe, squirming until...until...
Frodo could hardly look at himself in the glass the next morning. He felt wicked, and even doubted he was mentally stable, letting such an idea excite him. He avoided Bilbo and everyone else, and took a long walk in the woods, not returning till nearly sunset.
It made him feel a little better, though not much, when he reminded himself over the course of that walk that Sam was probably not as innocent as Frodo thought. Frodo had been fifteen when he first discovered that kind of pleasure, so it was quite likely that Sam, at sixteen, knew of it as well. *Yes,* his mind retorted, *he may know of it, but that doesn't mean you're allowed to do anything with him.*
Well, he wouldn't act on it. He couldn't imagine making such a move anyway. But since those thoughts seemed to keep returning over the next several days, no matter what resolutions he made, he came to an agreement with his dark side: he would allow the fantasies, but only alone in the privacy of his own room; and in Sam's presence he would not do anything untoward. Not until Sam came of age - but since that wasn't for another seventeen years, Frodo considered it basically a moot point. Hopefully by then he would have forgotten this nonsense.
His allowance for those fantasies took dramatic shape during the next handful of years, on the occasional restless night or early morning that Frodo lay in his room letting his thoughts run wild. It wasn't the only thing he thought of, nor did he think of it constantly, but it quickly became his favorite fantasy: some combination of himself, Samwise and restraints. (Rope was the most common, but he had pictured chains, pieces of clothing, vines, and leather reins binding them as well.)
On the most daring occasions he would even bind himself, to act out the fantasy as closely as he could. With his bedroom door securely locked, he had seated himself naked on a chair, tied his ankles to the chair's legs with handkerchiefs, and tied his torso to the chair's back with a rope swiped from the shed. He would then pleasure himself, imagining Sam's hands in place of his own; or he imagined Sam tied down in this fashion and begging to be touched. He experimented with slipknots that would let him tie up his own wrists without needing anyone else's help getting into or out of the knots. Without his hands it was much harder to reach a climax, of course; he generally had to do it by lying on his front and writhing against the edge of a cushion, his wrists tied to the bedpost.
Sometimes he thought of someone else, a lass or lad who had caught his fancy; and sometimes restraints weren't involved at all. Sometimes he pictured doing things with Sam, and both of them unbound and free - it was all pleasant. But for twisting his insides with that delicious catch of highest excitement, there was nothing like that original scenario: Sam, Frodo, rope. That one afternoon at the Harvest Festival seemed to have welded those circumstances onto the most private part of his brain, and there was apparently no getting rid of them.
They did slowly recede, with time. Frodo became accustomed to being a bachelor, and to behaving properly around everyone, and he also became accustomed to viewing Sam as a peer, a friend. The more he grew to care about Sam, the less proper it seemed to enjoy reckless fantasies about him. Still, there were moments...still...Frodo may have been in his 40's, but the right dream could bring that surging arousal back to him as if he were an exploring tweenager again. It happened less with the years, and not at all since beginning this perilous quest, but always, beneath it all, there lurked things that could set fire to the flesh of Frodo Baggins, if only anyone knew. And if anyone had to know, Frodo would want it to be Sam.
* * *
But to call it "love"? That had been the feeling in his heart when he found himself fondling the other end of Sam's rope, and in some ways it was no surprise. Certainly, it was easy to believe he loved Sam, for who had ever been a truer companion to him? However, he had thought that his erotic fantasies were a thing apart from love, and probably should not be allowed to intrude upon love with their wicked taint. Now, with the memory of the smooth Elven rope still tingling on his hands, he began to see how silly this idea was. Naturally the person you loved best, your life's mate, should also be the person you shared your innermost desires with. And it wasn't as if it was wicked anymore to think of Sam, for Sam had been of age for five years now.
Frodo, still gliding down the River Anduin in a Lorien boat, shot Sam another glance. Sam had the rope draped over his knee, and was twining his fingers into it absent-mindedly as he looked out at the scenery.
Frodo reached out and picked up the nearest end, pulling a length onto his own lap. The slither of it against Sam's leg caught his attention; he turned and cast Frodo a quizzical smile.
Frodo had already looped it around his wrist, and was tying it into a knot his fingers knew well, just to see if he could still do it. He could, and it brought that delicious longing back into his belly.
"Basic slipknot," Sam commented, watching him.
"Yes," murmured Frodo. "Seeing if I remembered how."
"That's a useful one. There's another slipknot that's a mite faster, though." Sam picked loose Frodo's knot, and deftly re-looped the rope around both of Frodo's wrists. "Slide it under here...and through the loop there...and double back right here...and there you are." Sam pulled on the loose end, and the knot tightened instantly, cinching Frodo's hands together.
Frodo was becoming somewhat breathless. "Excellent work, Sam. You're quite good at this."
"Aye, well - the Tighfield relations, you know." Sam modestly unraveled the rope and handed it to Frodo. "Here. You try it."
Oh, dear - Sam asking to be tied up - this was an unexpected treat. If only they weren't in an open boat, in plain sight of six other companions. Frodo bravely cleared his throat, and wound the soft length around Sam's wrists. "You'll have to be patient with me. I only saw you do it once."
"I shall," Sam promised. "We'll take as long as you need."
He talked Frodo through the knot, and Frodo did his best to concentrate. When he completed the last step, he pulled gently on the rope and watched it tighten around Sam's willing wrists.
"It's all right; tug tighter," Sam encouraged. "You shan't hurt me, not with something as soft as this."
He really had to stop saying things like that. Frodo couldn't very well pounce on him while Aragorn was there watching. He only breathed a light chuckle, and tried to untangle the knot.
"Mr. Frodo? You all right?" asked Sam, now sounding a little concerned.
"Oh - yes. Quite all right. I was just...thinking of something else."
Sam nodded, looking grim. "It's that Ring, isn't it."
Frodo hesitated, then lied, "Yes. The infernal Ring."
"Better this rope than that Ring, if you ask me," Sam said, holding up a silvery-grey loop to make his point. "Learning knots with an Elven cord is far healthier than brooding over that evil thing."
"Wise words, Master Gamgee," commented Aragorn. "And on a journey such as this, Frodo, when you're likely to find yourself in danger, it can be very useful to know the ways of tying and untying knots."
"That's how I see it," Sam agreed.
Frodo was speechless. Why was everyone in his boat suddenly encouraging him to think about ropes? Had they found out somehow? Were they playing a joke on him? Impossible. Nobody could have known.
All the same, it was disconcerting. He murmured something pointless like "Yes, quite," bowed his head, and silently tried Sam's slipknot again.
* * *
It was not just his imagination. He was quite sure of that, by the time they rowed ashore that evening to make supper and set up camp.
It was not just his imagination that when he held one part of the rope, and Sam held another, his arousal actually increased; and when either he or Sam let go of the rope, it declined a little. There was something going on with that rope - magic, most likely.
It was also not just his imagination that Sam had been very involved in the knot lessons, had moved closer to Frodo on the boat's bench, and had tipped him a shy and secret wink when winding up the rope to stow it in his pack.
Sam sat close to him at the cook-fire that night, and they glanced frequently at one another. Frodo was thinking that it wouldn't actually matter very much if Sam did find out how he felt about knots and about ropes, since their chances of surviving this mission were looking rather slim lately. The Elves could see the future, to some degree: were they trying to do him a favor in his final weeks by sending along such a rope with such a companion?
"Sam," Frodo said. "Show Legolas your rope. I'm curious what he could tell us about it."
"Yes, and our daggers," chimed in Pippin.
"And that phial you were given," suggested Merry. "That should be quite interesting."
"Yes, yes; but let's see the rope first," Frodo said, reaching for it as Sam pulled it out of his pack. As they touched it, a momentary ripple of pleasure climbed up Frodo's arm and down into all his body parts. Sam, still holding onto it, seemed to be similarly lost in thought. Then Legolas leaned forward and plucked it from them, and they both recovered their focus and looked at him.
"Ah. A very ancient and traditional rope," Legolas said. "Into its threads is woven much magic."
"What can it do?" asked Pippin, interested despite his apparent preference for daggers.
"Its powers are threefold." Legolas smoothed the loops as he spoke. "It shows loyalty: it stays close to its bearer. It repels evil: its very fibers are loathsome to any fell creature. And it binds love to love: it has long been used to heighten affection; in marriage ceremonies, for example."
Heighten affection? Did that mean what Frodo thought? And was he seeing things, or did a sly smile just glimmer on the Elf's lips?
"What use do you fluff-brained Elves find for rope in a wedding?" Gimli scoffed.
Legolas did not favor him with a glance, but answered calmly, "The wrists of the two betrothed are bound together. 'Tis a symbolic gesture."
"Men do the same in some parts of Gondor," Aragorn said, "or so I am told."
"It is true," said Boromir; "I have seen such ceremonies."
"And how long does the poor couple have to be tied to one another?" Merry inquired.
"Different families do it different ways," Legolas said. "In some, only a few minutes, just as long as it takes for the vows to be spoken. In others, the entire night."
Yes. There it was again: that smile.
"The entire night!" spluttered Merry. "But surely...oh." His voice became different on that last note.
Frodo looked at him in shock. Apparently these ideas had occurred to cousin Meriadoc as well.
Legolas handed the rope back to Sam. "I'm sure the first two powers will be of more use to you here, Master Gamgee."
"Er - yes, sir," Sam stammered.
Frodo timidly cleared his throat. "Legolas...you say a wedding ceremony is only one way it might 'heighten affection'...in what other ways might it do so?"
Now Legolas's smile was plain for all to see. "It is oft employed by regular lovers as well - those not yet married, or already married; or any pair sharing a certain bond."
Frodo, blushing, tried to form a scholarly-sounding answer, but was saved by Boromir, who suddenly burst out laughing.
"'Tis a love-charm, in rope form!" said Boromir, slapping his knee. "I understand it now! Ah, if only a fair Elven maid were here - I would gladly offer myself up to test it."
"It is not a love-charm as you seem to intend it," Legolas answered, smiling; "creating love out of thin air. It can only strengthen feelings of love that already exist."
Frodo prayed that the deep blush on his face would go unnoticed in the firelight. "Interesting," he murmured. Feelings that already existed? Oh, yes, he had some of those, to be sure. Had them for approximately twenty-two years now, in fact.
"Take that rope back to the Shire with you, Sam," Aragorn suggested, lips curling in a smile around his pipe. "I'm sure there's some hobbit lass who could appreciate it."
Frodo sent Sam a glance, sorry for having gotten him into this subject in front of everyone. Sam, however, who had just finished putting the rope away, seemed to be taking it well. He ducked his head with his shy smile and answered, "Ah, I'm none too sure of that. But I'll keep it if I can, just on account of it's Elvish, and a very fine piece of work indeed."
* * *
Frodo was having trouble falling asleep that night. Sam was right there, and the rope was right there (in Sam's pack, leaning against that tree), and Frodo required more time combining the two and examining the effect upon himself before he could rest.
Finally he decided that if he could not have them both that night, he would at least study one. He stole out of his blankets, sat down next to Sam's pack in the shadow of the tree trunk, and took a stealthy look around. Nobody else stirred; they were asleep, except for Gimli, who kept watch at the other side of the camp, facing outward. Frodo slipped his hand into the outermost pocket, where he had seen Sam stash the rope, and immediately met its cool, silky fibers. They comforted him; he pulled the whole coiled-up length out of the pocket and draped it over his lap. In the moonlight-dappled shadow, he started running it through his fingers, loosening the coils. Some of them slithered to the ground between his feet, and he slid his toes into them, tangling up his ankles.
He leaned his head back against the tree, closed his weary eyes, and breathed in the sweet, chilly night air. Holding the rope didn't feel the same without Sam, but it was still relaxing.
There was a rustle, near him. Frodo's eyes flew open to see Sam lifting his head from his blankets and staring straight at him. Frodo twitched and tried to drop the rope, but of course it was looped all over his limbs, and he couldn't very well plead total innocence. He tried to look distant and serious instead, as if he had just happened to pick it up absent-mindedly while sitting here brooding.
"Are you all right?" whispered Sam, across the few feet that separated them.
"Yes," Frodo whispered back. "I...couldn't sleep, that's all."
Sam crawled out of his blankets and came to sit next to Frodo, who was unobtrusively trying to put the rope back into its tidy coils. Sam looked at it, then at Frodo questioningly.
Frodo returned a slightly guilty glance. "I remembered talking about it at supper, and I thought I'd have a look at it, since I was just lying there awake..."
Sam slowly reached out and took a section of it onto his knee, and began plucking off bits of grass without answering. The moment he touched it, Frodo felt the familiar longing race into his blood again. He took a breath and closed his eyes for a second.
"I'm..." he added, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't go through your things. I shan't do it again."
"I'm not bothered," Sam answered softly. He still stroked the rope, watching his own fingers. "I wasn't asleep, neither."
"Oh? Something bothering you?" Frodo asked. The smell of Sam's warm wool-and-linen clothes and healthy skin was wafting into his nostrils, making it hard to hold up his end of the conversation. All he wanted to do was clamber into Sam's lap and create a tangled sculpture of rope and hobbit limbs.
Sam wound and unwound a bit of rope around his finger, over and over. The threads seemed to glow a faint silvery-blue in the dark. "Why did you ask about it?" he said. "About the way it affects people?"
Surprised, Frodo tried to read Sam's face before he responded. But he couldn't tell whether Sam was asking out of annoyance, or out of romantic interest. Sam was agitated; that was all he could decipher.
Frodo sighed, bowing his head. Sam deserved honesty, he knew that; and it was time to deliver it. "Because when I touched it, I felt something. I still do. Apparently it's Elven magic, and not my imagination."
"What is it you feel?" Sam whispered, eyes cast down.
Frodo drew his knee up slowly, so that he could catch hold of the rope with his toe, and draped it over Sam's foot. With the other foot, he grasped the rope and pulled it beneath their ankles, so that it wrapped them together. Sam watched, his eyelashes bathed with moonlight.
"The third spell," Frodo answered softly. "Pleasure."
To Frodo's utter shock, Sam moved closer, still without even looking at him, and rested his head on Frodo's shoulder. Sam's face turned, so that the warm breeze of his breath skipped across Frodo's collarbone. "I feel it too," Sam said. "When you and me touch it at the same time."
Shock was quickly melting into tender joy. Frodo turned and pressed a kiss onto Sam's head. The curls tickled his lips. "Yes, with you; only with you," he whispered in assurance, slipping an entangled arm around his companion. Either the Elven magic or the sense of harmony he'd always felt with Sam was making it quite easy to nestle with him this way, even though they'd never done it before.
"I know I love you," said the meek Sam, toying with the rope on Frodo's thigh. "Didn't need no Elf to tell me that."
"My dear Sam -" Frodo placed another kiss between words, this time on Sam's forehead. "- I can scarcely remember a time when I haven't wanted or, indeed, loved you."
Now Sam lifted his head, smiling at him. "I was sixteen when I started thinking of you like that. Can you believe it? No pure-minded young lad was Sam Gamgee, no sir."
"I think I noticed you when you were sixteen, as well." Frodo found himself twining the rope around Sam's wrist - oh, goodness, that felt better than it had any right to. Would Sam mind if they kissed, while tangled up this way?...
Sam murmured a sigh of contentment, and clasped Frodo's hand with his own bound one. "Do you remember we ran a three-legged race together, once?"
"Of course. You remember that too?"
"Yourself, tied to me? And lying on top of me? As if I'd forget it in a hurry." Sam gave him a lopsided grin.
Frodo cinched the rope tighter. "You've no idea how often I've thought of that," he confessed.
Sam seemed entranced with Frodo's mouth; his eyes had fastened themselves there. "I remember I scented the cider on your breath," he said. "The spices - the clove-buds they'd put in it. I wanted to taste it right off your lips."
He was making Frodo's own mouth water. "I haven't had any cloves tonight," he answered, "but..." By way of finishing the sentence, Frodo moved in and kissed Sam on the lips. Sam's arm slipped around Frodo's waist, and his foot slid slowly up and down against Frodo's calf, ensnared in the silky rope. The sweet softness of mouth against mouth heated up as the kiss lingered, and became moist when Frodo parted his lips for breath and Sam flicked his tongue against them. A whimper slipped from Frodo's throat, against his will. He tugged the rope, bringing Sam's hand up against his chest, and quickly rotated his own hand so that the rope wound around it instead. Desire raced through him; he tilted his head and caught Sam's lower lip in his mouth, suckling and nipping at it; and then let it go so Sam could do the same to him.
They were both panting when the kiss was over. Frodo stared into Sam's eyes, feeling all too strongly the touch of the rope looped around their bodies. "Oh, dear," he said.
"Maybe, um..." Sam paused to swallow. "Maybe we ought to take this conversation to the other side of that log, there."
Frodo writhed a bit, noticing that he was getting hard, and deliciously sensitive even to the rub of his trousers. What might the feel of Sam's body do, moving against him...? He gulped down a breath, and pulled Sam into an awkward crawl toward the log. "Come on."
Tangled in the rope, they climbed over the massive moss-covered fallen tree, which formed a barrier at least two feet high, and fell to their knees in a bed of fragrant decaying leaves on the other side. They were silently laughing and out of breath, but now a thrill of excitement electrified Frodo, and he abandoned the mirth in favor of simply gazing at Sam as they knelt face to face.
"We had," Frodo began softly, "our legs tied together...that day..." And he reached down and drew the loops up, around and around their knees and thighs, until they were bound, Frodo's right thigh to Sam's left.
"Why stop there?" Sam purred, and pulled the rope around Frodo's waist, then his own, spiraling up around their chests, so that they were effectively tied together from knees to armpits.
"Oh," Frodo gasped. The sensitive ridge lying against his lower belly rubbed against Sam's pelvis. His heart pounded, and the tang of lust spread in his mouth.
Sam had both arms around him, and now he moved one downward until his hand was cupping Frodo's backside. He lifted Frodo up against him, then eased him backward into the bed of leaves. He let Frodo get his legs straightened, and groaned into Frodo's neck when Frodo used the leverage of his free foot to press into the ground and lift his hips against Sam's.
"Nay, you're not getting the upper hand, me dear," he growled, and in one strong lunge took Frodo's wrists and pinned them above his head.
Frodo's eyes went wide in delighted astonishment. It was as if Sam had read his mind. "How about," he suggested, "you tie me there..." He craned his neck to look upside-down at the branch behind him, protruding from the log.
"There?" Sam seemed a bit surprised, and as he hesitated, Frodo pleaded by twisting his hips and whimpering. He had the pleasure of watching Sam's eyes flutter closed, and feeling Sam twist his own hips in response so that - ah, there it was - his erection fitted and locked alongside Frodo's.
"Just for fun," Frodo breathed. "Just to see...what this rope can do..."
Sam planted a wet kiss on him, keeping Frodo's hands pinned. "Now, you'd be at my mercy if you were tied like that," he whispered, teasing.
"Indeed," Frodo said, through kiss-dampened lips; "you'd quite be able to have your way with me."
Sam ran his eyes up and down Frodo's face and arms, and then lunged upward and whipped the rope around the branch, securing Frodo's wrists there with a solid knot.
"Is that your slipknot?" Frodo asked, straining against it, trying not to betray his overwhelming arousal in his voice, and more or less failing.
"Aye," Sam said, settling down onto Frodo's body and favoring him with another long kiss. He was hard and hot against Frodo's groin, but his voice sounded anxious as he said: "Now, I'll let you go, anytime you wish. You just say the word. You understand?"
"You're the sweetest thing, Sam. I do understand, but I assure you this isn't hurting me at all. In fact, it..." He felt his face heat with a blush. "It makes me want you desperately. It's exactly what I've longed for. And with *this* rope - dear me...it's better than my wildest dreams."
Sam was now moving his hips against Frodo's, subtly but constantly, as if he couldn't help it. "It's doing its job, all right," he agreed, and with a soft groan pressed his mouth to the patch of skin exposed at the top of Frodo's shirt, his hand diving into the damp leaves to squeeze Frodo's rear. "I love being tied to you...feeling you..."
"Feel me all you wish," Frodo breathed, and then Sam's mouth was upon his, and they gave up talking for a while. Frodo's world became a cloud of sensation - the earthy spice-scent of the leaves; the cool damp against his back; the rough bark bumping his knuckles; Sam's mouth tasting like summer rain; the distant sighs of wind and their companions' snores, and the closer sounds of their own kisses and leaf-rustles and excited breath. And, above all, the heavy, lovely, living warmth pressing down upon him, kissing his mouth and neck, running up and down his tethered arms, rocking back and forth between his legs; all of it, the rope enhanced and heightened, tingling in the hundred little places it touched his body.
The strangest thing, and the most fascinating, was how the rope seemed to *know* what was required of it. Frodo was tied fast to the branch, yet no amount of twisting pinched his skin or made his arms hurt: anytime a shift of position threatened to make him uncomfortable, the rope adjusted itself slightly. He and Sam were firmly bound together, yet the rope gave just enough at their hips to allow them to move, without allowing them to get too far apart. When Frodo lifted his body from the leaves to press harder against Sam, it wasn't only Sam's arms holding him up - it was that slender, iron-strong length of rope. It did all of this, yet it was never intrusive. What it mostly served to do was to make Frodo feel Sam, feel this moment, more clearly and more deliciously than his fuzzy daydreams had ever devised.
"We should..." Sam whispered eventually, "we should probably get back...before they notice..."
"Not yet," Frodo groaned. He could barely keep his eyes open; they kept swooning shut; and all his attention was focusing more and more on the warmest, firmest, and most sensitive part of him, and on how it felt to crush and rub it against Sam's. Stopping sounded like a dreadfully cruel idea.
Sam strained upward to peek over the top of the log. The binding rope pulled Frodo with him, lifting half of Frodo's body from the ground and making him laugh breathlessly for a moment. Sam's arm cradled him, but now Sam was saying, "Strider's getting up to change places with Gimli...he'll notice we aren't there; any minute he'll notice..."
"Just...a little...longer," Frodo pleaded, thrusting shamelessly against Sam.
That got Sam's attention: he lowered them to the forest floor again, gazing in wonder at Frodo's face. "Oh," he said, sounding shaky. "You mean to..."
"Yes...kiss me... please..." Frodo had only to wait a split second before Sam obeyed, plunging him into the leaves with a passionate kiss. They writhed together, increasingly faster, until Frodo tore his face away to gasp for breath, and whimpered into Sam's shirt-collar, "Oh yes...oh yes...oh..." The heat building in his loins surged over the top then, rocking him in shudders, soaking the inner layers of his trousers.
As he sagged in the makeshift rope-hammock, savoring the relief and delirious pleasure, Frodo noticed that Sam was still writhing against him - more urgently than ever, in fact. "Are you..." Frodo asked, and he felt Sam nod his head, quickly, at his shoulder. Frodo's mouth fell open in a new rush of desire. He turned his face, seeking to see or to kiss the features of his dear friend in this most intimate of moments.
Sam had his eyes closed and his cheekbone to Frodo's collar, breathing fast through his parted lips. He squeezed Frodo's backside hard, with both hands now, holding Frodo's body up against himself, moving, gasping a soft cry with each thrust. By the time he reached his peak and shuddered over it, groaning with his lips engaged in Frodo's earlobe, Frodo was halfway to another climax himself.
"Sam," he purred, wrapping his free leg around his companion in the nearest thing to an embrace he could manage, given the circumstances. "Oh, Sam, Sam..."
"Frodo?"
The voice was, unfortunately, not Sam's. It was Aragorn's, and it came from the campsite on the other side of the log.
Two different curse words hissed from the lips of the two hobbits. Sam lunged to unwrap Frodo's hands, but the knot unraveled before he could touch it. Frodo collapsed into the leaves. Sam pulled him up to his knees. The rope fell away harmlessly into loose loops onto the ground around them.
"Frodo?" Aragorn's voice was more alarmed now. And closer.
Frodo popped up onto his unsteady legs, clutching the top of the log. "Here, Strider," he called softly.
Aragorn turned, and marched toward them, looking both relieved and angry. "Are you all right?"
Frodo, with Sam's help, was climbing onto the log and down the other side. "Yes. Sam and I were just...talking."
Sam dropped down beside him, rope in a tangle in his hand. Aragorn looked at it, and asked, "With a rope?"
"Well, just in case," Frodo mumbled.
"A sword would be a better choice for defense," Aragorn pointed out, "magical though your rope may be, Sam."
"Right, sir," Sam said, head bowed.
"Don't leave camp like that, without telling anyone," Aragorn chastised Frodo.
"I'm sorry," he answered.
Aragorn frowned at the pair of them. "Are you sure you're all right? You seem shaken."
"We're fine," Frodo said. He wished his voice didn't sound so defensive.
"You have leaves on your back," Aragorn noted, kneeling, turning Frodo around with one hand.
"I fell over. It was nothing."
Aragorn's hand moved down and caught Frodo's arm. "And rope marks on your wrists."
Frodo felt a blush flare in his face. "We were practicing Sam's slipknot."
Aragorn stood, with a look on his face that Frodo unhappily would have characterized as "knowing." "It isn't safe to sneak off as you did," he reminded them. "Don't do it again."
Frodo was too irritated to answer, but Sam, beside him, whispered, "Yes, sir."
"Go back to sleep," Aragorn said, and slipped away to take his spot as watchman.
"What is he - our father?" Frodo grumbled in an undertone to Sam.
"Well, we *were* taking a bit of a risk there," Sam said, as they crawled back under their blankets, side by side. "Not that it wasn't worth it, mind."
"We *will* do it again," Frodo insisted. "I don't care what he says."
Sam bit his lip. "I want to, truly I do, but he'll not be easy to get past."
"No," said Frodo thoughtfully. He lay back on his bedroll. "No, we must get ourselves entirely alone, Sam. The Fellowship, perhaps, has served its purpose and must now split up."
"Sir?" said the surprised Sam.
"Never mind," Frodo assured. "I'll speak to him. Goodnight, dearest."
* * *
Frodo did not bother saying anything about it to Aragorn the next morning, however, since Aragorn himself did not mention it. Besides, it was so much more enjoyable to sneak glances at Sam, and savor the way Sam glanced back. Life, today, seemed extraordinarily sweet and clear.
They got into their boats once again. Sam's pack rested at their feet, on its side. Aragorn sat behind them and paddled. Frodo and Sam amused themselves, for a while, by brushing their feet gently together under the bench; but then a familiar silky touch stroked the hairs on the top of Frodo's foot, and he sucked in a breath of arousal. Sam threw him an inquisitive glance. Frodo turned his eyes to the river, in a show of innocence, and with his toes pulled the coiled-up rope out of Sam's pack. He knew the moment it touched Sam's foot as well, for not only did he feel the vibrant thrill of increased longing, but he heard Sam take a quick breath.
For a few minutes it was enough to toy with the rope with their agile toes, rubbing a foot against an ankle, a shin against a calf. But Frodo could barely sit still before long, itching to do more; and anyway, worrying what Strider thought was ridiculous. Frodo was fifty years old, and had suffered quite a lot for this group of people so far, and therefore could damn well flirt with his gardener if he wanted to.
He leaned down and brought the rope onto their laps, while Sam watched. "Play cat's-cradle?" Frodo offered. "Or teach me some more knots, if you like."
Even the proper Sam could not resist that touch and that offer. A smile curled his lips. "Hold up your hands, then."
By the time the boats went ashore again, in the afternoon, the pair had become awfully brave. After a spell of wrapping and knotting and twisting rope around each other's hands, with their feet writhing against each other, Frodo murmured that he was cold, and Sam whipped out a blanket. They draped it around themselves at the shoulders, so that it covered them entirely from the necks down, leaving only a space between their heads. Aragorn could not have seen down it unless he had been standing directly above them. And a good thing, too, because they each began to notice that a section of rope left between one's legs, when one was in this mood, would press tight exactly where one wanted to be pressed. So while they mindlessly toyed with the end of the rope in their hands, staring at each other and laughing soft pointless words designed to sound like ordinary conversation, their thighs squeezed together, feeling the friction like a delicious burn.
Alas, it was time for lunch.
Frodo and Sam dragged themselves out of the boat behind Strider, holding their cloaks around themselves.
"Goodness, Sam," Merry remarked, "you look almost reluctant to leave that boat. I never thought I'd see the day you enjoyed being on the water!"
"I'm getting used to it," answered the blushing Sam.
Frodo followed him to a tree, where they both knelt down and pretended to be interested in the food Sam was getting out of his pack.
"I'll slip out into the woods after we eat," Frodo said quietly. "Wait five minutes and then follow me."
The heat in Sam's eyes was almost palpable. "Yes, sir," he echoed.
* * *
Things went quite differently than planned.
First there was the unexpected attack from Boromir. Frodo had no choice but to run. And then suddenly there was Aragorn, confronting him.
"That rope is not a toy," Aragorn said. And, "You must learn to control such impulses; they could be dangerous to you here." And, "I did not expect to have to tell you such things - you, such a well-behaved hobbit."
It took Frodo a full minute of indignant half-syllables of protest before he could get a word in edgewise and tell Aragorn that he had nearly just been killed by one of their own party, and that therefore lecturing him about his private life was especially unwelcome right now.
Aragorn had apologized, and had transferred his alarm to more suitable targets. But on one point they agreed: the Fellowship could not stay together any longer. Frodo must flee to Mount Doom, without the rest of them.
"I told him I was leaving you behind, as well," Frodo said to Sam that evening, hugging his sodden friend under a wool blanket on the far shores of the Anduin. "I told him you'd understand." Frodo chuckled, and kissed Sam's neck. "I think he actually believed me. Didn't find me capable of deception, I suppose."
"You didn't have to nearly drown me," grumbled Sam.
"I was only trying to get away from shore in case Boromir came back," Frodo defended. "I told you: the current carried me farther than I intended. I didn't *want* you to go diving into the Anduin, you know. That was not the plan."
"I know. I'm cold, that's all."
Frodo smiled at the humble tone. "Then I'm not close enough to you," he said, nuzzling Sam's lips.
Sam captured him in a kiss, which indeed warmed up their collective skin temperature in short order.
"Is that rope dry?" Frodo breathed.
"Aye. It sheds the water right quick."
"Then I shall have to tie you to me, to make sure you don't fall behind again."
"I'd follow you, tied up or no," Sam whispered.
Frodo had been reaching for the rope, but now he drew back empty-handed, relaxed alongside the warmth of Sam's body, and stroked Sam's damp curls with his knuckles. "Ah, Sam...you do know it isn't merely Elven magic that makes me feel this way? Even if we threw that rope into the fire, I'd still want you and love you. Ever so much."
"I do know. I feel the same." Sam ran a cool hand up Frodo's back, under his shirt. "I want you something awful right now, and we're not even touching it."
Frodo smiled again, rolled Sam onto his back, and lay atop him, kissing and embracing him, unencumbered by knots. After a while, he lifted his head, and mused, "Of course, since we *have* it..."
"Really would be a waste not to use it," Sam agreed, and lunged for the rope.