Wherever You Are Is Home Chapter Six - "Confessions and Miscalculations" It is 1405 in the Shire Reckoning Pippin is 15, Merry is 23, Sam is 25, Pimpernel is 26 and Frodo is 37 "Happy Birthday, Meriadoc." Merry opened one eye, and narrowed it blearily at the not-quite-so-little-anymore hobbit that was pinning him to the bed. Pippin smiled winningly, and kissed Merry's nose. Merry opened the other eye, and narrowed it too, but Pippin seemed not to notice. He tugged one of Merry's sandy curls hard, and pinched him. "Oi, Pip." Merry grunted, batting the pinching fingers away. "It is early for that." He grunted again when Pippin moved to straddle his waist, digging his rump into his stomach. "But it is your birthday." Pippin said, bouncing excitedly. Merry grunted once more when Pippin's bouncing set off a tingling in his groin. It was early for that, too. "So what do you want for your birthday?" Pippin asked. "I want to go back to sleep." Merry said, frowning at the sun as it glared at him through the window. "Fine, grumpy." Pippin said, too cheerfully for the early hour. Pippin laid down on top of him, and slid off to curl up in the crook of his arm. "Fine." Merry said. He winced as Pippin's leg brushed his half-awake erection, and his breath caught, hoping Pippin didn't notice. Pippin didn't notice, but Merry was still uneasy. If it kept happening, he was going to notice. "Go to sleep, then." Pippin said. Merry did. "Happy Birthday, Meriadoc." Merry opened an eye, but was surprised to find that the familiar weight sitting on him was not Pippin. It was a tray of food. "What's this?" Merry asked. "Breakfast in bed." Pippin announced. He sat down on the bed next to Merry, and waited, a bit impatiently, for his cousin to lift the cloth off the tray. "Oh, I love you." Merry said as he lifted the edge of the cloth, catching sight of butter scones with a pot of blackberry jelly. "I love you, too." Pippin said. "Now, hurry up with that cloth. I am starving." "Oh!" Merry said, snatching a fork up off the tray, and wielding it like he meant to defend his breakfast. "I thought this was my breakfast." "Its ours." Pippin said. He snatched a piece of bacon and started nibbling on it. Glancing at the tray, he noticed that Pippin had brought an extra fork. Giving his cousin a dry look, he handed it to him. They ate quietly, intend on the task at hand. Especially Merry, who had slept through first breakfast, and needed second breakfast to count twice as much. It seemed Pippin had obviously accounted for this, considering the amount of food he had brought. "Get dressed." Pippin said, laying the tray aside when they had finished eating. "I hope you don't think that you are going to lay in bed all day, just because it is your birthday." "I had thought on it." Merry quipped. Laughing, Pippin jumped on him, and started to tickle. Merry screamed, and thrashed back and forth. He reached up and tickled Pippin back, who howled in delight, but squirmed away deftly. Merry wrapped his arms around Pippin's waist and rolled, putting Pippin under him. He tickled his cousin back, who kicked and fussed worse than Merry had himself. "Stop, stop." Pippin said as Merry tickled, panting. "I can't breathe." He thrashed one more time before Merry stopped, bringing his knees up sharply. Merry went sliding over Pippin, his head aimed straight for the headboard. Merry put out a hand to stop his head from cracking against the solid wood. His other elbow gave out, dropping his chest onto Pippin's face. Pippin kicked in furious protest. Merry used the advantage to tickle him one more time, before pushing himself back up on his arms. Just as he started to raise up, Pippin shifted again. Suddenly, Merry's face was very close to his cousin's. Pippin wrinkled his nose at him, and laughed. As he laughed, his breath trailed over Merry's lips, making Merry shiver. Pippin's breath trailed over his lips again, and his erection responded. He sat up quickly, afraid Pippin would feel the it. "We should get going." Merry said, a bit shaky. "I have lots of presents to give out." He moved to crawl off the bed, and his knee hit something. Something hard. He looked down to see what it was, and made a strangled sound. It was Pippin. He didn't want to look at Pippin's face, but he made himself. Pippin, aware that Merry had noticed, bit down on his bottom lip, and flushed red to his ears. Pippin pulled the coverlet over him to cover his crotch, and then dropped his eyes. "I am sorry." Merry said, trying to sound light. "Mine does that too, sometimes, when it gets bumped or touched. I should have watched what I was doing." Pippin didn’t say anything, but flushed redder. "Pip?" Merry asked. "It is not a big deal. Really, its not." "Sometimes, it does it when it hasn't been bumped." Pippin said softly, looking up briefly. "Sometimes it does it when I--" He trailed off, looking at the coverlet again. "When you what?" Merry asked. "When I think." Pippin said. "Oh." Merry said, not knowing how to respond. Sometimes Merry's erection woke up when he thought, but he wasn't about to admit to it. Pippin might ask who he thought about, and Merry did not want to tell him. "When I think about you." Merry opened his mouth, and found that he had forgotten to speak. Or think. Or breathe. He tried to process what Pippin had told him, but his mind refused. Pippin, the lad that he had loved from the cradle, who he had practically raised since the lad was almost seven, was attracted to him. Then something in his brain snapped. A thought that had been pushed into the corners of his mind, a thought that he had tried desperately to forget, woke up. A thought that he had not dared admit because he was afraid it would drive him mad, crawled out of the depths of his brain and refused to be ignored any longer. A thought that his erection had known for years, that Merry had desperately been trying to attribute to his body having a mind of his own. He wanted Pippin so badly it was driving him insane. Quietly, Pippin slid from the bed. He stood next to Merry, studying him for a minute. Then, blinking back tears, he touched Merry's arm lightly. Merry started to speak, but was unable to form words. Even though his cousin had just admitted to feeling the same, Merry could not bring himself to say it out loud. "I love you, Merry." Pippin said. He waited for a response. None came, and hurt darkened his green eyes. Tears started to slide down his cheeks. He looked up at Merry, and fled from the room. Merry had never felt so wretched. Pippin wouldn’t talk to him. He wouldn’t look at him. He wouldn’t come near him. Pippin was avoiding him like he had the pox. Merry had searched Brandy Hall for him, but did not find him. Pippin had turned up by elevensies, but sat with Hiram Bracegirdle and Tosco Grubb. Pippin had eaten like it was his last meal, and had dashed out the door before Merry had even buttered his toast. Pippin had spent the rest of the day playing, changing locales every so often so Merry was unable to keep track of him. If anyone asked him why he was out of Merry's company, he had told them that Merry was busy handing out presents. It was late in the evening now, and Merry had spent the entire day alone. The party was in full swing, but Merry sat by himself, trying to drown his sorrows in a cask of Buckland stout and watching Pippin with a broken heart. Pippin was with a group of other boys, playing like it was the last chance he would have until the Fourth Age. Merry was alone, and it was his own fault. He took a deep draught of ale, and cursed himself for a coward and a fool. Pippin was hurt and angry, all because he had been too stupid and afraid to tell him the truth. The same truth that Pippin had already admitted to him. He didn't blame Pippin. Merry had denied his feelings for so long, telling himself that they were wrong, that he had been unable to bring himself to admit them to Pippin. He had broken Pippin's heart, and it made him want to weep. He finished his ale, and walked over to the cask to refill it. He finished that mug in two draughts, belched loudly, and refilled it again. "Easy, lad." Frodo said as he walked up. "It will be a short party if the birthday boy retches all over the birthday cake." Merry responded my sucking the ale down, and sticking his mug under the spout. He reached for the handle, but found Frodo's hand was in the way. "That's enough of that." Frodo said, wrestling the mug away from Merry. "Now, why don't you tell me why you and the lad are fighting." "Not fighting." Merry slurred, tapping the cask. "Busy drinking." He waved in the direction of the playing children. "Busy playing." "You two are fighting." Frodo insisted. "Pippin is at least making a good show of not being upset. Your mother may be to busy entertaining to notice, but you playing the sot on your own birthday is not fooling me." Frodo quieted when Sam approached. Sam nodded at Merry, but assessing his condition, did not try and engage him in conversation. He and Frodo exchanged a few quiet words that Merry could not hear. Frodo touched Sam's face, tenderly, but briefly, and Sam walked away. Merry saw the look on Frodo's face as he watched Sam walk away, full of love and desire. Pippin had looked at him that way his entire life, but Merry had never known what it meant. Merry had finally figured it out, but Pippin would never look at him that way again, and it made his heart feel hollow. "Meriadoc." Frodo said, turning back to his cousin. "Tell me what happened. Merry stayed silent. He reached for his mug, but Frodo gave him a sharp shake of the head. Merry sighed, frowning at the keg regretfully. He opened his mouth to explain, but the ale had loosed his tongue, and he let it wag without thinking. "You're in love with Sam." It wasn't a question. Merry was stating a fact. Frodo had not been prepared for that. He paused for a moment, regrouping. Merry looked abashed for asking, but Frodo felt abashed for hesitating. "I have been since the day I laid eyes on him." Frodo said. "Just like you have been in love with Pippin since the day you stole him from his cradle." Merry had not been prepared for that. His eyes pricked with unshed tears. "How do you know?" "How could I not?" Frodo asked. "Probably the same way that you know that I am in love with Sam. I have been expecting it for years." The tears Merry had been holding back escaped. Weeping, Merry fled, wanting nothing more than to cry himself to dust. "Mister Pippin?" Sam called, from a safe distance from where the boys were kicking the ball. Pippin ran up to Sam, full of feigned eagerness and fake smiles. Sam ruffled his hair playfully, and pulled him a bit farther away from the crowd. "He loves you." Sam said quietly. Pippin's expression turned sour. "I don’t want to talk about it." "And I am not tryin' to make you." Sam said. "I was just thinkin' that you should know." "He doesn’t, anyway." Pippin said bitterly. "Oh, he loves you." Sam said again, his smile warming. "No." Pippin stated stubbornly." If he did, he would have said it. I said it to him." "You have to understand." Sam said. "Sometimes, when you are wantin' something that you can't have, you make yourself forget about it so it doesn’t make you crazy. And sometimes, you do such a good job of forgetting that when you find out that you can have it, you don't know what to do." "How do you know that?" Pippin asked. "Because I did it myself, Mister Pippin." Sam said. "What?" Pippin asked. "Who?" "Never you mind, Mister Pippin." Sam said with a chuckle. "Just trust me on this one." Merry was stumbling more than he was walking. Once he had left Frodo, he had come upon another ale cask, and had had another two mugs before he had spied his mother coming near. Not wanting her to see him drunk, and not wanting to explain why, he had started off in a random direction. He did not get far. His plan of escaping into the edges of Brandy Hall's property and crying himself to death was ruined by a voice calling to him. "Merry?" He turned quickly, too quickly, and swayed as the world spun. When it righted itself, he saw Pimpernel standing a few paces away from him. "Nel." He said. She looked beautiful, in her bright blue dress, with her auburn curls tamed into perfect ringlets. He shivered, realizing how much she looked like Pippin. Pimpernel Took. The sister of the lad he loved, and the girl he was supposed to marry. He could not think of another person he wanted to see less than Nel. "You are drunk." She said, dismay lightly touching her voice. "I have had one or two." Merry said, flashing her a crooked smile. "One or two?" Pimpernel snorted delicately. "And where were you going in this condition?" "I just wanted to walk." He said. His legs wobbled, and Nel raised an eyebrow at him. "You should go back to the party." She said. "You should sit." She considered him for a moment, and gave a faint smile. "As far away from the casks as possible." "Nah." He said, and took a few more stumbling steps. He cursed quietly as she followed him, but his ale-addled brain could not come up with a way to get rid of her without upsetting her. She really did look a lot like Pippin, and it was disturbing. "Is something wrong, Merry?" She asked. "I have never known you to drink overmuch." She looked at him through her lashes, almost coyly. Merry paled as she did that, and gasped. He squeezed his eyes tight, trying to erase the image from his mind. She looked too much like Pippin as it was. Her features were more feminine and delicate, and her face thinner, but when she had looked at him that way, like Pippin did when he was trying to get out of trouble, the resemblance had been so uncanny that it had made his heart stop. "Really, Merry. You are worrying me." She said softly. "Nah." Merry said again. "'s my birthday. What could be wrong?" Nel flashed him a concerned look. She moved closer to him, and touched his face, lightly. "You can tell me, Merry." Merry grabbed her hand as it left his face. "Nothing is wrong." Merry said. He pulled on her hand, bringing her closer to him. "Meriadoc." She breathed. He reached up with his other hand and touched her lips to silence her. Then he kissed her. He just leaned down and dropped his mouth on hers, without giving it much thought. She gave a whimper of protest, but did not pull away. She leaned into him a bit, and rested her hands lightly on his arms. Pippin He trailed his tongue over her lips, and she opened her mouth to him as he slid his arms around her waist and pulled her closer to him. She tangled her fingers in his curls as their tongues touched, and she sucked lightly on his lower lip. Pippin He dipped his tongue back in her mouth again before pulling back to trail soft kisses along her jaw. He paused to suck on her earlobe, and ran his hands down her back while kissing down her neck. She moaned softly, slipping her hands over his chest. He sucked on her neck softly and moved his head down and kissed the hollow of her throat. "Merry." She breathed. "Pippin." Nel went stiff and pulled away from him. Merry went cold when he realized what he had done. Merry didn’t try to pull her back, and he didn’t bother mumbling apologies that she wouldn't accept. He dropped his head, and let his arms fall to his sides. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and waited. Waited for the scathing words, waited for the hand to come flying to his face. "I told you, Merry." Nel's voice was quivering. Merry opened his eyes and looked up to see one, single tear sliding down her cheek. He made himself watch it as it traveled down her face, hung precariously on her chin, and dropped to the collar of her dress. "I told you." She said again, her voice a bit more steady. "I told you that he had stolen you heart, and that there was no room left in it for me." Merry dropped his eyes again, unable to look at her. When he looked up again, she was gone. Thus ends Chapter Six, as Pervinca tells it. Chapter Five | Chapter Seven back to the Blue Book