Golden

How long had he been laying in the garden? It had been almost an hour now, surely, and his skin would not survive against the abuse for much longer. He couldn't help it, though. It felt lovely on his face, and the sounds of the garden—the sound of flowers waving in the wind, the birds chirping, the buzz of honeybees—were seductive and made him want to remain as long as possible. A sense of peace had come over him, and though he knew it could not last, he was content for a while.

A shadow passed over his face. He thought it to be a cloud. It stayed, however, for long moments, shading some of the heat from his face, and clouds did not laugh low and warm in the back of their throats. He refused to open his eyes.

"Oh dear," muttered the voice that belonged to the not-a-cloud. "There's Mister Frodo, head trapped in the clouds again. I suppose I'll have to pull him down by the ankles once more. What a chore. I'm only hoping that someday he'll learn how to walk along on the ground like the rest of us."

Frodo couldn't help but smile. "As if you've ever actually attempted to pull me out of the clouds, Samwise Gamgee. I know for a fact that your brain is just as trapped in the dirt as mine is in the clouds."

"Way I'm seeing it, Mister Frodo, there's two ways as a person can interpret that what you just said," Sam said, and Frodo felt more than heard him sit down next to him. "At the moment, I'm not sure which you mean. I came out here to dig in the ground, sure enough, but seeing you laying here so pretty and bright…my brain went in quite another direction. Makes me want to occupy my hands in other ways, if you get my meaning." Frodo could hear the laughter in his voice.

Without opening his eyes, Frodo reached out and found Sam's hand, brought it to his mouth and kissed it. Sam's hands were large and callused and warm. They were nice hands. "I get your meaning, Samwise, and I also know that your Gaffer would wash your mouth out with soap if he could hear you now." Because he knew Sam to be blushing, Frodo laughed again and dropped the hand in his. "I, however, would have no problem with you occupying your hands in any fashion you wish."

Despite his words, Sam made no further move to touch him. He did lay down, however, because Frodo felt his hair against his forearm. It was hard to tell whether Sam was laying perpendicular or abreast, but Frodo didn't really care. They were hidden from the lane by Bag End itself—they were in the portion of the garden behind the smial, where the flowers bordered the vegetables. The only way anyone would be able to see them would be if they were sitting perched in the Party Tree. Sam did not risk detection by his Gaffer.

"Are we alone?" Frodo asked, in an almost-whisper. The day was still and calm, and to speak any louder would have disturbed it.

"Quite alone, sir," Sam mumbled. "Mister Bilbo has gone to town."

"Hmm." Frodo stroked a hand through Sam's curls, curved a finger over the outline of one ear. "If we are alone, Sam, may I make a request of you?"

"Anything, sir."

"Kiss me, my dear. Pull me out of the clouds and into your arms."

Sam did not deny him this, nor did he waste any time in complying. Frodo still wasn't sure how Sam laid beside him, whether he was propped on an elbow laying on his side lengthwise along Frodo's body, or whether he was propped on both elbows next to Frodo's head. He did know that Sam was coming in from the left side and that his hair was tickling his nose, which might have suggested that he was leaning far over, which would mean he was propped on both elbows. It was far from conclusive, however, and Frodo didn't care.

He licked his lips to moisten them before Sam's mouth covered his. The gardener's lips were always dry. It came with the occupation, he figured, and wasn't off-putting. He didn't think he'd ever find anything about Sam off-putting, even if he were covered in boils and smelt of spoiled eggs.

Okay, maybe the spoiled eggs.

But Sam did not smell of spoiled eggs—he spelled of clean earth and grass and, at the very moment, the irises under Frodo's window. His hair smelled like midsummer sunshine, and tickled Frodo's nose as they kissed. Giggling, Frodo pulled back and wound one hand behind Sam's neck, into the damp curls there. Kissed him lingeringly, and then touched the tip of his tongue to the indentation between Sam's nose and lips.

"You're in a mood," Sam murmured, and kissed Frodo's tongue. Frodo chortled. "When are you going to open your eyes, me dear, and let me see the most beautiful gems the Shire did ever see?"

"Shhh," Frodo mumbled, and then again because he wasn't sure he'd actually said it the first time. "Close your eyes, Sam, and breathe."

"I'm breathin'."

Frodo laughed. "No, Sam…it's…" he trailed off, as Sam leaned his forehead against Frodo's, and the sun on his body went away as Sam straddled him without touching him. Sam's eyelashes fluttered against his cheeks and he knew the gardener had closed his eyes. Slowly, he trailed a foot up Sam's thigh and murmured, "Feel, Sam. Just feel. Feel the grass under your fingers." He exhaled slowly, and kissed Sam's nose with his own. "Do you feel it?"

"The grass?"

"That, and…" trying to put the sense of peace, the sense of being part of the ground and feeling its sturdiness. "Have you ever felt like you don't know where you begin, and everything else ends?"

"Sometimes, sir," Sam whispered.

"It's like that." Frodo trailed his fingertips over Sam's face and tilted his head to the side. Unerringly he found Sam's lips, and hooked his leg over the broad small of Sam's back. Pulling back, he rested his head against the ground. "It feels like I've sunken into the ground and become part of it. I couldn't get up or open my eyes if I wanted to."

"That's a crying shame," Sam said. "For those eyes of yours are bluer than the sky on the clearest day, and prettier than all the flowers in the garden."

Oh Sam, he thought, and meant to say. But it slipped from his mind when Sam bent to kiss him again, and ran a broad hand down the curve of his thigh, and lit a slow burn in Frodo's lower stomach. His breath caught. It sounded loud to his own ears, although he knew it was only a whisper.

"You make quite a sight," Sam murmured into his clavicle.

"Shh," Frodo said again, and found Sam's face. Set his thumbs gently over Sam's eyelids. "You're not supposed to look."

"'s not fair."

Frodo giggled. "It is so. I've not got my eyes open."

"Well that's by choice, sir, and I'd choose to keep my eyes open."

Lifting his head from the ground, Frodo was surprised to find that there was no weight holding it down. He chuckled no in Sam's ear, and rolled his hips over until Sam was the one pinned, flat to the ground with his knees hiked up on either side of Frodo's hips. He nipped the tip of Sam's nose, then his upper lip, then his lower lip and sucked on it so it swelled. Sam hummed into his mouth and used his own suction to draw Frodo's upper lip into his own mouth. A strange perversion of a kiss.

"The ground hasn't as much a hold on you as you thought, Mister Frodo," Sam said, and Frodo hummed in agreement and buried his face in Sam's neck. He daren't leave a mark, lest Sam's gaffer see it and ask questions. Sam was barely a tween, after all, and sometimes Frodo felt guilty. Then he remembered that it had been Sam to bring flowers to his window like a courting lad, Sam to ask him to dance at the Lithe festival away from everyone else and underneath the stars, and Sam to kiss him first, and Sam whom had tupped him so sweetly in the apple orchard on the eve of Frodo's thirty-second birthday among the sweet scent of ripe fruit and the pecking of woodpeckers.

Touch me, Frodo thought he said, and brought Sam's hand up to a familiar bit of purchase on his upper thigh. Even if he had not spoken aloud, and only in his somewhat hazy mind, Sam got the message. He pressed his hand there—oh, he had lovely hands—and brought his thumb along the wrinkle between thigh and swell of bum. It tickled, but not the kind of tickling caused by digging fingers in sensitive places. A light tickle, a kind of sexy tickle.

Until then Frodo hadn't known tickles could be sexy. Sam taught him new things as surely as he taught Sam.

Frodo hummed and Sam murmured, "You like that?"

"Mm-hm." Frodo took Sam's earlobe between his teeth and murmured, "You have lovely hands."

"Not as lovely as yours," Sam murmured, and took one of Frodo's hands in his own. It set him nearly off-balance. "Long and thin. Smooth as a babe's bottom. Elegant, like."

Instead of replying—because there were times for talking and waxing poetic about who had the lovelier hands or the more lush lips and this was not one of them—Frodo swung a leg over Sam's so he was riding his knee, and slid down his thigh slowly. Sam groaned as if his thigh was an erogenous zone and palmed Frodo's entire buttock. Frodo wished he would give him a smack, just a light one. Enough to feel but not enough to sting.

Someday he'd ask Sam to bend him over his knee and spank him like he was a mischievous lad.

Frodo bent his head to Sam's mouth and pressed his eartip to Sam's lips. Sam took the hint and sunk his teeth, gentle but firm, into the tender flesh. Frodo keened and swung the other leg over Sam as well. He was not quite hard yet. A burn like too much liquid in his bladder began, although Frodo knew it was more too much love between his legs. It filled him up, made him firm.

"You've roused me," Frodo murmured in his ear. "You've tented my britches. Oh, Sam, you've made me hard."

Sam gasped as if he'd touched him, rather than just spoken. Gasped again when Frodo leaned back and sat. Then Frodo turned his face to the sky and just felt for a moment. He could feel Sam's stomach move with breath, and his hands where they laid on his bum and the nape of his neck each. He could feel Sam—Sam in the most carnal sense.

"Mister Frodo, me dear, let's go inside," Sam murmured.

"No," Frodo laughed, and leaned very close. "No, I don't want to go inside, Sam. I want you to tup me right here in my uncle's garden."

The sound of the swallow Sam gave rang loud and clear, and Frodo kissed him again, slowly and firmly. Sam's hands slid up his back, under braces and shirt, and curved a hand each over his prominent shoulder blades.

"You've got your eyes still closed," Sam said when Frodo pulled away.

"And they will remain so," Frodo murmured, "until you make them pop open." He hooked his ankles behind Sam's thighs, grinned, and flipped them over again.

"Mister Frodo!" Sam cried. "Your head's in the dirt!"

Curiously, Frodo reached behind his head and encountered first a bloom, of what flower he wasn't aware, then the leaves and finally the dirt, and Frodo concluded that yes, his head was indeed laying in one of the flower beds. He laughed and inquired, "Which flowers are these, Sam?"

"The daisies, sir," Sam replied.

"Well thank goodness it's not the roses," Frodo remarked, and picked one of the heads off the daisy bush. He held out it out to Sam and murmured, "For you."

"Thank you, sir." There was laughter in Sam's voice, and the flower left Frodo's hand to end up in places unknown. Then Frodo felt his teeth against his throat, and sucked in a lusty breath because, even though he could not mark Sam, Sam could mark him all he wanted. His legs hitched up on Sam's hips, and his ankles locked. His britches, unlaced at the knee, fell to his mid-thigh and one of Sam's hands found its way to his bare skin.

He slid his thumbs under his braces and slid them off his shoulders, then reached up to do the same to Sam's. The buckles clattering together made a sound loud enough to scare a bird in the tree, but hardly remarkable if one was to hear it over the garden wall, nor probably loud enough.

Sam's mouth left his neck and went away. He took Frodo under the thighs and pulled him by them until they were draped over Sam's lap and Frodo's bum had new purchase on the grass between his kneeling legs. Frodo laughed and the manhandling and rested his head back against the soft grass.

Everything had a vague undertone of mint. Frodo wondered if Sam had mown the lawn recently, because the mint had invaded the lawn and made it smell like mint whenever it was mown.

Did you mow the lawn? He meant to say, but what came out was a sniff and a question of "Mint?" as Frodo moved his hand over his own navel, over the thick curls going under his britches. He shivered, and touched himself, and thought about Sam being like the sun, bright and warm and golden.

"Hm," Sam replied, and whether it was confirmation or agreement, Frodo did not know. He knew that Sam then took a nipple in his mouth through Frodo's shirt, and rolled his tongue over it, and Frodo pulled on the drawstring at his waist, loosened the waistband with his thumbs, and brought them down over the apple of his hips.

Grass against his testicles. What a strange feeling.

"Ohh…that's…odd." He wriggled, and the feeling did not get any less strange. "That's very odd."

There had been a blanket, when this happened in the orchard.

"Alright?" Sam inquired against his chest.

Frodo said, "Hold on," and swung a leg fully over Sam's head slowly and carefully, then rolled over onto both knees, elbows in the dirt and bum in the air. The sun kissed his bare skin. He rested his forehead against his folded arms and smelled rich soil.

"And you tell me I have my head in the dirt," Sam said, and Frodo laughed. "There were easier ways as you could do that, you know, than to almost smack me upside the head."

Frodo muttered something that might have been 'not so fun,' and Sam took him by the hips, two fingers of each hand curved into the wrinkle between upper thigh and lower stomach, and pulled him back so his bare bottom was flush against Sam's covered front. He hummed his pleasure. Sam was warm and firm between his legs.

The warmth and firmness left for a moment, and Sam kissed the small of his back, then they were back without the covering of wool britches. Frodo's toes curled.

"How am I to tup you without anything to ease the way?" Sam inquired into the small of his back.

In answer, Frodo drew one of Sam's arms forward—the gardener had to bend far down, flush down Frodo's back—and drew Sam's first two fingers into his mouth. They, and Sam's harsh breathing, stayed there for long minutes, waiting for Frodo to cover them completely. Frodo could feel Sam's tense thighs, and the calluses on every finger, and the silky feel of Sam's hair as he rested his cheek between Frodo's shoulder blades and breathed, determinedly and deeply, against his skin.

Sam's fingers tasted like soil and sweat, and something bitter. He must have touched himself, in that moment when he'd been so far away. The thought bolted like lightning down Frodo's spine.

Frodo let the fingers go. Sam trailed the pad of one down, down the curve of his spine and between the two globes of his backside and slid it in up to the first knuckle. Frodo moaned low in his throat and spread his legs wider.

"Oh Sam, I love your hands," he mumbled.

"So you've mentioned, sir." Sam spoke with a low chortle.

Sighing, Frodo rested his cheek against his forearms and found his nose directly in a daisy. "I love your hands for the way they touch me, and the way they feel. I love your hands because they're broad and…and you can tear up weeds with them and then, then you touch me so gently…"

Sam made no comment, and slid in his other finger and pressed deep. Frodo groaned and his back arched. "Feels good."

"Like that?"

"Ohhh yes."

A trail of long, open-mouthed kisses was dragged along his shoulders. Frodo reached back and tangled a hand in Sam's hair. "I adore you, Sam. You know that? That I adore you? I think every time I see you, I adore you more and more. I'm afraid my heard may burst one day from how much I love you."

"Is that why you're not looking at me?" Sam asked, but he had no hurt in his voice. Only curiosity.

"No," Frodo assured nonetheless, although that may indeed have been part of it. "No, because I know that if my heart did burst, you would pick up the pieces and rebuild it. And it would be bigger and better than before."

"Oh, that I would Mister Frodo," Sam whispered, and splayed his unoccupied hand over Frodo's chest, over his heart, over his left nipple. As he removed the preparatory fingers, he said, "I'm going to tup you now," and he made it sound like it was a casual airing of intentions, like they were standing in the kitchen of Bag End and he'd said 'I'm going to prune the roses now, Mister Frodo,' or 'I think I should be going home, sir.' He said, "I'm going to tup you now," and although casual, the words ignited in Frodo's belly and turned the smolder into an honest flame. He bit his lip and whimpered.

Sam heard it.

"Mister Frodo?" Sam asked. "Are you in pain? Should I stop?"

"No!" Frodo cried. "No, Samwise Gamgee! If you stop now I will turn around and I will sit on you if that's what I must do because if I don't have you inside of me within the next five seconds…"

Sam chuckled and rubbed his back. "Alright, sir. But you just tell your Sam if it gets too much."

"I," Frodo grumbled, and meant to continue "Have been doing this since you were barely higher than my waist, Samwise Gamgee," or something to that effect, but Sam parted him with thumbs dug into his tender flesh. He pushed, hot and firm, into Frodo. Pushed in until Frodo was full, fit to burst, and Frodo had to resist releasing a noise that would have startled more than the birds in the tree. Probably would have stirred the entire population of Bagshot Row and beyond. Instead, he gritted his teeth as though in pain and rested his forehead on his hands and groaned "Sam…" and bit his cheek until he tasted blood.

A kiss was dropped onto the back of his neck.

"My Sam," Frodo mumbled.

"Oh, indeed sir," Sam murmured, and Frodo felt one of his plump cheeks rest against his back. A slow rhythm began at their hips, rocking Frodo into the bush and back every time. A small gasp escaped his mouth every time Sam filled him; a small, stunted sound. He dropped his shoulder and took a handful of dirt in his hand, and listened to the sound it made as it hit the bed and rejoined its brethren.

Sam licked sweat from his back. A groan escaped one of them—Frodo couldn't accurately judge whether it had come from his own throat or not. Sam took a handful of his arse and said, "Finest rump in all the Shire," and Frodo laughed, because was there a part of him that wasn't the finest? Finest eyes and finest rump, according to Sam, and also according to Sam fairest skin and silkiest hair. He found himself wondering if Sam had personally tested this theory on every hobbit in the Shire.

Laughed again. Felt warm.

Warmth all down his back. He wasn't sure where warmth from the sun ended and warmth from Sam began. Sam was making little humming noises, like he might make around a fork laden with good food or a mug full of good ale. Good food, good ale, a nice smoke, a tup. Pleasures a hobbit could not resist. Sam made love to him like he could stay there forever, like he would stay inside Frodo until the sun went down and the night got too chill to stay.

Frodo knew neither of them had the patience, but it was a nice thought. A nice, slow, long tup had never done a hobbit harm. It was quite nice, actually, this slow burn, this haziness that had set into his brain. This lack of responsibility for anything but feeling—Grass under his knees and soil in his hands, a daisy tickling his nose and, of course, Sam between his legs, oh Sam—and smelling—flowers and mint and sex—and listening—to the leaves in the breeze, the birds tittering their displeasure in the tree, Sam's labored breathing and his monosyllabic protestations into his shoulder…

A particular movement made Frodo's toes curl quite suddenly. He jerked and gave a strangled yelp of, "Sam!"

Sam asked, "There?" and Frodo said, "Yes!" and Sam realigned himself. Almost to himself, Sam muttered, "That's your sweet spot, that is," and Frodo would have laughed if his mouth wasn't mindlessly agape with pleasure. It was almost too much, and his arms began to shake.

"Ohhh, stop, stop."

Without question, Sam ceased. Frodo pulled away, laid flat on the ground, and drew his legs up again. "Here, this will be better. I couldn't hold myself up much longer."

"All the better to kiss you, me dear," Sam murmured, and bent to do just that as he filled Frodo once more, and Frodo wrapped his legs around Sam's waist to use as leverage to pull himself up, to help Sam find that spot inside him again. He splayed a hand across Sam's back, slick with sweat, and dug the pads of his fingers into Sam's skin. It was instinct, born from his early escapades in hay with some of the Brandybuck boys when he'd been in his early tweens. They had scratched their nails down his back, and he theirs.

That had been carnal. This was different. Those tweens could not have found an erogenous zone on each other if they had been provided with a map—and Frodo, for that matter, could not have found one on any of them—so the pain had been almost a replacement for pleasure. Here there was too much pleasure for pain.

But that did not mean that Frodo did not like it when Sam bit into the tip of his ear, or the beautiful burn of being stretched so far. Sam groaned when Frodo pulled his hair, when he bit his lower lip. To be honest, Frodo didn't think that Sam would mind if he dragged his nails down his back—as long as Sam got to do it to Frodo in return.

There were too many people that might have seen it, however, on Sam. Sometimes the days got so hot in the summer that Sam could not bear the idea of working in a shirt.

Perhaps in the winter. Perhaps he would fill Sam's belly of hard cider or warm mead or mulled wine and seduce him into his bed and scratch his nails down Sam's back and scream, "Sam!" loud enough to shake the window, knowing that the sound would never make it past the walls of the smial and the muffling snow to Sam's Gaffer's window.

If he screamed that loud today, the inhabitants of Bywater would surely hear. Besides, they were not nearly so frenzied as to produce that kind of noise.

Sam's fingers carded through his hair, and Frodo felt little pieces of dirt fall onto his face. He knew he would need a bath when this was all over, and it would have to be immediate lest Bilbo return home and ask why he'd been rolling in the flower beds. Not, of course, that Bilbo would have really cared what he'd been doing—as long as it hadn't hurt the flowers. Frodo knew Bilbo had his suspicions, and that he was perhaps a bit to lax in regards to hiding his feelings for Sam.

"You'll need a wash." Sam huffed out a chuckle into Frodo's neck, and pressed his lips there.

"I know," Frodo replied, and lifted himself up to meet Sam. "Oh, there, right there."

A slight shift of angle had Frodo groaning involuntarily, slightly wantonly, upwards. It sounded animalistic to his own ears. Sam hushed him, and Frodo bit his lip, and Sam kissed him soundly on the lips. Sam tasted like the air on a sunny day smelled, oh he tasted like happiness.

"Were we anywhere else, me dear, I'd only love to hear those sweet noises," Sam murmured against his mouth. "But moaning as you are, you'd let the whole Row know what we're doing."

Frodo laughed against Sam's cheek. It felt like it should have been him making these assurances—it hadn't been so long ago when he'd hushed Sam and murmured reassurances as they took pleasure from each other for the first time. Sometime in the last few months, the tables had turned. Sam was timid around his father, but he was not naturally so—and it came out at moments like this. Frodo couldn't say he minded confidence in Sam.

Into Frodo's cheek, Sam murmured, "Do you remember, Mister Frodo, when you said you'd sit on me?"

"Yes," Frodo said slowly.

"Do you think you might do that now?"

It took Frodo a moment to realize what Sam meant, but then he laughed and said, "Yes, I think I might," and rolled his hips over, without ever letting Sam leave him. Sam yelped, obviously not expecting his request to be fulfilled quite so immediately and suddenly, and he said, "Well now it's my head in the dirt! I'll need a wash too."

"We might share," Frodo remarked, and rolled his hips because he could feel release building in his lower back and too much delay might send it away. Sam gripped his hips, and Frodo decided that this arrangement was ingenious and that Sam was the smartest hobbit in the Shire for proposing that they switch into it. His own weight bore him down perfectly so Sam's entire length slid into him at every drop of his hips.

He reached for Sam's hand, and gripped it, and felt Sam's other hand find his aching erection. He gasped, "Oh, Sam," and rolled his hips thrice in quick succession—one-two-three—before he reigned himself in and managed to slow down again, but there was no prolonging it any longer. He could feel orgasm starting in his toes, moving rapidly up his legs, and once it hit his thighs, oh—

"Frodo," Sam groaned. "Oh, me dear, I think—"

"Yes," Frodo groaned. A ball of pure pleasure built under his stomach, he could smell everything and hear nothing but the blood rushing through his own ears and Sam's panting, and for a second he was floating, he was weightless with Sam—

"I'm coming!" he announced, and proceeded to do just that. He heard it hit Sam's chest, and the groan Sam made in response, and finally the twitching of Sam's stomach as he twitched within him and filled him with seed.

It took Frodo a moment to realize that his eyes were open.

The sky was clear and blue. It was sometime after noon.

He looked down, at the hobbit below him. Sam's golden skin, shimmering with sweat and dotted with the evidence of Frodo's release. Sam's golden hair, and the brown-flecked-with-gold eyes crinkled in a smile at him. Sam was golden.

"Hello, Sam," he whispered, and Sam ran a hand along his cheek.

"There's them eyes," Sam replied.

"Have I ever told you," Frodo murmured, "That I love you?"

"If what you just did wasn't telling me you loved me," Sam laughed, "I don't now what is."

Frodo laughed too, and smiled because seeing Sam's smile was better than what his mind's eye could conjure up. He wanted to get up and bathe before Bilbo returned—there was grit in his hair and Sam's seed was dribbling down his thigh most unpleasantly—but for the moment, he stayed, and looked at Sam.

Sam was beautiful.

End

Notes: I'm not exactly sure why I wrote this or what particular message it has behind it, but I liked it. Also I wanted to get something out for LotR. Also because I wanted to be distracted from Hamlet because it was amazingly, mind-numbingly hard to stay focused on that stuff for any considerable about of time.

Thanks for reading, and if you want alerts for when I've posted new stories you can either subscribe to me on FFN or follow me on Tumblr at detective inspector narwhal, no spaces.