One night Sam was rudely awoken by a stifled scream in the bed next to him. His eyes shot open immediately but before he could respond a heavy weight landed on his chest and knocked the breath out of him. Once his sight had adjusted to the dark he found himself looking upwards at wildly staring blue eyes inches from his own.
He swallowed, willing his heart to slow. 'Frodo?'
Frodo said nothing, only growled, pulling Sam and Rosie closer together so that he could straddle them both. Rosie met Sam's gaze, her eyes round with surprise and a hint of fear. Sam moved to sit up but Frodo pushed him back against the pillows, surprisingly strong. Rosie stifled a little gasp.
From this angle, Frodo was lithe and feral, the white moonlight forming a halo around frazzled, tossed curls, planing across the hard edges of thin arms wrapped in tight chords of muscle. His night shirt was open at the top, revealing the narrow chest and pale skin marred only by the thick ring of scar tissue around his neck where It had slowly choked him. The white jewel was gone, and Sam found himself frantically trying to think of the date.
'Frodo, what's wrong?'
His eyes half-closed, rolling upwards, and for a moment Sam thought that he would either come back to them or collapse, but then they opened again, burning with a darkly playful light that Sam had never seen, one so different from his other moods. 'Hungry!'
Rosie was quick to play the comforting mother, reaching out a trembling hand to touch his forearm. 'Do you want some tea, or a light something, some toast, maybe!?'
He snarled again, snatching her small wrist in a four fingered grip, and to Sam the growl sounded more like laughter, quick and sharp. The silver light flashed on his teeth, caught briefly on a berserker grin, and settled on illuminating the little drops of sweat that trickled from his flushed skin. He leaned in close between their necks and Sam could feel the heat radiated from the fevered skin, wondered briefly at what illness had left Frodo so before his ear was caught in hot breath and he was beyond thinking.
Frodo chuckled, the sound rattling deep in his chest, and nuzzled roughly at their curled heads. 'That's not what I meant!'
~