Agree with everything except this — Frodo doesn’t die, instead he goes to the undying lands where he can rest and heal and basically stay immortal until he’s ready to die. And in the postscript to LOTR, once Sam has had a full life and his wife dies, he sails to the undying lands to be with Frodo once more.

I definitely believe that they were in love. The best fanfiction I ever read was called All That I Had and was about Frodo and Sam, recontextualising the canon and what’s unsaid towards the end of LOTR, as a love story. Frodo is gay, Sam is bi but wants children. They end up being in a V shaped polyamorous relationship with Rosie, where Sam is with both Frodo and Rosie. Except Frodo has a wasting illness and melancholy caused by his trauma and eventually has to leave Middle Earth else he will die. But the story shows their reunion in the Undying Lands.