FIC: Hourglass - Chapter Two - Black Ice

Here you go - finished on time! I hope you enjoy part two - there's hotness, snow and a little angsting. More to follow, soon! :)FIC: Hourglass - Chapter Two - Black IceAUTHOR: IgrainePAIRING: F/S F/OCRATING: NC-17 - this part is mild R (sorry folks, you'll have to be patient!)TIMELINE: Pre-quest.SUMMARY: Frodo is drawn onto a dangerous path but can Sam protect what isn't his?DISCLAIMER: These characters belong to Tolkien. I merely borrow them and promise to return them unharmed. I make no money from these stories.Chapter Two – Black IceIf Sam had possessed the power to stop time – he would have chosen that moment and frozen it – so that he might look at it again and again, reliving and reviving. Frodo pressed so close against him, he could feel the sharp bones of his shoulder digging into his skin, through the fabric of his shirt. Sam’s heart thudded and his eyes dared not stray from their fixed point – the carved rose in the ceiling, burgeoning and blossoming, entwined by thorns. When he breathed in, shallow and shuddering, he breathed in his Frodo – the sweet skin beneath the dusty cotton, the ink and leather stained fingers, the winter herbs with their powerful fragrances still lingering on his lips and his tongue. All of this and more that could not be caught. Frodo laughed lightly, his foot still curled around Sam’s calf, stroking in a slow, leisurely manner. “It’s all right, Sam, you needn’t look so frightened – I won’t tell.” Sam dragged his eyes away from the flickering shadowed rose, golden and shining, awakening in the darkness, like the promise of love - and he looked at Frodo and saw lightness and laughter shining within bright, eager eyes. There was no terror there, no tenuous flame – only amusement and a little nervous anticipation. “Well?” he said, stroking Sam slowly with his toe, seeming amused by Sam’s discomfiture.Sam shuffled a little more upright and turned his head to the window, where the snow had already begun to settle and two inches of darkness covered the bottom of the glass. He spoke quietly, his voice half shaken. “Once, when everyone was asleep, I walked naked in the snow.” He knew what this meant. He knew the decision he was making and the seal he had put on it by his choice of revelation. He was setting out on a dangerous and forbidden path, one from which he might never return. His eyes fell to his lap, where the evidence of his desire swelled the front panel of his breeches, his hands ineffectually trying to hide and disguise, but only drawing Frodo’s eyes down. “Wasn’t it cold?” Frodo asked quietly, the smooth strokes of his toes slowing a little.“Yes, it was freezing, my fingers turned blue.”“But you knew that, of course, you just wanted to feel how it felt.”Sam nodded and twisted his hands awkwardly, heat rising and falling as if the hearth was inside him and all the light and burning in the room emanated from him. Frodo was silent for a while, all movement ceased and stilled. Frodo was unreadable sometimes, and Sam loved him for his thoughtfulness, but now it was troubling. “Was it worth it – was it good?” Frodo asked, turning his gaze full upon him, flaring the love in Sam, catching it bright and leaping.Sam opened his mouth to speak, but his eyes were fixed on Frodo’s full, curving mouth, so like a flower opening and closing. He longed to run his tongue along the measure of it until it closed around him and welcomed him within. “Was it good?” Frodo repeated, watching Sam intently.“It was cold,” he replied, tilting his head, drawn in. Frodo’s eyes flickered closed and the breath he exhaled shuddered across Sam’s mouth as it rested over his. Frodo twisted his body so that he lay half across Sam’s lap, his arms rising up to tangle in the curls that grew soft in the nape of Sam’s neck.Sam was drowning, his eyes shut tight, as their tongues moved together in a slow rhythm, deeper and deeper. Sam moaned and Frodo tightened his grip, moving his knees to either side of Sam’s sturdy hips, and pulling him closer. Sam’s body pressed up instinctively and Frodo rubbed his hips slowly, up and down. Sam could taste the ale and the rosemary in Frodo’s mouth and he knew that Frodo would taste the same in his. Only when the kiss finally softened to light sucks and bites and Frodo tried to draw away a little, holding Sam’s face between his hands, did Sam remember to breathe. He raised a hand and touched his fingers against Frodo’s swollen lips, pink and half parted. Frodo closed his eyes, dark lashes fanning over pale skin, and slid Sam’s finger inside his mouth, sucking tightly, until both cheeks were hollows of darkness. Sam gasped and his other hand raked through Frodo’s silken hair, grasping and smoothing restlessly. When Frodo released the finger, pushing it out with the tip of his tongue, he sighed deeply and fell against Sam, his face pressed into his chest, right where Sam’s heart was hammering. Sam embraced Frodo with a burning possessiveness and waited, feeling the hope inside him stretching as thin and perilous as a tightrope. Once he had stood at the mantel piece in his work clothes, holding the hourglass, and hoping the last grain of sand might leap up and begin the hour all over again. Wanting the time to belong to him only so he might follow the urges of his heart. That was what made him take off all his clothes and walk in the snow. The silence of the night and the dead of winter, with no one to dictate, only him, making his own choices. “Frodo…” he whispered, more a breath than real words spoken, his mouth seeking, hands travelling down Frodo’s back, cupping and cradling. Frodo moaned softly from deep within his throat, and suddenly his hips began to move in quick, startled thrusts, hardness grinding repeatedly against Sam’s own sensitive flesh. Sam gasped at the sudden burning pleasure that trod so close to pain. He gripped his fingers tightly around fragile shoulders, his mouth moving on pale, cool skin that tasted so good, he wanted to devour it. Sam moaned aloud, his tongue moving in restless circles upon what he could reach, the soft white skin which the curls had laid bare on Frodo’s neck, a place untouched by the sun and soft as a babe. He grasped Frodo’s hips and urged him on, despite the agony of the cloth chafing between them, cruel and insensitive. He longed to feel Frodo’s skin against his own, but he could do nothing but bite down blindly as the orgasm took him too soon and Frodo sobbed, loud in the quiet room and sagged against him once more, breathing heavily. Frodo sat up and brushed the hair out of heavy lidded eyes, his breathing ragged and his cheeks flushed. Sam wanted to speak. He wanted to raise his hand and pull Frodo back into a lover’s kiss, but he did neither – only lolled against the settee, his legs splayed on the rug like an unstrung marionette - watching, dumbstruck and amazed. He raised his eyes as Frodo staggered to his feet, lurching a little and holding onto the mantel piece for support, his eyes drawn to the flames. The sand had drained to the bottom of the glass. There was a sparkling garden within it now – glittering silver like a frosty night. But the time was done and Sam would go home. He stood, his legs trembling beneath him. He waited until there seemed no more sense in waiting. “Same time tomorrow then, sir?” he said, uncomfortably aware of his sodden and crumpled breeches.Frodo didn’t move. “Five o’clock,” he said softly, “in your own time.”“Aye,” Sam sighed, looking around for his coat and hat. “In the kitchen,” Frodo offered, still as a statue, his profile bathed in gold. “Right then,” Sam mumbled, “Night, sir.”“Sleep well, Sam.”Sam inclined his head and left the room. Wandering into the dark kitchen, he found his discarded hat and coat and pulled them on, his body still throbbing as he pushed open the door and latched it from the inside. The icy air struck him and scorched his warm cheeks as he strode out into the bright, new world laid out before him, still and pensive, awaiting the tread of his feet and the bloom of his hot breath on the unbroken air. If only he had turned back then – spoken to Frodo one word of love. But he was entranced and drunk, walking out into the white world thinking himself blessed, blissfully unaware that the fragile thread of his dream was already breaking in the warm room he had abandoned. ~~~Sam was woken early the next morning, dragged from a dreamless sleep that weighted him so deeply, it was difficult to rise, despite the Gaffer’s hard words and insistent barking cough that rent the air.“Mari – fetch the bucket!” Daisy shouted from the kitchen.“Get up, you slug-a-bed – you’d be sleeping whilst other folk’s are freezing from the cold.” Sam felt a cold splash of water on his cheek and he sleepily brushed it off with the back of his hand, frowning. “Samwise Gamgee – you should be ‘shamed of yourself!” Another cold splash and a trickle raced down his neck, bringing him round to cold consciousness and a pounding head. “Drinking on a work night, dad’s in a thunder, Sam. I’d be on my feet if I were you.”Sam dragged his body from the bed and he felt a net of butterflies rising in his stomach. Another splash of water. “All right, all right,” he grumbled, “You can put the bucket down now, Mari, I’m up.”Mari smiled and shook her head, looking too bright for such a dark and early hour on a cold morning, but she put the bucket down. “The ice has froze the water, Sam and half of Hobbiton needs digging out.”Sam shivered in the cold room and pulled on a woollen shirt from the chest at the foot of his bed. Then he found an overcoat of soft green fleece and the hat made by his mother’s hands and put them on also. On his way through the kitchen, he grabbed a hunk of bread and a mug of strong tea, which he consumed standing. He downed the tea in three long gulps, which seared his throat and swallowed down his bread without tasting it.“I’ll be off then, dad,” he said, bracing himself against the icy air that drifted in through the doorframe. “You’ll be going nowhere without a good breakfast inside of you!” Mari said firmly, ladling thick porridge into four wooden bowls. “Where you off to in such a rush, anyway?” His dad raised his grey eyes from the mug of tea he was stirring sugar into and fixed his son with a stare. “Bag End – where else?” Mari said, passing the bowls around the table and giving Sam a sly and amused glance. “Well Mr Frodo ain’t the only hobbit we should be serving today, Sam,” his dad continued. “There’s plenty more in need of a strong hand. Bag End will do well enough, there’s water on tap there and storerooms stocked up to the roof – himself won’t freeze nor starve.” He started scooping porridge into his mouth, grey it looked and unappetising. “Eat.” He indicated the empty chair and, for Sam, the world suddenly condensed back into orders and commands, subservience and duty, his dad would brook no arguments in his home. Sam sank into the empty chair and began to eat. ~~~The fierce cold bit into Sam’s hands, even through the thick leather gloves he wore, lifting the snow away from the Widow’s door, block by block, the whiteness blinding him as he blinked in the stark light. The sun, having reached its full height now began to fall in the pale red sky. The black snow clouds were re-gathering their strength and still there was so much snow to clear, Sam was beginning to despair. He had been left to finish the job – his dad’s cough having worsened during the morning. By lunch time he had been doubled over and shivering fit to jolt the teeth from his head – so Sam had sent him home and promised to finish the work himself, shovelling and scraping a path for the Widow to tread, from her front door to the road beyond. His dad had been reluctant to give in to what he saw as weakness, but Sam had managed to sound firm and competent enough to re-assure him and he had walked home without a second glance. The widow watched Sam’s progress from the window, all wrapped in spidery shawls, pointing at the snow as if she might dispel it with sheer impatience. Sam tried not to give in to the angry frustration that he felt churning inside and turned with another heap of snow loaded in the barrow, pushing it unsteadily down the icy little track he had cleared and piling it onto the drifted bank outside the garden wall. When he straightened, he clapped his hands to dislodge the snow from them and looked down the hill to the Water. Frozen overnight, it reflected the sky – red swallowing red – with skittering black shapes moving over it – small as ants – slowly sliding from one bank to the other. Sam shook his head; some have nowt better to do.A soft flake of snow settled on the tip of his nose as he watched a small black shape sliding across the ice on one foot, like a black crow circling an arc in a wintry sky. Halfway across, he lost his balance and fell - the ice creasing beneath him in a thousand tiny wrinkles - thin and dangerously close to breaking. Sam frowned, the water would be cold enough to still the blood and the ice was groaning audibly in the still air, it’s lilting sighs reaching Sam’s ears and sparking alarm. He started to walk down the hill, leaving his barrow on the path, still brushing snow from his hands, even as his feet began to run. More snowflakes were falling now, deceptively soft and whispering against his ears, cold searing his skin. What time is it? Will it soon be dark? Has the hour passed already? The voice in his head ran on as he closed the distance to the water, his feet skidding and sliding.He will be in the study now, listening to the time passing, feeling the cold stiffening of his fingers as they flex around his pen, drained of ink, a white mountain of papers at his elbow. The cold will be intensifying, the hearth grey and dead – waiting to be lit. As the snow clouds gather, the light will fade until he can hardly make out the words he writes, blinking and rubbing tired eyes, as if the fault is his own and not the snow that enfolds him, closing him in the smial alone. I will come to you, Frodo, soon, he promises. There are cries on the air, shouts and wails and confusion as the snowflakes fall thick and fast upon the drifted fields, over the ice, forming patterns like lace. “Hoy! Hoy there!” There were shouts even before Sam reached the bank. He ploughed on, grasping a rope from someone’s hands, bracing his feet on the slippery bank, calling out to grab, snow filling his mouth. The hobbits behind him were heaving with all their strength and the ice, hidden in a blizzard, creaked, snapped and groaned, broken plates moving and sliding down, opening into blackness and oblivion. A crowd had gathered on the bank – gawping and gasping – as if this were some great entertainment put on for their amusement and the hobbit in the water, perfecting a conjuring trick, as he emerged from the ice, blue and dripping – his body a crumpled, stiff doll lying on the snowbank. A matron ran forwards, her arms full of blankets and wrapped the doll up tightly, tutting and shaking her head. Having done her duty, she shuffled away with the crowd, back to her warm smial, taking her daughter’s arm and walking, head down and whispering out of the corner of her mouth. Many more moved off; the spectacle over, all were anxious to return to their cosy firesides and a warm drink of cider to thaw the chill. Soon all that were left were Sam and those that had risked their lives upon the ice. The snow was easing off, the heavy flakes giving way to exhausted tiny fragments of wet ice that slivered down his neck and into his ears. Sam looked at his companions, observing them clearly for the first time. Two stood close together, muttering and watching the marks their footprints made in the snow, scuffing and dirtying the pristine white, their heads bowed close. They looked like brothers. The hair on the heads of these hobbits was as black as the ice at the bottom of the water and grew long and twisted about their necks. One of the hobbits had braided his in places with the brightly coloured rags his sisters sometimes used to create ringlets. But there was nothing feminine about the faces of these two strangers – they had black eyes and strong, fierce countenances, long full mouths and high, sharp cheeks. Their clothes were rough and mended, around their necks were brightly patterned scarves and on their feet - long boots that reached their knees. Sam stared openly at the boots, for it wasn’t often seen and affirmed Sam’s belief that these were travellers, passing through on their way to the Yule Fair at Michel Delving in two weeks time, probably hoping for a bit of work along the way to keep the wolf from the door. They were often seen passing through Hobbiton in the folds of the year – at Yuletide and Lithe. They were tolerated but not welcomed by the small minded folk who were always suspicious of those who kept different ways. But Sam had a more generous view – for he had worked with many, in the fields and orchards and found them to be, in the main, hardworking and generous as long as you minded their privacy. They were good storytellers too and fond of music. Sam had spent many a long evening beside them listening to the pipe or hearkening to the tales and had felt, within his soul, a kinship and acceptance that he had long been craving. When they moved on he would feel their loss and the world would seem quieter and duller – as if a single, bright colour had been drained from his life. He looked down at the hobbit crouching over his friend who lay shivering in his arms.“Can he walk, or shall I give you a hand carrying him back? My place is near; we’ll warm him up and give him some broth. He needs to be warmed up quick as possible – a bath would be best – except we haven’t the water – we’re heating up ice and it takes a long while to warm.” The hobbit raised his head, cool grey eyes meeting his in deep mistrust. “He can walk,” he said.~~~Together they managed to raise the shaking body to its feet and Sam bent his head to look into a face half shielded with black hair, waves of which clung to pale lips and half closed eyes the colour of shadow. They rolled upwards and pierced him, as if they were prying into his soul. Sam shivered and turned away. “Here, I’ll lift him from this side, you take the other arm,” he spoke quickly, briskly taking control, even as the strangers exchanged dark glances with each other and, regarding him with obvious suspicion, formed an impenetrable circle around their companion.“Do you want your friend to live?” he asked, and watched them share a second look before circling and lifting, one beneath the other arm, the other two hefting from behind, supporting and lifting the half drowned hobbit and carrying him up the road, striding over the icy ridges left by the scraping shovels. Sam slipped and gritted his teeth as he climbed, but the boots served the strangers well and they didn’t falter once upon the hill. They reached Number Three, still thankfully accessible from without. “Bring him through!” Sam urged. The others paused, lingering on the doorstep, sharing unsettled glances, urgent and meaningful as if they were communicating through thought. Bring him through, Sam had said. Bring him through. Bring him into the warm…They carried him into the small, cramped kitchen of Number Three. They were large for hobbits and seemed to fill the little space, as if there wasn’t room for them and their shadows that spilled across the homely table, set for dinner. Daisy was at the stove, stirring the evening meal in the pot. She paused as they entered; the wooden spoon half raised to her mouth, ready to taste. Her eyes widened and her mouth stilled, slightly open. “Here, Daisy, give us a hand!” Sam grunted, urging the others forwards and settling the trembling body into his Gaffer’s comfortable chair beside the fire – now roaring with fresh logs donated by the Cottons. Once he was set down – the hobbit’s head fell back and he seemed to fall into a swoon, cold convulsions making his full lips clench and then flex over and again. His cheeks were flushed and his dark eyes roved behind wet tendrils of curling hair. Despite his instinct to seek remedies and blankets, Sam stilled for a moment and stared. The hobbit looked young, younger than he had first thought and frailer than the other three, who were standing over him like black guardians, frowning and shuffling their booted feet on the wooden floor. Daisy stared, frowning down at their feet. “Sam?” she hissed, pulling him aside. “Sam? Why’ve you brought them here?” He grabbed Daisy by the shoulder and pulled her against the hearth, feeling his own unease stirring at the sight of his sister’s anxious eyes and wringing hands, twining within his own. “Sam! You’re half frozen, yourself. Here…” she ladled him some broth into a mug and passed it into his stiff, red hands. “What else could I do? Sit and watch a hobbit die beside the Water? Do nowt?”“You’re too good, Sam, you’ll get you’self into trouble one of these days…”Sam attempted a smile as he walked over to the group of hobbits huddled over the fire, their hands outstretched. He passed the mug to the hobbit in the chair, who had sat up a little and was leaning over towards the blaze, his face illuminated in all of its mysterious angles and planes. It was a young face, but a worldly one and Sam was as uneasy as he was enthralled. Sam offered him the mug and he reached out trembling hands to take it from him. After taking a deep sip, he looked up and rewarded Sam with a look – eye to eye. “Thanks,” he said, in an accent that Sam couldn’t place. The hobbit took two more sips, then his head fell back once more and he closed his eyes. “Sam?” Mari stood in the doorway to the bedrooms, her eyes starting from her head. “What?”The strangers turned to look and Sam moved forwards, pushing Mari back into the dark corridor that separated one bedroom from the other. “I found him in the Water, half drowned. They’d been walking on the ice,” he muttered, briefly, already wanting this to be over – wishing and regretting – his mind full of Frodo. “Walking on the ice – idiots! Well, they deserve all they get, if you ask me. Well, we can’t look after him here, Sam.”“Mari, be generous. They live in wagons - there’ll hardly be warmth enough there to keep him alive!” Mari shook her head and folded her arms, looking the image of his Ma. “Dad’s taken bad, we’ve enough to do with keeping him comfy. There’s no hot water – and no spare bed and – well – look at ‘em - really Sam, what were you thinking?”Sam shook his head. “So I shall turn them out, then? Have you been out, Mari? It’s freezing, there’s black ice on the roads.”Mari sighed deeply and took Sam by the scruffy curls on the top of his head, twisting and shaking gently. “The answer’s staring you in the face – numbskull!” Sam blinked and looked Mari in the eye as she gentled her hand and ran a light caress across his cheek. “Take him up the Hill,” she said.To be continued...