Work Text:
Winter’s first snowfall was soft as a child’s first curl, and glowing once it touched the ground. To Sam, this meant a respite from his hard work, a time to make it home before nightfall, a time to carve his hands into roasted meat and not rough soil. To Sam, it was a memory to relish, for he was in the Shire, where the whipping winds were not harsh but mellowed and soulful as a tune—and it meant he was home.
Home and safe.
The wind had just curved the snow northwards when Sam made the last step onto Bag End’s front porch. The lights in the house were dim and tranquil, a soft butter-like hue that only slightly dampened the bright poinsettias Sam had placed by the green door not a week earlier.
He knocked, gently, for the night was quiet even with celebrations thundering out each and every window as he passed. But also, Sam was quite worried Frodo would be sulking somewhere, pipe-smoke clouding the room and tea cold, maybe a kettle still whistling as its water dried up, forgotten. So, he knocked quietly, eagerly though he did not show it, fearing Frodo sat in bitter silence more than he had ever before. It was no good to be sad on Yuletide, longer days approached, spring just a bloom away.
Sam reminded himself to smile just as the round door swung open, though a true one came over his face when he saw Frodo dressed in green velvet and flushed with wine and delight.
“Sam! Come in, welcome–” Frodo moved to the side, letting Sam wander in. He was quick to unhook Sam’s cloak from his shoulders and place it on the coat rack, he shivered from the chill as the door closed winter out behind him. The fire was glowing, a few pairs of gloves sat drying on the hearth, on the table surrounded by melting wicks was a plate of roast lamb and potatoes.
“Oh my! Mr. Frodo, you’ve done a great deal of cooking today,” Sam remarked, pushing down a toothy green. Instead, he pulled Frodo in for a hug, a strong pat on the shoulder, and placed his pan in the hobbit’s hand. “Fig cake. May helped put it together.”
Frodo smiled. “Just lovely. Come, shall we eat?” He led Sam to the table.
All was well and good–a happy Frodo made a happy Sam, but Sam felt something in the room. A shift, a slow moving avalanche that began its descent when Frodo turned his back to grab the carving knives for their dinner.
The smile slid off Sam’s face, he dug his fingers into the fabric of his dress pants ignoring the voice telling him to not mark them with thawed garden dirt. A tremor clambered up his body until the whole of him stood shaking like he was still out under the winter sky–yet the fire’s warmth was too much for his poor body, and a wooziness overcame him. Sam stood up quickly.
“Frodo?” He said tentatively. He hummed in response, still sorting through his silverware. “If you’ll excuse me, I ought to wash my hands first–”
“Oh, of course, Sam dear, you know where the washroom is.”
Sam took off down the hallway, through the winding corners of Bag End, passed the dusty corner shelves and drafty windows with their lace curtains billowing out. The cool air helped slightly as Sam flew through the corridors, giving him enough energy to slip into the room in the farthest corner. Only, it wasn’t the washroom, but a study he had only seen through the window, when, long ago, he spoke with Mr. Bilbo as he washed ink-spills off the windowsill.
But Mr. Bilbo was gone now, and it seemed the study became an oasis for Frodo instead. Books sat propped open everywhere, maps glittered with fresh ink. The smell of pipe weed filled the air, and something that was just uniquely belonging to Frodo, alongside that was the crisp bite of winter. The wind spilled through the open window and sent scrolls of parchment scattering to the floor.
“Oh,” Sam let out a breath of air. The room was chilled and he felt that nipping heat simmer inside his body. The tension eased from his shoulders just enough that he could put one foot in front of the other and actually feel the floor beneath him. He picked a piece of parchment up: a scribbled out map. Another showcased a half-made charcoal sketch of a mountain side that made Sam shiver and toss it back to the desk. The last was a letter.
At first, with the same respect of privacy as always, Sam placed it back onto the desk. But the wind was persistent, and the second he let it go and it blew into his palm again. This time, he couldn't help but peer at the words written.
Sam’s eyes moved fast, eating every letter as it landed on it. Dear, Lord Elrond…solace…the joys of the Shire…no longer my own…the Grey Havens…sail…heal…
Sail.
Sail.
With a stumble, Sam jolted back as if something had lunged at him, teeth bared. The letter fell to the desk, and no wind picked it back up.
Why? Sam thought, his own mind already pleading. Something stirred in his belly, a sickness he hadn’t felt in months. No raced through his head half a dozen times before his limbs became his own again.
The door of the study slammed behind him and the letter settled against the floor.
“Sam–” Frodo said once he rounded the corner, skirting to a desperate stop by the readied table. Frodo paused, brows drawing in, before a look like acceptance settled over his face.
“You–”
“Sam–”
“You can’t! You mustn't!" Sam sputtered, he held one shaky hand out as if to hold Frodo in place. The wood beneath his feet grew soft under his pacing.
Frodo tried again. “Sam–please just–”
Sam shook his head, a curl falling from behind his ear, Frodo traced its path with a tearful gaze–slowly his hand raised, scared Sam would push him away. Instead Sam stood there trembling as Frodo brushed the lock from his forehead.
“You mustn’t,” Sam said plainly. Frodo’s palm was warm against the side of his face, and though the fire was too hot and the tears against his cheek too brash, it was the closest thing to that cold winter breeze he’d felt just moments before–his shoulders slumped and he fell into the chair, Frodo followed him, kneeling by his side.
“Sam, dear,” he swallowed thickly. Sam peered down at him, this close he was reminded how Frodo had looked up at him, on the brink of death just half a year before. Now, the months in the Shire had placed the plushness back into his face, the soft pink painted across his cheeks, a few freckles still remaining from summer here and there. The best part, the thing that made Sam smile, was that Frodo lacked much of the pain he last remembered in his eyes.
“You’ll heal?” Sam asked, a beckoning question. Frodo let out a sigh, something between relief and excitement.
“That is what Lord Elrond says. His wife sailed years ago, she too–” Frodo paused, sucking in a breath. “It should not be hard to tell you…”
“Nay,” Sam said, and he took the palm that still cradled his face. Gently he kissed the healed stitch across Frodo’s finger, holding him all the more tighter when his breath caught. “Go on, please.”
“I am safe, I know. Mordor is half a world away, Sauron is gone, the ring…Oh, Sam, but I cannot feel safe anymore, nowhere I go. I have planted roots in the dark and I can no longer find the sun–”
“I brought you back!” Sam cut in, his eyes fluttered back and forth between Frodo’s as if making sure he was there. “Don’t go. Mr., Frodo, don’t go. Please,” Sam begged, amid the fire glow and the glaring snow it took Frodo every last bit of energy within him to not burst into tears there—at the gentle sound of Sam's dying heart. “Frodo—please—“
“Sam,” he raised a hand, standing from the floor. “You can’t ask it of me, I—Lord Elrond has promised some goodness there, healing—“
“You can do that here! Oh, Mr. Frodo, I'll make it good, I'll make it good and gentle and healing, and it’ll be everything the elves can do and better.”
“Sam…” Frodo rolled his shoulder as the chill of the night tore through his tunic. There’s something bleak in the way he stood, shoulders hunched, memories lashing on the surface of his skull. He stood quiet for too long, the next thing he felt beside the cold of Mount Doom is the warmth of Sam's chest against his back, the drop of his steady tears against his collar bone. Slowly, his tunic wetted until it was plastered to his scar, and here, Frodo thought he could feel a semblance of gentleness seep into the Nazgûl’s touch.
“Sam,” he said again. He felt Sam shake his head into his neck.
“Please, Mr. Frodo. Don’t tell me.” His lips were warm and wet and tucked so hard against him it felt as though he was molding himself into Frodo’s very body. Poor thing, Frodo thought, beside the harsher voice in his head—the one he couldn't escape—that said: a rotten body to latch yourself to. A rotten soul to love whole-heartedly.
Nay. Frodo shook the voice off. His thoughts were broken again, but this time it was not Sam’s words but his own.
“I’ll stay.” His voice was gravely and the sweetness of the wine had caked his tongue in something nauseating. Frodo was not a stranger to Sam’s own healing, and he too had spent the nights begging for himself to stay where he was. A year. Or two. I’ll try.
Sam broke down, his fingertips so tight they stained Frodo's skin purple. When he falls to the floor it is not his strength that takes Frodo with him.
“Oh, Sam…”
“I’ll make it good here,” Sam said.
“You have a good imagination. And a good heart. But it will take more than that.”
“Then I'll do it.”
Frodo couldn’t break his stare, couldn’t break his heart either, and so he nodded and watched the flames in Sam’s soft brown eyes, picturing a world where he could heal in his presence, even if it couldn’t be.
“The longest days are behind us,” Frodo thought out loud after the moments had passed. Sam nodded, glancing at the night sky through the window. “Spring bestows its best gardeners with the best mattocks.”
Sam smiled, through the tears and blubbering. “To dig up roots,” he said.
“To dig up roots.”
It was Sam this time, to raise his palm to Frodo’s face. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but the words failed him, and instead he closed the small distance between them.
Frodo tasted of spiced cardamom wine, the kind Old Silybum made, and the sweetness of the cake Sam had gifted him. His lips were plush, soft and gentle as they moved in sync with Sam’s. They parted only when more tears slipped between them–Frodo wiped them from Sam’s face without a word.
“Allow me to care for you, Sam. Here,” Frodo handed him some of the wine, warmed by its time on the hearth and spiced enough that Sam’s shaking chest calmed.
“In the spirit of Yule; it is not much, certainly not a gift truly worthy of you but–” Frodo cut himself off and simply padded to his study and back, returning with a small parcel wrapped tight with a twine bow. It surprised Sam, considering how hard it was of late to get Frodo to step out of the safety of Bag End with him, let alone by himself, long enough to find and procure a gift. “Open it,” Frodo said.
The paper ripped quickly under Sam’s pull, and inside lay a long woven scarf, blue as the night.
He gaped, heart beating.
What a small gift, a simple gift, but it meant the world. Frodo had once found the pleasure within the steady action of weaving, long before the ring had ever been noted, Sam knew this, he also knew that the small joy of the action: that creation, was lost somewhere in Mordor, or along the treacherous paths they took, and Sam had once feared it would never return.
But it had. And if the beauty of the scarf, the softness of the wool–still smelling of the late autumn grass–and the careful way it was made could tell Sam anything, it was that it was made with love, with joy, with the nimble fingers of a gentlehobbit who could heal.
“Sam?” Frodo questioned his silence.
Sam looked up, the scarf clutched between his fingers like he would lose it if he let go. His limb trembled. “Oh, Mr. Frodo–thank you.” Sam swallowed what he thought might be a whine or a sob, and nodded. “It’s…it's beautiful! So soft!”
“Ah, yes, the wool is from Miss Oaklock’s sheep, Bluebell–softest thing in the Shire, I tell you.” Frodo paused, cocking his head at the way Sam traced a finger along the threads. “Sam, dear? Are you truly alright?”
Sam raised his gaze and held Frodo’s for a beat before he answered. “I’m alright. Come, let's eat before the food grows colder.”
The feast went swiftly and it wasn’t long before the two of them sat full, toes warmed on the hearth and shoulders together.
The warmth of the hill drenched the winter outside, in what felt like to Sam, a faux softness it did not truly entail. But the biting wind meant nothing in the arms of the fire, the falling snow meant nothing in the arms of Frodo. Samwise was glad this winter was spent by the hearth; with Frodo not two feet away, a warming wine settling in his belly, Frodo’s hand in his. He hoped for many, many more.