Sneakyone.gollums-precious.1.var -

The Shire was dark, not with the wholesome black of a summer night, but with the oily, creeping gloom that had bled out of Mordor. Frodo felt the weight of the Ring like a cold, contracting fist around his soul. Sam was asleep, his breathing a soft, trustworthy rhythm against a mossy root.

“It burns us, doesn’t it, precious?” Gollum hissed, staring not at Frodo’s face, but at his clenched fist. “Yes. It whispers. Always whispering.”

“We swears,” he breathed, crawling backward into the shadows until only his eyes remained. “We swears on… our Precious. The one that’s still yours. For now.”

SneakyOne.

“No,” Frodo whispered, more to himself than to Gollum. “I’m not like you.”

Gollum reached out a trembling hand, palm up. Not to grab. To beg.