Title: Festival Dancing
Section: 1 of 3
Pairing: Rosie/Sam/Frodo
Rating: R
Categories: slash, canon, het
Author's name: Ruby Nye
Summary: A festival dance entangles Rosie in the truth of Sam and Frodo's relationship.
The wooded darkness at the edge of the Party Field was full of the music of Lithe dancing, little laughs and cries and whimpers; in the middle distance a breathless lad's bawdy song harmonized with his partner's giggles and moans. Rosie stumbled a bit, over a root or a branch or her own tipsy feet, and fell against Sam's firm warmth, and giggled. Sam smiled fondly at her as he pressed his hand caressingly into her waist, holding her up, holding her to him, and she wriggled against him, thinking I love Lithe, and licked the tip of his ear.
Sam turned his head to let her zigzag her tongue along his ear, sighing in a warm and encouraging way, but then Rosie saw, as Sam turned further, a flash of pale and deeper dark beyond him. She leaned from beneath his arm to see what had drawn his attention. "Ain't that Mr. Frodo?"
Indeed, it was Mr. Frodo Baggins, walking almost soberly and oddly alone on this Lithe night, his hands in his pockets, his pale face upturned to the moon, silvered by its light. Rosie gasped and bit her lip at the sight of him, fair and dark and fey, remembering when she was a wee lass and her friend Samwise had run to her to tell her there was an Elf come to visit Mr. Bilbo. She looked up at Sam, and his brown eyes reflected the moonlight, the light off Mr. Frodo's face, as he looked at his friend, his master. His arm was still tight around her waist, but his eyes followed Mr. Frodo.
Maybe it was the ale, maybe it was the moonlight; Rosie was certainly never so bold beneath the sunshine of an ordinary day. Maybe it was the contrast of sunny Sam, golden even in the night, and moon-touched Mr. Frodo, shining like that mithril in Mr. Bilbo's mail shirt, down in the mathom-house. Whatever it was, Rosie felt her heart glow with it; when Sam turned his eyes back to her she grinned at him, and bit her lip to plump it, and stepped out from beneath his arm to call, "Mr. Frodo!" as she launched herself towards him, half-skipping, half-stumbling. He looked up, surprised and smiling, reaching out his arms to catch her as she fell against him. "Sam! Rosie!" She laughed and wound her arms around his slender chest, standing on her toes to kiss him; he tasted of tea as much as of ale. He tasted sweet. She pushed up into the kiss, feeling his mouth surprised and warm against hers, parting as of its own accord for a moment before he gently pulled his head back. "Rosie, you're tipsy," he said softly, his smile undoing the reproof in his tone.
"Aye, sir," said Sam, a laugh in his voice, as he carefully walked over to them. "And so am I." Rosie watched that shining blue gaze go over her head as Mr. Frodo raised his eyes to Sam's, as Sam carefully laid one arm around them both. "It's Lithe, Mr. Frodo, we're all dancing."
"Come dance with us!" cried Rosie, as Sam stood warm and close behind her, his hand on Mr. Frodo's shoulder. Between them Rosie felt hot, a good kind of hot, a Lithe-night kind of hot, as she pressed herself against Mr. Frodo, seeking to warm him to them. He turned those blue eyes on her again, those lips parting in surprise; Rosie wanted to kiss him anew, but she'd already had one kiss, so she unwound one arm to reach for Sam's other hand and put it on Mr. Frodo's other shoulder. "Sam, kiss him and he'll come dance." She turned her head to Sam, expecting him to take the invitation eagerly, but he was regarding Mr. Frodo with a thoughtful smile, his eyes bottomless and warm. "Seems to me, Rosie lass, that Mr. Frodo should kiss me, if he wants to dance with us."
Mr. Frodo laughed at that, and when Rosie glanced at him he was smiling, leaning forward, as Sam's hand on his shoulder slipped around to his back, as one of Mr. Frodo's arms slid from Rosie's waist to Sam's shoulder, his hand burying itself in Sam's hair; their mouths met as they pressed tightly to each other, pressing Rosie between them, mouths unfurling, caressing, dancing together. Rosie gasped at the sight, the golden head and the dark-framed pale face pressed together, as heat coursed through her belly and down her thighs, as Mr. Frodo's other arm tightened around her shoulders and Sam's around her waist; Sam's hand curved firmly around
her hip as they pulled each other closer and pulled her closer too. Rosie watched Sam and Mr. Frodo kiss, and quivered, as worked up by the sight as if they were both kissing her.
Slowly, warmly, they pulled back from each other, mouths clinging, eyelids slowly rising over dazed eyes that only cleared when they locked for a long moment. Watching Sam and Mr. Frodo, Rosie didn't realize she held her breath till they turned their shining eyes to her. "Well, Rosie," said Mr. Frodo softly, bending to her, "how could I say no?" And then he was kissing her the way he'd kissed Sam, his arm surprisingly strong around her shoulders as he pulled her in, his mouth demanding over hers, parting her lips, caressing them with his own and his tongue. He moaned into the kiss, and she managed to pry open an eye and see, past Mr. Frodo's shining cheek and dark lashes, Sam's head, pale fingers still twined in his hair, bent to Mr. Frodo's neck. Sam was tracing a path with his lips and tongue up over Frodo's neck to his ear, right before Rosie's delighted eye, until Mr. Frodo, still kissing her, still moaning, slipped his hand up to caress her neck and then wind his fingers into her curls and pull her closer still, his tongue entwining hers, and she couldn't keep her eyes open as she moaned in response.
When Mr. Frodo pulled back again Rosie followed him until she teetered on her toes and fell against Sam, feeling him solid all down her side as he steadied her and cupped her behind all at once. "All we need now," said Mr. Frodo, "is a comfortable place."
"There's a friendly beech," Sam indicated with a nod, and, seemingly without moving her feet, Rosie found herself under it, between mighty roots that cradled a snug patch of mossy ground just large enough for three friendly hobbits. Sam and Mr. Frodo loosened their hold on her to kneel, but Rosie kept her feet, the better to watch them, as she swayed gently and the midnight breeze whispered further heat into her blood. Mr. Frodo leaned into Sam, his tongue tracing from the hollow of Sam's throat across his collarbone, and Sam closed his eyes, shuddering deliciously with pleasure for a long moment before he opened his eyes again, reaching a hand to Rosie. "Be you ready, Rosie lass?"
Rosie sighed and shuddered herself, Sam's hand warm and broad around her own, Mr. Frodo's hair soft and darker than night amidst her fingers. "Let me see you kiss again," she said, her voice husky in her ears, "and I will be." Mr. Frodo grinned up at her at that, and raised his hand to Sam's cheek, tilting Sam's face towards himself; Sam's heavy-lidded eyes fell closed, his smiling mouth opening to Mr. Frodo's. They kissed again, leaning into each other, mouths opening to each other, and Rosie moaned at the sight, her knees going weak, as she sank down to join them.
Rosie woke up in the softest bed she'd ever lain in, beneath a sheet that felt as fine as her best chemise, her front tucked warmly against a bare-skinned back. Disoriented, she blinked, momentarily unable to remember how she'd wound up there, but the dark hair before her eyes told her everything she needed to know. She lay tucked up against Mr. Frodo. Mr. Frodo Baggins, gentlehobbit, Master of Bag End. And, on the other side of him, wrapped in those pale arms, lay Sam, sleeping like a full-fed baby, his head tucked beneath Mr. Frodo's chin. One of Sam's hands lay loose and warm on Rosie's arm, which she'd apparently draped over Mr. Frodo.
Rosie blushed hotly, amazed at her own cheek. What had she drunk last night, that she lay in bed now, not a stitch on, manhandling Mr. Frodo --- and that thought brought up a heated memory of how she'd handled him the last night, and Sam watching and smiling and kissing her as his turn came�.Rosie remembered, and thought her face would catch fire, not least because underneath it all she wasn't really sorry as she should be.
Experimentally she wiggled her arm a bit, and Sam's hand slid off onto Mr. Frodo's ribs, which were just a bit painfully visible. He was so thin, she thought, wanting to run her hand over those ribs covered with velvet skin. Pulling her mischevious hand back, Rosie gently disentangled her legs from Mr. Frodo's and Sam's, moving slowly so as not to wake them, until she could finally sit up.
Her head didn't thank her for that.The softness of the bed made her nearly overbalance, and the swift movement sent her headache spiking through her head fiercely enough to dim the dawn light for a moment.Pressing her temples to keep her head from exploding and biting her lip to keep in a moan, Rosie looked at Sam and Mr. Frodo, asleep in each other's arms. It had quickly become obvious that they were lovers, but last night all Rosie could feel at that discovery was delight, as she watched them together, looking so same and so different and so beautiful, as they pulled her in so that she felt them together, before Mr. Frodo had led them both by the hand up to his own home and his own bed. The memories shimmered, unbidden and unstoppable, through Rosie's head: their laughter and fumbling fingers as they undid her garments; their sure, swift way with each others' clothes; the way Sam's wide brown hands looked on Mr. Frodo's pale skin; the moment when she kissed Mr. Frodo and tasted Sam on his lips and how that just whipped up the fire in her blood. Head pounding, heart aching, Rosie sat and watched them sleep, and remembered till she thought she'd burn into ashes right there on the side of Mr. Frodo's feather-bed, till she thought her heart would break at the beauty of them together.
At last, wanting to have been gone, wanting to get back into the bed, wanting to know the right thing to do, Rosie hauled herself to her feet. It was past dawn now, rising to morning, and she reminded herself that she ought to be getting on home before her parents fretted and sent her brothers to find her. The thought of any of her family finding out how she'd danced her Lithe made Rosie's face burn anew as she sorted through the clothes strewn all askew and outside-in on the floor. Slowly she straightened the clothes, smoothing out Mr. Frodo's fine garments and laying them on the chair by the window, folding Sam's and piling them neatly on the foot of the bed, shaking her own out so she could wear them home, as she thought of an old tale of a lass who had danced at Lithe with a beautiful ghost; in one version of the story the maiden bore for the rest of her life a kiss-shaped mark on her cheek, where the ghost's kiss had burned her with its cold. Rosie felt a bit like that, burned by a beautiful and perilous magic.
At least the crops will grow, she reminded herself in her mother's sensible voice. Her mother had said that after Lithe two years ago, when Tom had woken up at noon the next day, all done in and unable to remember the night before, or at least saying he couldn't remember. Her mother had so much sense; Rosie entertained a wild thought of telling her of this Lithe night, of asking her help to make sense of it all, before she dashed it away and pulled on her petticoats and chemise. She couldn't ask her mother this.
Rosie shook her hair, and a ribbon floated free; she turned to catch it----
---and fell into a pair of deep blue eyes.
She squeaked and jumped back as Mr. Frodo sat up, running a hand through his tousled hair, disheveled and beautiful; Rosie didn't know whom she envied more, him or Sam. He looked up at her with an unreadable gaze, and suddenly Rosie felt every imperfection and dishevelment, from her uncombed feet to her unlaced bodice to her disarrayed hair, and above them all, her very presence. "Mr. Frodo, sir, morning, sir, I'm just going, sir---"
"Rosie?" he asked, tilting his head, as Sam sat up beside him, rubbing his temples. As if in sympathy, her own head pounded all the more, and she took another step back, trying to lace her bodice herself even as her fingers shook worse and worse.
"Rosie, lass, you're shaking like a willow in a high wind." Sam was looking at her with something like wonder, and something she could almost have believed was delight, even though he was already blushing bright red. Sam climbed out of bed---before, Rosie would never have noticed the quick sweep of his fingers across Mr. Frodo's wrist--- and smiled when he saw his clothes straightened and folded. "Let me just dress, and I'll help you with that lacing."
"No, I, I�" Rosie was forced to drop the laces and press her hands to her prickling eyes. She was not going to cry as if it had been her first time, even though the warm simple three-part dance of the night before had fragmented this morning into something sharp and dangerous and complicated and confusing. Sam let his shirt hang unbuttoned and untucked as he firmly took her laces and did them up, while Rosie shook helplessly, gulping air and trying to think of nothing.
When she opened her eyes again Sam was looking at her the same way Mr. Frodo was, and she realized that their brows were furrowed with worry. For her? About her? Rosie looked from the brown eyes to the blue, and couldn't say a word. She found herself heartily wishing she hadn't leaned forward, skipped forward, been forward...and yet, that night was scorched into her mind, and it would be a memory she would be glad to have, if she could survive this day.
Mr. Frodo stood up, bare as he'd been born and not seeming to notice a whit, and reached out for her hand. "Rosie," he asked gently, "are you all right?" Sam laid his broad, warm hand on her shoulder, and though she tried to nod, caught between them once more she couldn't but shake her head.
Mr. Frodo sighed, but when she dared a glance at him he was looking at her kindly, perhaps even fondly. He looked at her for a long moment, as if making up what to say, but before he said anything Sam did. "Begging your pardon, sir," said Sam reluctantly, "but it's well into morning, and Rosie and I should go down to the Party Field and help with the clean-up."
"And reappear before your families come looking for you both." Mr. Frodo sighed again, but the look he turned on Sam was nothing less than fond. "Tell the crew to come by here for luncheon, Sam?"
"Mr. Frodo, you should be in bed, not cooking for us all. You must be hung over---"
"And you're not?" Even as they bickered, they smiled at each other, and Rosie suddenly felt like laughing as well as crying. "You two will have some water with me before you go." With that he pulled a robe from the pile of blankets at the foot of the bed, belted it around himself, and led them both to the kitchen, where he gave them both mugs of cool water and sweet biscuits, and watched them eat and drink before he had anything. After a little straightening, washing-up, and buttoning, Mr. Frodo let Sam and Rosie out by the mudroom door. "It's not that I am ashamed of you," Mr. Frodo made sure to say. "Either of you," he emphasized to Rosie, and she smiled shakily for reply, Sam's arm around her shoulders.
"I always know that, Mr. Frodo," said Sam quietly, and Mr. Frodo smiled at that and kissed him, not for very long but very warmly. Then he took Rosie's hand in his again and raised it to his lips, his eyes holding hers; despite it all, Rosie squeezed his hand, before she let go and Sam walked her down the back path.
"We might as well go home and change into working-clothes," Rosie heard herself saying, as if some part of her had regained its normal sense.
Sam squeezed her shoulders. "If you don't mind, I'd rather go to the Party Field first so they know we're not in a ditch somewhere."
"They'll think we spent the night together." That same calm voice, or was it shocky?
Sam smiled at that, and replied, "well, lass, we did at that!", but when Rosie said nothing he stopped her and looked at her. "Are you sorry, Rosie?"
Rosie thought about his question, looking up into Sam's wide brown eyes and the sunlight beyond his golden hair. She looked back at Bag End and the garden around it, lushly beautiful even on the back hillslope where no one could see, the work of Sam's hands, Sam's love, every bud and fruit seen and appreciated by Mr. Frodo, and loved right back. When she looked up at Sam again, she shook her head and smiled and said, "no, no I'm not sorry," and Sam smiled in turn.
His smile was a bit dented by the next thing she said, and she hated saying it, but it was part of the answer, too. "I had thought, though � Sam Gamgee, I thought I knew your mind."
"You've always," Sam replied, holding her closer as they began to walk again. "Now you know my heart."
Rosie shook her head. He felt so solid and real beside her, but how could she believe it? "But, I had thought�I always thought that, one day, now that you've come of age, you would want a hole full of children, Sam."
Sam considered this in silence for so long that Rosie nearly took it back; finally he spoke, looking ahead as their path took them into the woods around the Party Field. "I might yet. When Mr. Frodo and I first knew each other's hearts, we talked about that. He wanted to be sure, he didn't want to 'cheat' me, he said." Sam shook his head at that, smiling, such love in his face Rosie could hardly breathe. "Mr. Frodo, they say he's mad like Mr. Bilbo was, but it's just that, he thinks higher, different. He thinks things no one else does. He thinks he'd like to see me married, if I want it, if I find a lass who could understand what he and me are to each other." Here Sam looked sidelong at Rosie.
A shard of ice that had impaled Rosie's heart all morning melted at that look as if in the spring sun, though she kept her nose pointing forward as stubbornly as Sam did his. "The right lass might understand," she agreed, as calmly as if her heart weren't beating madly. "And be right lucky in that understanding."
Sam squeezed her shoulders, and they stepped together into the sunshine of the Party Field, to their families' greetings and laughter and cheers.
Four slow hot July days passed, and Rosie threw herself into her chores and returned Sam's friendly smiles and curtseyed to Mr. Frodo and didn't think whenever she could manage it. On July Fifth it rained, and Rosie sat inside all day mending her brothers' clothes and trying, and failing, not to think of the past Lithe. Her fingers, trailing over the cloth to find the holes, remembered the feel of velvety, moonlight-pale skin and sun-browned, gentle, calloused hands; she stitched to the remembered rhythm of heartbeats and gasps; she thought of the feel of Mr. Frodo's fine clothes as she folded and smoothed her brothers' coarse garments. Rosie was remembering how her name sounded in whispers and in moans when a voice shouted, "Rosie!"; she gasped and jumped and pricked herself, and swore under her breath.
"Mam would box your ears to hear you say that," observed Jolly, leaning on the wall. "What're you woolgathering about, anyway?"
"And what d'ye want, Jolly Cotton?" Rosie snapped, feeling herself blush most annoyingly and quite disinclined to answer his question.
Jolly waggled his eyebrows at Rosie. "Sam Gamgee's come to see you."
Though her hands shook and her brother smirked, Rosie folded the breeches in her lap, stood up, brushed off her skirts, and calmly walked out to meet Sam, holding her head high even when Jolly and Tom snickered and commented to each other behind her as she stepped through the front doorway. Sam smiled at her, a poppy in his hand; Rosie tucked it behind her ear, linked arms with him, and all but dragged him away from her home.
It was a beautiful evening, fresh and wet and cool after the rain, the sun low in the west beneath ruddy clouds, but Rosie hardly noticed as she marched herself and Sam away from her family's prying eyes. When she was far enough away, out of sight among some trees, Rosie let out a long breath, leaning her head on Sam's arm as she let all the pride that had held her ramrod-straight drain away. "Oh, Sam, I thought I'd never see you more. I've missed you."
"I've missed you, too," Sam laid his other hand over hers on his arm. "I'm sorry to worry you, but didn't want to come by too soon---"
"My family half has us married already," Rosie filled in. "And me two years from being of age, and even though everyone knows Festival dancing is about the Festival and not ordinary days.. Don't I get to be a tween before I'm a matron? At least they lighted on you, Sam, at least you're my friend."
Sam squeezed her hand, but didn't say anything more for a long moment; when she looked up she found his cheeks as red as the poppy he'd brought her. "Samwise," Rosie asked slowly," why do you blush?"
Sam shook his head, but Rosie kept her eyes steady on him, and after a moment he turned to look at her. "Because I have something to tell you, Rosie Cotton, and I hardly know what it rightly is to tell it to myself, or if you'll want to hear it."
"Try me, Sam Gamgee."
Sam took a deep breath, then, and fixed his eyes on a spot about a handsbreadth above her head; Rosie took a deep breath, and tried not to look at Sam's wide eyes and broad shoulders, and listened. "If I were going to marry, Rosie, I would want to marry you. But this isn't---I'm not asking, and not just because I haven't the money saved as yet. I feel�" Rosie made an encouraging noise as her heart turned over and over, and Sam went on. "You may well think this is naught but the result of Mr. Bilbo and Mr. Frodo stuffing my head full of tales, and perhaps it is, but I feel I have something to do before I can marry. Mr. Frodo, he's as light and unsettled as a tween, and I think he has an adventure before him, just like Mr. Bilbo did. And when Mr. Frodo goes on that adventure, I think he'll need me with him."
Now Sam looked into Rosie's eyes, and she looked back, trying to make sense of the wild thing this seemingly sturdy hobbit lad had just told her. She could have thought that it was nothing but a fancy, nothing but foolishness, except that, when she looked into Sam's eyes she saw the certainty there, and when she looked into her heart she saw, beside the refusal to be sorry for Lithe, the knowledge that he was right.
"I think," Rosie said, "I understand."
Sam's whole face lit up at that, and he kissed her, then let go of her, blushing as if he'd catch fire.
Rosie raised her hand to her lips, feeling the warmth of the kiss going all through her, feeling again like laughing and crying at once. Sam looked at her cautiously, and she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him back. "Sam Gamgee, I would wait for you till the king came back."
To her surprised dismay, Sam's face fell, and he raised his hands to Rosie's arms as if to disentangle her from himself. "No, lass, no. I don't want you to wait for me."
"But, Sam, I..." I thought you wanted me, Rosie thought, but did not say. She let go of Sam, hoping she could run away before she began crying, but he caught her hands, and almost unwillingly she looked at him again.
"Oh, Rosie. I'm Samwise indeed. I mucked the telling of this all up. I want you, I said it and I meant it. But I can't ask you, not as I am now, knowing what I don't know, if you follow me." Rosie wasn't sure she did, but she nodded anyway. "I know, I don't know what it is, but I know Mr. Frodo needs me now, and he will need all of me one day, so I can't promise aught to anyone else, and I wouldn't cheat you that way. You---" Sam's voice broke, and he turned red again, but he glanced down, swallowed, and looked up again. "You're lovely as a flower, and warm as the Sun, and I couldn't ask you to wait for me when you could walk out with a better hobbit and bloom and be happy."
"I don't think there is a better hobbit than you, Samwise Gamgee, but for that you want to do my choosing for me," Rosie said as sharply as she could, though her hands clutched Sam's tightly. "I've known you since we were little, and I'll know you when we're gray and bent. As for now---" Here her inspiration left her, and she looked down at their joined hands, trying to make sense of it all, and found the sense again. "For now, Sam, you're my friend, and I won't ask more from you than that. I'm two years too young to marry. In two years, we can think about all of this again, and see where we are."
Sam's expression was as unsettled as Rosie's heart, part worried, part delighted, all Sam. "Aye. Till then, I just....I want you to be happy, Rosie."
"Stay my friend, Sam, and I will be." Sam pulled her into his arms at that, and they held each other for a long moment. His arms strong around her, Rosie laid her head on Sam's shoulder and felt his broad back warm under her hands and breathed in the warm male scent of him, and felt almost content.
Eventually, she reluctantly pulled away. "We'd best be getting back." Sam nodded, then blinked. "I nearly forgot! Mr. Frodo gave me a note for you." Sam produced the note, a small folded square of heavy paper with her name on one side. Rosie looked at it in wonder, turning it over in her fingers, touching the red blob of sealing wax on the far side, before finally, carefully opening it.
Dear Miss Cotton,
I would be delighted if you would take tea with me on July Seventh at Two O'Clock in the Afternoon.
Yours, Mr. Frodo Baggins.
Rosie read the note over three times, looking at Mr. Frodo's handwriting, remembering when she had stamped her child's feet and cried, "'tis not fair that Sam can read a story and I can't!" and Mr. Frodo had responded, "is that so? Then let me show you how to read." If not for him neither she nor Sam would ever have learned their letters, or so much else.
Rosie folded the note and tucked it into her bodice. "I haven't anything fit to write a reply on, Sam. Can you carry my answer back?" Sam nodded, and Rosie took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. "Please tell Mr. Frodo I say yes."