AT ARM'S LENGTH

It took hobbit ears to catch the soft sounds of hobbit feet on bare stone, in the pitch dark. Sam was straining his head to the utmost, hardly breathing, while trying to look asleep. The movement of air, in the still cave, was clearer to his senses than the scraping of soles on stone. The feet stopped and there was rustling of clothes and bedroll behind his back. Then silence, for several heartbeats. 'Sam? Are you awake?' It was the barest whisper. Sam didn't move, breathing as slowly and naturally as he could, and presently there was more rustling and settling and curling up, knees almost touching Sam's back. Sam had to restrain himself not to pull away. Moria was not an easy place to get any rest in, but that night Sam found it harder than it should have been. Yes, I am awake, he thought forlornly. I am wide awake and so are you, Mr Frodo, wandering about. What can there be to do in the middle of the night, in the deepest dark of Moria? He didn't want to guess, even to himself. In the morning - if it could be called that - he was tired and bad tempered. In the faint light from Gandalf's staff he watched Frodo's face, and saw to his irritation that he looked rested and at ease, even happy. When they started walking again, he tried to put Legolas between them, but it was by now expected that Frodo and Sam walked together and were generally inseparable, so he kept on ending up at Frodo's heels anyway. Thankfully, he found the walking harder and harder as the hours wore on, and was prevented from thinking too much or feeling too much apart from stubbed toes and aching lungs. Strider brought up the rear as usual, so he was spared the sight of him, although this he was not grateful for, as he was sick with eagerness to search the Ranger's face. They stopped to eat after some hours. Sam chewed his bread without looking up, as there was little to see anyway. Merry and Pippin was bickering about something, and the others were listening and laughing under their breaths. When the light flickered over the right way, Sam saw a smile soften Legolas's handsome face. He was sure that the corners of the wizards' mouth were curling under his beard as well, on the other side of the circle. But then the light shifted again, and in a split-second sliver of light falling over Gandalf's shoulder, Sam barely saw Frodo's face just beyond, smiling too, but his face was not turned towards Pippin or Merry, but to the side, and the smile was secretive, glowing, flushed. Sam's chest constricted so he could hardly swallow. They were all anxious to get the dark walk over with, so they set off again, and this time Sam couldn't keep the thoughts away no matter how strenuous the work. He kept seeing Frodo's face before his eyes, wherever he looked in the dark, wishing he had never seen what he had seen. What made a person look like that? What could you possibly have to smile about in the dankest, foulest, most hopeless pit in Middle-Earth? Sam knew, he had a suspicion in his head that had almost grown into conviction, but his heart did not want to hear what his head had to say. The treachery was too great. When Gandalf announced, at last, that they had better stop for the night, Sam wanted nothing so much as to fall down and be unconscious as soon as possible. But sleep eluded him. Against his will, his ears strained into the dark, hoping against hope that he would not hear anything. But a little while after all other sounds had gone out, he heard rustling again, and although he could not see even the faintest movement in the inky blackness, he knew as surely as if it was himself moving, that Frodo was getting up. There were the slightest brushing sounds as he tiptoed, quickly, away beyond Sam's hearing. Sam's throat ached, as if he was trying to swallow an apple whole, and he pulled his blanket over his head and stuffed it into his ears. When had this started? Never before the mines had Frodo been in the habit of wandering about at night, not even before they got to the mountains, when the journey had still been relatively easy. He and Frodo had slept next to each other since the first step out of the Shire, very close on cold nights, and Frodo had never been anything but affectionate and jolly. And honest, always honest, as guileless as his own clear eyes. Sam had not been looking, but he couldn't believe that he would have been so blind as to overlook signs as obvious as these, which he couldn't miss even in the pitch dark of the mines. He tried to go to sleep before the steps returned, and he managed it, with the blanket wrapped tightly around his head against any further hurt. When he woke, he felt no better. His sleep had been full of suspicion and disturbances and had brought no rest. Frodo was shaking him, gently, by the arm. 'Sam. Sam! Come on, wake up. The others are already awake.' Sam sat up. He could barely make out Frodo's face, only a faint gleam of eyes. Getting up, Sam grabbed his bedroll and started sullenly to bundle it up as well as he could in the dark. He could hear Frodo getting up as well. The others were gathering around their packs in the light of Gandalf's staff, sharing food and talking in low voices. 'Shall I get you a piece of bread?' Frodo offered. Sam grunted, unable to look in Frodo's direction. But as he heard Frodo walk away towards the others, he lowered his bundle and stared after his shadow in the gloom. Misery and loneliness settled on his shoulders, heavy as the haunted dark. Having packed up and eaten, standing up, they set off again. Sam brooded, feeling a strange restlessness as well as the same pangs of jealousy that had soured the day before. He walked in the front this time, right behind Gandalf. As the day wore on, there were more stairs than before, and sometimes he had to use his hands and feet both to scramble up the tall steps, which were cracked and broken, covered in dust and rock splinters, and here and there sat rattling piles of debris that Sam did even want to guess at. Once he laid his hand on what he recognised as a hammer in the dark, with a great timber handle, too big for his hands by far, and a cold, dusty metal head. He shuddered and climbed on. Suddenly he heard a gasp from Merry behind him. Gandalf heard it too and stopped, lowering his staff. Sam turned too, finding Merry examining a bleeding cut in his dirty palm. On the step below Sam's feet lay half an arrow, just visible in the gloom. 'Come here, my lad,' Gandalf said, brows knit. 'Let us take a look at that, and see if we can find something to bind it in.' His staff grew a little brighter, and Merry climbed past Sam holding his right hand in his left. But Sam stood as riveted. Frodo had fallen behind during the past hours, behind Merry and Pippin, Boromir and Legolas, behind Gimli even. His eyes strained to the edge of Gandalf's bleak light. Frodo's hand was, as sure as he had eyes in his head, in the Rangers'. And on the man's lean and stubbly face was an unmistakably tender look as he helped Frodo up a broken step. Sam turned away, helplessness and grief and jealousy bubbling up inside him like poison and making his mouth taste sour and sick, like something rotten. He wanted to run away, up the steep steps into the blackness, but Gandalf had not finished wrapping a clean rag from his bag around Merry's hand. Sam had to stand there, chest heaving and eyes stinging, until he was done, and he felt the wizard's grave eyes on him before he turned away and started up the steps again. He managed to stay away from Frodo's immediate presence for the rest of the day. Towards evening, he started to become aware that the helplessness and loneliness that had churned all day in his belly had somehow turned into a hard knot of anger. Never in his life had he been separated from Frodo like this, never had he thought of anything but Frodo's well-being, his happiness, his safety. Wasn't it obvious? Couldn't everyone see it, that Frodo was his, by right, and that he was Frodo's and that nobody was ever meant to come between them? And here, hiding in the convenient dark, came that man, with his unshaven face and shifty eyes, out of nowhere, and thought he could... Sam's fists tightened. He had been as grateful as anyone to Strider in Rivendell, when it had become clear that if it wasn't for his swift decision to send Frodo ahead on the elf-horse, and for his healing herbs, and his hands on Frodo's wound pulling him back from the edge, Frodo would not have lived. He had looked at Strider across Frodo's bed early in the morning when Elrond told them that the fever had broken, and he hadn't known what to say, but Strider had reached out and put his hand over Sam's, which held Frodo's, and squeezed it with a little smile. Sam had been too relieved to hold any grudges. He may know a lot, he thought, lying in the dark after Gandalf had let the light go out, Elven-lore and leech-craft and foreign tongues, but he doesn't know Mr Frodo, not at all. Who does he think he is? What had he told Frodo? How could he know what to say? He doesn't deserve him, he thought. I don't either but that's different. He turned over on the hard floor, sore and tense. That man didn't know Frodo as Sam did, didn't know his every little frown and smile and the way he walked from across the widest field. Sam didn't know much of the high and lofty stuff that Strider shone with among elves and Men and lords and ladies, but he could tell Frodo's breathing in the dark from that of a thousand other hobbits. Sam sniffed to himself under his blanket, too angry to cry. He turned over again, unable to lie still. He was about to pull the blanket over his head again, but then he caught the sound of soft, regular breaths and realised that Frodo was still next to him, deep asleep for once. He felt a little better, but then he was angry again, and it hurt knowing that Frodo was sleeping so innocently only because he hadn't gotten enough sleep the two previous nights. It made Sam's blood boil to think of it. And that scoundrel, that dirty great man over there, he was probably sitting waiting in his corner, thinking he could just have Mr Frodo for the asking. Just like that, when Sam had spent a lifetime, and all that soul-searching in Rivendell, and when he, that great noisy bumbling coarse-handed unshaven man didn't know the first thing about what Frodo really was, how lucky he really was. Pearls before swine, Sam thought, great tall trinket-wearing swine but swine all the same. Why, he had probably never set eyes on more than a half-dozen hobbits in his life, he probably didn't care, to him, one hobbit was probably just as good as... Sam held his breath, and then a thought came into his head that he had never even imagined before. He lay for several heartbeats, still as a rock. How dare he even think it? He, Samwise the gardener whose generous heart had so far in his life never hosted a dishonest thought. And there it was in his own head. But the demon was in him, this was a night among a million, and although no more than a half-minute separated this moment from the previous, Sam suddenly didn't feel at all like himself. Was the dark deep enough? Surely it was, there was none deeper in Middle-Earth. Gandalf had said that with any luck, they should be out tomorrow evening. Although he didn't quite know what he was doing, Sam drew his breath as silently as he could, folded back the blanket and got to his feet. The cave was irregularly shaped, with many nooks and corners, and he could hear breathing from several of them. He stopped to orient himself: Legolas over there, hobbits to the far left, the wizard and the dwarf on either side. Boromir over by the wall. He moved as quietly as he could. In his wretchedness earlier, he hadn't been able to stop himself from noticing in which corner Strider had sat down, and now he moved that way, silently as a shadow. He didn't really know what he intended to do, but his blood was up and he felt his fury course freely through his veins. He was convinced that nobody, not even the elf, could hear him even if he was awake - which he wasn't - and he moved fairly confidently. He would show that man... something, anyway. Show him how little he knew and how unworthy he was. Suddenly, after what felt like only a few steps, he could smell leather faintly, and his toes touched cloth. A bedroll. Suddenly there was breathing, in the dark, closer than he had thought. Before he knew it or had time to collect his wits, Sam felt fingers brush the front of his clothes and then a hand confidently found his wrist in the dark and pulled. He nearly made a noise in surprise and panic. Sam knew he must be quiet, and if possible not get too close, if he was to avoid being discovered. But he found himself drawn into arms, his face close to warm cloth. There was no creaking - the man must have taken the risk of slipping off his leather coat before sitting down. Sitting he was, Sam found, as he stumbled over a hard thigh and found his feet in the small space between legs much bigger than his own. Hands were on each of his upper arms, and breath was on his face as words were barely mouthed against his skin. 'Come here, you.' He could feel the rough stubble a finely-split inch from his skin, and the warmth and the frisson of the not-quite touch together with the firmness of the large hands caused him to lose his purpose for a second. Then he felt lips on his throat, warm and smooth, and then on his mouth, and somehow his own opened at its touch. A heartbeat later he drew back, remembering that he mustn't give the game away. He was far too close, his smell or the feel of his skin or clothes would give him away. Some game, he thought, not knowing whether to laugh or to cry. He pulled away, straightening up, his heart beating wildly. What should he do? 'Such a shy little one, aren't you.' Sam could hear the smile on the lips as the words came to him on a barely audible breath. The hands slid down his arms to his wrists, pulling gently, until Sam had to fall onto his knees. Then one of them went to cup his face, the skin rough and dry and warm, like no hobbit hands Sam had ever known. His mouth went dry and he felt numb about the lips. He had to close his eyes as the fingers slid down to his neck. His neck! He couldn't let himself be touched anywhere around the neck - the man would find that the one thing that marked Frodo in any darkness was missing, and he would be found out. Sam tore away again, almost panicking. This was impossible, why had he done this? What had got into him? What would he do now? His anger was as good as gone and instead of hot rushing blood making him brave there was just nerves, and he swallowed again as the large hands stroked his wrists, pushing the shirtsleeves up and down. He could feel the Ranger's body moving in the dark with every breath, could feel the large hands covering the pulse on the inside of this wrists. The hands moved to his waist, his back, his hips. He would never get away with this and he couldn't even begin to imagine the consequences of that failure without his toes curling up. It was impossible. 'If that's how you want it...' And then it became truly impossible, because one of the large hands took his own and pulled it down, and Sam felt smooth leather and heat and a great hardness, and his ears began to tingle. He thought he would burst with nervousness. '... we can stay at... arm's length.' Sam sat as if petrified. 'Please.' The voice was close to his ear now, no longer teasing, but low and throaty, the lips shaping the word in his hair. Sam's hands felt numb, but the fear of being found out was strong and he tried to imagine what he might have done if he had really been the one Strider expected. His cheeks blossomed in the dark. He moved his hand. The man's breath caught for a moment, almost imperceptibly, but Sam found what he was looking for, the end of a leather thong. He pulled his other wrist from the gentle grip and felt shakily for the lacings that he knew must be there. As he slowly folded the soft leather to the sides and touched the hot skin with his fingertips, the otherworldly demon got into Sam for the second time that night, but this time the blood rushed in his ears with a different sound. May the devil take it all. He bent his hot head and closed his hands around what he found. There was no other way out now, he had been foolish but somehow he didn't care anymore. He felt as if he had a fever and couldn't think clearly. The Ranger's hands came up again, seeking to wrap themselves around his neck and draw his face forwards, but Sam ducked away. His skin burned where the large fingers had brushed against it, and he was finding it hard to keep his breath down. It was as large as the hammer shaft he had laid his hand on in the dark on the stairs, but more finely carved. The skin was soft, soft and hot and smooth as the liquid wax on a fresh-dipped candle. Every now and then his hands touched soft curly hair. Sam somehow couldn't get enough of the curious feeling, and found that his heart had slowed somewhat. He could hear the man's breath grow a little less easy. When his fingers tightened or grew more gentle, when they traced the length, crept across the large head or tangled in the hair, the breaths grew shallower or deeper or caught as if in fear. He tightened his fists more, experimentally, and there was a sharp gasp. Sam was entranced. He played with the Ranger, growing more secure without losing that tingling nerviness. He soon came to the end of his experience - gained mostly on himself - but was not deterred. He was discovering a sense of control, a wonderful sense that settled his nerves and made him feel taller, stronger, almost... reckless. His hands parted company and one crept down below, to gently weigh and caress what it found there, and the man's body shook. He went a little more reckless, a little faster. I truly have him, Sam thought in the back of his head, listen to that, I can do what I want with him... I said I would show him... If only he knew, the great big... thief. As his fingers found an unseen spot along the underside, he was grabbed, suddenly, and his backside was squeezed so hard it almost hurt. The Ranger's face was in Sam's unruly hobbit hair, he could feel the hot, near silent gasps against his skin. Sam twisted out of the grasp and away from the hands. This was getting dangerous. However much he wanted to keep feeling that the big man was at his mercy, and ever better, that he was unaware what was really happening to him, that he was fooled, the haughty Ranger fooled by a little darkness, a little hobbit, he knew he had to end it. He felt the hands on him again, searching, urging, insisting, and from he knew not where it came to him that he might bend down and put his lips on what he was holding. The result couldn't have been better. Sam almost smiled. Keeping his lips lightly pressed against the tip, he found that it took only a few swift, hard caresses to cause it, and the whole Ranger with it, to shake violently, and then he was roughly torn away from his task and kissed hard. His mouth filled with the man's ragged breathing. His fingers were wet. He jerked away, getting to his feet shakily. Enough, time to get away. But just as he was turning, those hands that seemed to see in the dark found his arm and caught him, pulling him back against the clothes. The whisper was close again. Sam resisted, pushing against the hard chest. 'You hobbits have some unusual talents...' Sam bit his lip, breathing hard. 'Unusual talents indeed... Sam.' Back to fanfic page | Next chapter