A/N: An update long time coming. Thanks everyone who is still reading!
All things said, it was a good party, and if not good, then at least a most memorable one. The gasps, the cries, and oh, their faces!
A fitting exit, he smiles to himself, chuckling quietly as he hopped up the stone steps. The whole shire had been waiting these past fifty years for proof of his madness, and he supposes he'd given them it tonight. He slips through his door, feeling his heart race a little with the thrill of the run - he's missed this, yes, the danger and excitement and sheer uncertainty of every next step that left the Tookish side of him exhilarated.
'He who walks unseen.' He grins at the memory, and can almost feel the gold shifting beneath his feet once more, furnace-hot breath ghosting across his face. 'Ring-winner. Luck-wearer. Barrel-rider.'
Thief in the shadows.
Thief. Liar.
Miserable hobbit!
He pulls the ring off with a gasp, and his feet are on firm stone ground once more, the dizzying vertigo of hanging over a sharp cliff edge (staring into cold eyes grey with gold-madness, dragon-sickness) dissipating as soon as it had come.
"That ring of yours," a voice comes from the darkened hallway, and he nearly drops it in fright if not for the innate recognisability of that chiding tone.
"Come now, Gandalf, it was just a bit of fun."
The dimming torchlight makes his Wizard friend loom even bigger. "A magic ring is not fun, Bilbo Baggins, and none of them should be used lightly."
Of course Gandalf had always been one for dramatics, he harrumphs and grumbles, and in the end he hands over his ring tucked into an envelope. "Here. You see that Frodo gets this. Never know when it might come in useful."
The knapsack and walking stick are readied and he's almost out the door, when a large hand claps him warmly on the shoulder.
"The ring is still in your pocket."
The words come with a rush of feelings, only, not quite feelings. Deeper than mere feeling, harder, fiercer, coming from his gut, pulling and twisting, a rush of sudden panic that makes him close his fist around the weight still in his pocket and he would never let go, never let it go, no, no no mine it's mine mine my own my own my-
Precious.
The world is cast in red and gold, and it's as if he's back in the Mountain again, except this time the heat is burning in his belly and the words heating behind his teeth taste of ash.
When the crimson field finally recedes from his vision, the door is solid against his back, and the little band of gold lies cold and harmless on the floor before him.
"Well." He takes a breath as if coming up for air. "Well."
Then turns around, and heads out, and doesn't look back.