The Fellowship of the Fanfic Cliches

Disclaimer: It's mine! My own, my preciousss. No, not really. The Lord of the Rings belongs to the great J.R.R. Tolkien. I'm just borrowing his characters to get over my writer's block.

Note: So, this is a parody written in good fun. It isn't meant to mock anyone's story, though it does poke fun at various cliches that are prevalent in LotR fanfic. This first chapter is a parody on all those stories where Frodo is injured/sick/kidnapped/on-the-verge-of death. I don't have anything against those kinds of stories. I've even enjoyed quite a few of them! But it gets a little humorous after a while when the poor hobbit is always the one who becomes deathly ill all the time. So, on with the parody. Enjoy!

Chapter 1: A Long-Expected Illness

When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton. Frodo Baggins, Bilbo's sickly nephew, would be celebrating his thirty-third birthday on the same date, and all of Hobbiton was busy speculating on whether or not Frodo would make it to the party. The fact that he had actually survived to age thirty-three was considered a great marvel among hobbit folk in the Shire.

"Twenty bucks says he kicks the bucket right before the party," Ted Sandyman said, seated among a table of gossipers in the Green Dragon.

"I'll bet he gets kidnapped in the middle of the celebration," said Farmer Cotton.

"Or takes a tumble out of a tree and ends up bedridden for months," Lotho Sackville-Baggins added hopefully.

"You gentlemen ought to lay off of poor Mr. Frodo," the Gaffer scolded them over his ale. "It's true that I never saw a lad with such a talent for taking ill, but he's in good hands up at Bag End. Hasn't Mr. Bilbo nursed him back to health every time?"

"Just barely," muttered Lotho, once again speaking hopefully.

It was a well-known fact in Hobbiton that Lotho, along with his two odious parents, was quite pleased with Frodo's tendency to become sick or injured at the drop of a hat. The family had often fallen suspect in a number of Frodo's "accidents," though nobody could ever produce any proof. That very moment, Lobelia Sackville-Baggins was snooping around Bag End with her umbrella in hand, peering through the windows to see how Frodo was faring with his latest bout of pneumonia. Despite the fact that it was a warm June day, the poor Baggins lad had been confined to his bed with a particularly nasty case of the illness. He shouldn't have gone out walking without an extra jacket, Bilbo kept telling him.

Lobelia could hear somebody coughing feebly within Bag End. She peeked through the window of Frodo's bedroom and found him sweating and shivering with fever, his skin as clammy and pale as the dead. Harsh breaths escaped his sore throat as he struggled for breath. It was really uncanny, Lobelia thought, how he always managed to catch such dreadful pneumonia every single summer. "And yet somehow always manages to pull through," she added bitterly under her breath, thinking longingly of the hobbit hole she could inherit if Frodo failed to recover.

Bilbo, who was in Frodo's bedroom tending to his sickly nephew, perked up his sharp ears and went to the window. "What's that noise out there?" He came face-to-face with Lobelia, who couldn't escape in time. "You!" cried Bilbo, enraged. "Always hanging about, waiting to see if you'll be next to inherit, aren't you?"

"Who, me?" said Lobelia innocently, leaning on her umbrella. "I just wanted to see how the poor dear is feeling!" She pretended to look concerned. "Is he better?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" said Bilbo. "Clear off, Lobelia! There's nothing to see here!"

Lobelia scampered off. Bilbo sighed, helped Frodo through another terrible bout of coughing, and bustled back into the kitchen to make a pot of tea. Just as the water was starting to boil, a loud knock came at the front door.

"I told you to clear off!" Bilbo shouted.

The knocking persisted.

Grumbling to himself under his breath, Bilbo stomped over to the door and yanked it open. "It's indecent, you know, to ogle so much at a sick boy!" he said. "He'll never recover if you keep on distressing him, but of course that's what you want, isn't it?"

"Not at all, Bilbo," said a voice that did not belong to Lobelia.

Bilbo blinked and realized that Gandalf stood in the doorway.

"How's Frodo doing?" Gandalf asked. "Another case of bronchitis, is it?"

"Pneumonia," Bilbo corrected, letting his old friend into the house. "Bronchitis was last month. And a broken leg the month before that. I told him not to climb Farmer Cotton's prized apple tree, but he never listens!" He sighed and poured two cups of tea. "I don't know how I can ever rest easy in Rivendell, knowing that boy's got a catastrophe waiting for him around every corner!"

"Is it really that terrible?" asked Gandalf.

"Oh, yes. You have no idea! Just last year he managed to cut himself on the only rusty nail within a thousand miles. He had to have three blood transfusions and even that wasn't enough to rid him of all the poison. There were still lingering traces, of course, which led to four consecutive illnesses that left him bedridden for a fortnight apiece. I'm nearly at my wit's end, Gandalf! I so dearly want to see Rivendell again, but the moment I leave my doorstep that boy is likely to breathe the wrong way and wind up on his deathbed again."

"You could always take Frodo with you," Gandalf suggested.

Bilbo made a face at his tea. "It would never work. I took him on a trip to see the elves for his twenty-fifth birthday and it's a miracle he came home in one piece. He was kidnapped and tortured by werewolves, of all things. In this part of Middle-earth! And have I told you about the poison-tipped orc arrow that nearly took off his arm when he was twenty-two? That was another trip I'll never forget." He sighed and stirred some more sugar into his cup. "I suppose there's no avoiding it. No matter what happens, no matter where I go, Frodo is sure to attract misfortune. Some higher power must have a grudge against him, I suppose."

"And what of the ring?" asked Gandalf. "You must leave him the ring, no matter how sickly he is." He took a thoughtful drag on his pipe and slyly added, "You know, according to ring lore, solid gold rings are supposed to lend certain healing properties to those who are sickly. They can act as a talisman of sorts."

"Is that right?" said Bilbo, cheering up slightly. "You'll keep an eye on him too, of course, won't you? I've hired a few Rangers to keep an extra close watch around here, but you can never tell what will happen to that boy. He was bit by an incredibly rare, deadly breed of ant last winter, you know. An ant! And he would have never made it if I hadn't stocked up on Elrond's special medicines. He ships them to me monthly."

"And a finer supply I've never seen," said Gandalf, admiring Bilbo's stockpile of medicines and first aid kits that lined an entire wall.

"Yes, well, my only hope is that Frodo gets well enough to make it to the party," sighed Bilbo. "And this time I've warned him not to eat anything I didn't bake with my own two hands. He had a dreadful allergic reaction at his last birthday. Couldn't get the hives to go away for weeks. And you can't even imagine how his tongue swelled up! I feared he would expire right then and there."

"He seems to be pulling through," Gandalf said optimistically. "And will be quite well enough to inherit that ring, I'm sure."

Frodo did manage to recover, as Gandalf predicted, and felt well enough to attend the magnificent party Bilbo had planned. He was still rather pale and couldn't stand without feeling dizzy, but since it was his birthday, nobody found it unusual to see him reclining in an armchair beneath the Party Tree, heaped with enough blankets and cushions to smother the sturdiest hobbit. A tray of food (free of allergens) sat propped on his lap and Bilbo frequently checked on him to make sure he didn't choke on the cake. It wouldn't be the first time he had to call a medic to perform the Heimlich maneuver at one of his parties.

The party was going smoothly when Merry and Pippin, who served absolutely no purpose outside of drinking, smoking, and pulling pranks, decided to steal some of Gandalf's fireworks and set them off.

The very biggest firework, which was shaped like a dragon, immediately hit Frodo and exploded, practically burning him to a crisp.

Merry and Pippin, who of course had no lives outside of mischief-making, both thought this was hilarious.

"Oh, drat!" said Bilbo, wringing his hands over the smoking, blackened form of his nephew. "I was going to give a farewell speech, but I suppose this calls for a lecture instead."

Bilbo hopped up onto a tree stump and lectured the entire party on the dangers of fireworks. A team of paramedics lifted Frodo onto a stretcher and took him away to be (hopefully) healed of his burns.

"And let this be a lessons to all of you!" cried Bilbo, shaking his fist at the crowd of feasting hobbits. "I've had quite enough of this place. I'm going now. GOODBYE."

He put on the ring and vanished, but by then everyone was too drunk to notice.

Unfortunately Bilbo could not depart right then and there, thanks to Frodo's most recent injury, and he was forced to remain at Bag End for a month while Frodo recovered. In the meantime he ordered more medicines from Elrond, restocked all the first aid kits, and placed his shiny gold ring in an envelope on the mantel.

As soon as Frodo was up and walking again, Gandalf came by for another visit.

"I suppose you're heading off to Rivendell finally?" he asked Bilbo.

"At long last," said Bilbo, fetching his walking stick from the corner. "I've doubled the Ranger security on Hobbiton and removed all sharp, dangerous, and slippery surfaces from the house."

"And the ring?" asked Gandalf.

"Right on the mantle where I left it," said Bilbo, suddenly looking shifty. "Well, it was nice chatting with you, Gandalf! I'll be off now!"

Bilbo tried to rush out the door, but Gandalf blocked the doorway with his staff. "Not so fast, Bilbo!"

"What now, Gandalf?"

"How can you deprive your sickly, invalid nephew of a shiny treasure like that ring of yours? What if he becomes deathly ill again? What joy will he have in his pathetic life if you deprive him of that ring? How will you be able to sleep at night, Bilbo, knowing that you've taken that away from a less fortunate lad who needs it?"

Bilbo's lip started trembling and he hastily wiped a tear from his eye. "Oh, all right. You've made your point!" He took the ring out of his pocket and tossed it on the floor. "I'll be off now."

"Aren't you going to say farewell to Frodo?"

Bilbo sighed. "I suppose so." He trotted off and went all through the house, calling Frodo's name, but nobody responded. At last Bilbo returned to the entrance hall with a piece of paper clutched in his hand. "Drat, drat, drat! Frodo's gone and gotten himself kidnapped again. This is the third time in the last five months! This ransom note says I'm to leave five hundred gold coins at the back door of the Green Dragon before sundown tonight." He smacked himself in the forehead. "I'll be flat broke if these kidnappers keep up their games!"

"Here," said Gandalf, producing a small bag of coins from the pocket of his robes.

"Thanks, Gandalf." Pooling their money together, Bilbo marched off to the Green Dragon and left the coins at the back door, just as the ransom note had instructed.

Twenty minutes later Frodo was returned to him, though the lad was bruised and had received a scratch on his cheek.

"And it's sure to become infected, no doubt!" Bilbo grumbled, dabbing at Frodo's face with a handkerchief doused in antibacterial cleanser. He sighed and looked at Gandalf. "You'll stay here for a day or two, won't you, Gandalf? I'll rest easier if you do."

"I'll stay for a month," Gandalf promised him, handing Frodo some Neosporin and a band-aid.

"This is it, then, my old friend. I'm off at last." Bilbo put on his pack and grabbed his walking stick, then headed out the door and down the lane, singing to himself as he went:

The wounds go ever on and on
And on and on AND ON
They'll never stop, will they?
The wounds go ever on and on
And I must GET OUT OF HERE if I can.