"No," Sam wailed in anguish, for all the good it did. Even as he spoke, he saw the last bit of his master fade from Frodo's eyes, leaving behind a malice that he knew the name of all too well. That power raised the Ring triumphantly, hesitating before placing it on the forefinger, not in battle against Frodo's denial, but to savor its own anticipation. "No," Sam said, this time a soft cry of loss and grieving.
The fire-lit cavern exploded into a burst of black pain, and he fell, distantly hearing Stinker's shriek of outrage. Instinct, habit, fear for his master... something made him lift his aching head, and he peered through bleary eyes in time to see Gollum launch himself at nothing.
And sail past where he must have thought Mr. Frodo was standing and drop into the crevasse, his screams for his precious echoing the entire way down.
Sam blinked, trying to clear the blood and fumes from his eyes, hunting for some trace of Frodo. For a moment there was nothing, then the air *changed* in way that sent shivers down Sam's back, despite the intense heat of the cavern. When it settled, what was left of his master stood in front of him, clothed in an arrogant regality that ill-suited someone wearing filthy clothing and more than a few layers of dirt. In his mind's eye Sam could almost see him in fine silks and velvets that were better even than what the Elfs wore, a leather tunic studded with gold and elaborate designs overlaying it all.
"Sam," this image murmured, sounding so very much like his Frodo that he painfully heaved himself to his knees. "I haven't much time, Sam. You must listen to me."
"Mr. Frodo?"
Pain chased over elegant features, but so quickly that Sam wasn't even sure he saw it. "Only for a very little longer. Sauron has chosen to use my physical form until he has regained enough of himself to assume a more suitable one. I'm...I'm here with him, ground under his heel, as punishment for daring to try to destroy the Ring."
"Oh, oh..." Sam's breath caught in his chest, becoming a sob.
Leaning down, lips against Sam's ear as if that were enough to prevent Sauron from overhearing them, Frodo said, "He knows nothing about Hobbits, how we're made inside, and he hasn't quite been able to command all of me yet. Nor can I lay claim to all that he has at his disposal. Yet having carried the Ring so far, I can sense through him the ebb and flow of a small portion of it, and that allows me to do this one thing. On the precious itself, I swear that I will grant you one desire; you need but name it."
A long, deep grumble of complaint and fury shook the ground, and Sam knew that Sauron wasn't pleased about that oath at all and could do less about it. "What should I ask for?" he whispered guiltily. "For Strider to be here? For Sauron to fall into Mount Doom's fire, like Gollum did?"
With strain clear in his voice, Frodo said, "You cannot harm either him or the Ring, nor call for others who may do so. The Ring protects itself, I'm afraid. But you can ask to be taken back to the Shire, to wait with your gaffer and Rosie for Sauron to turn his malevolence toward our people. If that would be too bittersweet, you could join what is left of the Fellowship and share their ultimate fate."
His tone shifted, subtly, growing deeper and richer. "Or you could ask to die a quick and pleasant death here and now. I would even do it myself, if that would make it easier for you."
"Now that's just Sauron talking, isn't it?" Sam said scornfully. He staggered to his feet, hands going to the thing's shoulders, not surprised to see the glow of a lidless eye where clear, beautiful blue had been a heartbeat before.
His master was gone, now, with no advice left behind for a half-wit Gamgee on how to best use this one tiny advantage he had given. Though the weight of expectancy emanating from Sauron/Frodo was a living thing beating at him, Sam thought long and hard, plans tumbling this way and that. In the end he abided by the lessons that he had painfully learned in his long trek across Middle Earth and, most especially, after his battle with Shelob.
Taking a deep breath, he said, "All I've ever wanted is to be in service with Mr. Frodo, to be at his side and do for him. There's no cause to change that now."
Perhaps because selflessness was long forgotten to Sauron, or perhaps because his evil had become so pervasive within him that any true goodness was like a poison, he reeled away from Sam, literally staggered by the simple wish. His steps took him too close to the precipice, and he teetered at the edge, arms wheeling slightly as he fought for his balance. Without thinking, Sam darted forward, inexplicably drawing Sting as he moved, and caught him by his left hand. "I've got you, I've got you."
"Raise Sting!" Frodo shouted, and it was his Frodo, blue gaze catching and holding Sam's. "Now, oh, NOW!"
Not comprehending the intent behind the order, Sam obeyed regardless, and watched in horror as Frodo brought his right hand down on the exposed blade, severing the finger that held the ring. It fell, flesh and all, catching for a moment on the uneven stone edge of the ledge before tumbling down into the molten rock below. Sam gaped at it until it was beyond his sight, then jerked his head up to stare at Frodo.
Pale, beyond pale, Frodo held his damaged hand up in front of his face, expression flickering back and forth between incredulous fury and agony. Sam tugged at him, surprised when Frodo didn't budge from his unstable perch, as if he weighed more than a starved and emaciated Hobbit could. Sauron took him again, and Frodo deliberately stepped back onto nothing to follow the Ring to destruction.
Reading the monster's intent as it acted, Sam tightened his grip on Frodo's hand and was almost yanked off the ledge with him. He landed hard on his belly, sharp rocks cracking at his rib bones and tender parts, but he held on, though it felt as if his arm would be pulled clean off his body. Frodo was a dead weight on him, swinging slightly and doing nothing to either help or hinder Sam's effort to save him.
"More of that foul thing's work," Sam muttered to himself, then he shouted, "Hang on, Mr. Frodo, hang on!"
A tiny shock, nothing like the earthquakes that troubled this land, chased through stone and air, and Sam knew the Ring was well and truly gone. Sam heard a moan of pain from Frodo, and a bloody hand wrapped around the one suddenly clinging to his. "Sam?"
Carefully, paying no heed to the screeching complaints of abused muscles, Sam shifted so that he could put his other arm over the edge and looked down on Frodo. "Catch on to the cliff face now, I'll pull you up."
"Sam, I..." Frodo gulped, fingers slipping ever so slightly. "I don't..."
"Don't you let go; don't you *dare* let go," Sam said fiercely. "Cause I'll follow you. Even there, Frodo. Even there."
Sam could see the shock, then the sudden determination. Apparently what Mr. Frodo had doubts he could do for himself, he had no trouble doing for Sam's sake. Hidden places inside his heart filled to aching, and he was forced to put them aside for later consideration when all he wanted was to think on what it all meant.
"Brace yourself," Frodo warned, and he kicked hard to swing himself toward the rock face. He hit it, but found a handhold as well, and his feet were digging for purchase on the unforgiving stone, taking strain off Sam's shoulder. In very short order he was on the ground beside Sam, panting harshly, his injured limb tucked close to his chest. Much as Sam wanted to give him the respite he so desperately needed, the last lingering remnants of Sauron's malice was digging away at the ledge beneath them, and the lava was leaping free of its long confinement.
Hauling both himself and Frodo upright, Sam pushed them into a shambling run, never letting go of Frodo's good hand. "The mountain's comin' down round our ears!"
"I think it was only Sauron's will that was holding it together, to begin with," Frodo panted out.
After that there was no time or thought or energy to spare for words, and they scrambled back the way they had come, toward the promise of not being crushed, at least. And Sauron's wrath still would not let them be, chasing after them with the burning guts of his domain until they clambered onto a rocky promontory just before it could consume them whole. Strength and determination gave out and they collapsed, for the moment only grateful they could rest.
Sam rolled to his back, hoping for a glimpse of star or moon, and Frodo sighed in infinite relief. "It's done." He leaned up on his elbow so that he could look down into Sam's face, a smile gracing his own for the first time Sam could remember in far too long. "Thanks to you, my dear, faithful, Sam."
"I was only bein' truthful," Sam mumbled, not sure what to make of the praise.
"The last thing evil is ever prepared for, I believe." Frodo's thoughts suddenly went far away and were troubled, if Sam were any judge of his master's mind. "You won our quest for us, and not just with the honesty of your request."
"Me?" The word came out as a squeak, but the embarrassment from it was worth it when Frodo focused back on Sam.
"You," Frodo said seriously. "When Sauron... when I..."
"When the ring got up to its last bit of nastiness," Sam broke in firmly.
"Sam...."
When Sam wouldn't relent in the slightest in his version of events, Frodo went on mock-sternly, "Have your own way then." The flash of humor died quickly, and he blurted, "I saw what Sauron meant the future to be. For Middle Earth, for the Shire...for us! No, it was more than see; it was if I lived it, looking out of my own eyes as he used my body to destroy and enslave.....
Frodo's words wavered, like the air around them, bent and distorted by heat until they had no memory of their true shape. In them, Sam could see his master as a Dark Prince again, dressed in splendor, skin bronzed by flame and evil intent. He bent over Sam, testing the ropes that held Sam's hands over his head, for though he trusted Sam to wander where he would in his kingdom, in bed he would give him no freedom. Perhaps, Sam thought, it was because here that he did not trust himself.
What was left of Frodo - and to be sure, there was much and growing stronger, bit by bit, to judge by the tenderness Sam could find lurking in hidden gentle touches and unexpected kindnesses - always made its way to the fore after Sauron was done with his...pleasures. It made enduring the unwanted caresses easier, though Sam admitted to himself that he had learned to want them. From the first time he had discovered that lads had ways of pleasing each other, he had yearned for Frodo to be the one to teach him the particulars. He'd had no expectation of it happening, of course, if for no other reason than because Mr. Frodo would never take advantage of his station like that.
Yet here it *was* happening, after a fashion, with parts of it just as Sam had imagined so many times. Frodo, lithe and lean, rising over him, body obviously eager for intimacy, hands everywhere on Sam, wringing desire from him. His mouth on Sam's was hungry, demanding an answering hunger from Sam with urgent strokes of lips and tongue. Skin glided over skin in a way that brought the pleasure that he had hoped possible during his lonely nights with nothing but his own touch to relieve the ache of being a male.
For all that he could not help responding to dream turned reality, shame colored his face as much as passion. For instead of the endearments and praise he would have expected from Frodo, he was forced to listen to mockery and insults, given in the harshest, cruelest words. At best, there was only carelessness in the deed, if not deliberate cruelty, and the Dark Prince cared not if Sam found either comfort or release under his ministrations. For the most part, though, Sam did, berating his body for not behaving as it should and blankly accepting what was done.
The only solace he had was that it never happened until the very end, when the Dark Prince had spilled his unclean seed and tumbled away into what passed for rest for him. In the scant few moments between completion and sleep, blue would come back to Frodo's eyes, and a soft, sad smile would appear just for Sam. Always, always there was a tender caress, just where it was needed most, and Sam would be held through his trembling aftermath.
Sometimes, more and more often, there would be a word or two for him - and he had adamantly refused from the very first for it to *ever* be an apology or plea for forgiveness - usually encouragement with the faintest hint of hope in it. Frodo knew that if anybody could find a chance to take the Ring from Sauron now, it was Sam, and Frodo fought to undo what Sauron did, if only in little ways, to create that opportunity for him. Apparently what Frodo could not do for himself at Mt. Doom, he would gladly do for Sam.
Those words, existing only in Sam's mind, but for the second time, resonated, freed him from the grip of the illusion that fumes and extreme fatigue had made. With a hard shudder, he came back to the slowly dissolving island of rock, barely hearing Frodo's voice as he went on in his litany of horror.
"....Sam... he would have made you a body servant, a, a bedwarmer. He would have used you for physical release, savoring your pain and humiliation."
Innards twisting at the parody of love that might have been, Sam said stoutly, "Well, it didn't really happen, now did it? And now it never will."
With a shudder of his own, born from pain and exhaustion to guess by how strained he looked, Frodo lay back on the hillock rapidly disintegrating under them. "No," he said, "It never will," and there was something peculiar in the way he said it that prickled at Sam, but his own fatigue was pulling at him, and his eyelids drifted shut.
Frodo went on, tone changing to one of relief and pleasure. "At least, here at the end of all things, I am free of it. I can see the Shire. The Brandywine River. Bag End. Gandalf's fireworks. The lights. The party tree."
"Rosie Cotton dancing. She had ribbons in her hair," Sam murmured, picking the one thing besides his master and the gardens at Bag End that stood for all the simple comforts of kin and home. The memories of what was good in his life rose up to surround him, overshadowing the scalding, bitter air and deadly heat, carrying him to a peace he had never imagined. All that held him tethered to where his mortal form lay was the hand that resting ever so lightly in his.
finis