More shameless fluff with Merry and Pippin. This one was written for my lovely, wonderful friend vickitata14. (:

This also takes place not long after the Fellowship leaves Rivendell, so they'd still be traveling by night. Which explains why they're trying to fall asleep in the early morning.

"Hey, Merry?"

Pippin squirmed across the wet, rocky ground where the Company had decided to rest, pulling his bedroll and blankets with him closer to the flickering fire and his sleeping cousin. He poked Merry's ribs a few times; then, figuring the other hobbit must have awakened, he asked, "Remember when we were little, and I couldn't swim so you told me to stay away from the river, and I thought it'd be funny to get closer and closer to the water while you yelled at me until I accidentally fell in?"

No answer.

Pippin grumbled and poked Merry again, harder and more insistently this time, though his cousin still did not stir.

"Merry, wake up. Remember when Pervinca tried to make cake with strawberries for elevenses, but she couldn't because I took the cake and you took the strawberries, and everyone knew it was us because you got so sick?"

Still no answer.

Pippin scowled and crossed his arms. Okay, at this point, Merry had to be awake and just ignoring him, thinking he'd eventually settle down and go back to sleep.

But Pippin hadn't been able to sleep at all that morning or the past few mornings. Before, when Boromir and then Sam had been on watch, he'd sat up with them as the stars faded and the sky turned pink while he boiled water for tea by the warm, cozy fire and chatted about the Shire and shared some of his favorite tales. But Gandalf had taken the post that day, and Pippin, not particularly wanting to be called "Fool of a Took" again for something that was clearly not his fault (for once), had decided to rouse his cousin instead.

Propping himself up on an elbow and cupping his chin in his hand, he decided to try once more.

"Merry, remember when we decided to play in one of the really nice rooms in Brandy Hall, and then we had a pillow fight and just as Uncle Saradoc walked in, your pillow ripped and got feathers everywhere and we got in so much trouble?"

At this, Merry rolled over with a frown and quiet moan.

"More like I got in so much trouble, since you were apparently too little to know better and I was supposed to set a good example. Even though it was your idea."

"Hey, that's not—"

"Sh!" Merry put a finger to his lips. "You're going to wake up everyone else, and even if by some miracle you don't, Gandalf will surely hear us."

"Oh, don't be silly." Pippin waved his hand, although he did lower his voice. "Who cares if anyone hears? They're too tired to wake up."

"But I don't want them to hear us."

"Why not?"

"Because. Why are you awake, anyway? What are you doing?"

Pippin shrugged and pulled his blankets closer as the chilly wind picked up a little, ruffling both the hobbits' curls like an affectionate, watchful mother. The fire danced, as if it were any one of the wild creatures that could be waiting behind any of the rocks surrounding their campsite or that could be skulking through the nearby woods, slithering through the shadows planning to pounce.

Merry too wrapped himself more tightly, making a little cocoon of his warm blankets.

"I just can't sleep," said Pippin. He put his head down on his pillow and stared up at the sky, spangled with faint, tiny white stars, and then looked back at Merry. While he found himself awed and caught up in wonder whenever he looked at the pre-dawn sky, he could always look to his cousin for comfort and constancy in the middle of the vast darkness both above and ahead. Pippin loved adventure—craved it, longed for it, searched every day for it (though not expecting it to find him instead)—but not without the hand of his friend nearby to pull him along by and to hold whenever he felt himself about to fall off the Road.

Merry's gaze softened.

"You all right, Pip?"

"Oh, of course. I just can't sleep, that's all. Haven't been able to the past few nights."

The older hobbit patted the younger's shoulder.

"I guess it does take some getting used to, sleeping like this, even though we've been gone from the Shire for so long already."

"It's going to take forever to get used to." Pippin sighed and tried to spread his arms and legs out, as if he were about to make a snow angel on the rocks, but found himself too tightly bundled in his blankets to move much.

Merry laughed, but his mirth died quickly when he noticed his cousin wasn't laughing with him.

"Pippin?"

"Mm?"

"Are you scared?"

Pippin sat up (though with some effort) and then, lying back down, turned on his side so he was facing Merry. His heart leapt a little, though not, as his cousin supposed, for fear. Finally freeing himself of his tangled blankets, he pulled his knees to his chest and tilted his head to one side.

"No." He thought for a moment and then shook his head. "No, I'm not scared. Things just seem far away. The Shire and home and all."

"Yes, we have come quite far. Everything is—oh, never mind."

"What?"

"Don't worry about it, Pip."

"Everything's what?"

"Hush."

"Merry?" Pippin curled up closer to the other hobbit to see his face better in the dim firelight. Merry's frown had returned, though it looked different from before. More… worried? He didn't quite know how to put it, but suddenly, his cousin seemed both older and younger than ever. "You're—you're scared, aren't you?"

And then he gave Merry a look that made his heart sink. Pippin's wide green eyes and slightly open mouth reminded Merry that, blundering idiot though he could be, his little cousin (when he wanted to) could understand far more than anyone credited to him. Normally, his sudden, seemingly random flashes of enlightenment made his cousin laugh, but Merry only sighed this time. He hadn't wanted the younger hobbit to know the fears that had gnawed at him since they had first realized just how dangerous their journey would be. In fact, Merry had been clinging to some silly notion that he'd be able to protect Pippin from his own worries that smothered him with their crushing omnipresence. But they knew each other too well to lie, whether by saying something false or by not admitting to the truth.

The situation now squirming out of his hands, Merry decided he might as well do the best he could with what little he had left.

"Is it that obvious?"

Pippin shrugged. "Well, it is you. What's bothering you so much?"

"What couldn't be bothering me? This is a dreadful journey. I've known that since one of those Black Riders came after me in Bree. Don't you see, Pip? This is dangerous, indeed."

After a pause, Pippin said, "I guess so."

"You guess so?"

"Well, I mean, I just haven't thought about it. Everyone seemed so set against letting me go because it'd be hard or something, but that wasn't a big problem for me. I was just thinking about going after Frodo."

"We do have to look after him, too." Merry watched his other cousin move restlessly in his sleep on the other side of the dim fire, and felt his heart toss and turn with Frodo's worn, exhausted frame. If by tagging along on a quest so arduous he could somehow protect him even in the smallest, most inconsequential way, he'd be off in a heartbeat, however quick and erratic that heartbeat might be.

"There's more, though," Pippin blurted. Looking at Frodo for too long had begun to hurt.

Merry snorted. There really was no hiding things from Pip when he decided he knew—or wanted to know—everything.

"I have more than just him to look out for, you know." Although Merry had been looking away for the past few moments—once their conversation had turned on him, in fact—he glanced at his cousin out of the corner of his eye and felt like making a face at him when he saw the younger's usual cheeky but infectiously joyful smile.

"How's that funny?"

"You're just silly, that's all."

"Silly?" Merry was beginning to wish he'd gotten Gandalf's attention from the start. All the better to hush taunting, foolish cousins who could never take things seriously. "You're the one who, with all those stories you were telling and that racket you were making, proved that you need me to keep you out of trouble and—oh, I don't know—out of danger, too."

Now Pippin began to laugh and giggle like a small child, which both warped Merry's heart with pain and made his mind drive up a flurry of excuses with which to defend himself. But both worrisome thoughts and selfish pretenses were set to rest when Pippin curled up at his cousin's side, a tiny, innocent smile on his face as if he were having some pleasant dream of summer in the Shire or a rare snowfall in Tuckborough. With a yawn and stretch of his little body, he said, "Oh, Merry lad, stop worrying. I guess you aren't doing too horrible job of hovering over me to make sure I don't get into too many scrapes. Although you'll be just like my mother before long."

"I let you come on this quest," said Merry, taking Pippin's hand (and deciding not to comment on his cousin's unflattering comparison).

"I would have come anyway. And you wouldn't have gone without me."

"No." Merry took a deep breath, savoring the smoky remnants of the smoldering coals and the warmth of his friend beside him. "I suppose not."

"See? Then it's all square. We've got each other."

Merry had to smile now, if only at Pippin's simplistic view of their adventure and, even, of the world. The peace that relaxed all the tension and fear he'd been holing up wherever he could find room for it in his heart—amidst the haste of their travels and the chaos settling in as they journeyed further and further into darkness—was lulling him into a refreshing sleep when he heard a small voice.

"Hey, Merry?"

"Yes?"

"Remember when I used to follow you everywhere and grab onto your legs and say I wanted to be just like you when I grew up?"

Merry squeezed his cousin's hand tighter and said, "Yes, of course I remember," just before he drifted off, snug and secure with Pippin beside him and with a spare blanket, brought by a smiling Gandalf, covering them both as they slept into the late afternoon.