Disclaimer: The Lord of the Rings and its characters belongs to the family and estate of JRR Tolkien, and, of late, to New Line Cinema. I'm not part of either.
Berilac Brandybuck got married to Holly Banks (of the Tighfield side of the family) in the meadow in front of Brandy Hall on the last day of August, and very thoughtless of them it was, said Esmeralda, because how were your aunt and I supposed to dress the Hall up for a wedding with the peonies long gone and only a few blooms left on the pinks and the hibiscus past their best. Then she said that she supposed the tea-roses would have to make up for it, but the black beetles had had most of those that year, and got up and went off into the evening blowing her nose loudly on Merry's handkerchief.
"Whatever's your mother crying about now?" asked Pippin, appearing from behind a tree to wrap his arm around Merry's waist happily, almost spilling the jug of ale he was carrying on a dozing Olo Proudfoot. Merry waited while his cousin let go of him briefly to scoop up half a dozen smallish pasties, and a slice or two of cranberry and apple pie for good measure, and got them all balanced with the ale on one large plate, then slung his own arm about Pippin's shoulders and steered them both away to find an empty table.
"The same thing she cries about every time there's a wedding at Brandy Hall. She's sorry it isn't mine."
Pippin stared at him, then gave a derisive snort. "Merry Brandybuck, that's the silliest thing I've ever heard. Why, it's years and years before you have to get married, and then some, and that's if you even want to get married at all. Do you?" he asked suddenly, as if the thought had only just come to him, looking up at Merry closely.
"I'll be of age next January," Merry reminded him. He was aware that he hadn't answered the question, and it was a question he didn't like answering, because somebody was never happy with the reply, and it made him feel like a rabbit in a gin trap, cutting himself deeper whichever way he wriggled. He didn't like weddings either, because it always made people start asking the same question, and being so-friendly with his parents and bringing their round, pink, lovely daughters who had gone away the year before wanting to go swimming with him, and just blushed and giggled at him this year when he suggested it, as if he meant something else. Which he did. And didn't, really. When people started getting married, it made everything complicated, and Merry didn't like complicated. But he liked the parties that went along with it. And the drinking, and the dancing, and then later on, when the great gold, swollen sun was beginning to exchange places with the moon and the grass was still warm, some stories under the trees with a sleepy Pippin sprawled half in his lap, about far away places, and about home, and people they knew, and people they would never meet if they lived longer than the Old Took, and feeling more blessedly comfortable and secure than he had ever done in his life.
"Oh, pooh, what does that matter?" retorted Pippin. "Just because you're getting old, it doesn't mean you have to get married as well."
Merry used the hand near that side of Pippin's head to find a small, neat ear amongst his curls and pinch it hard. "Sauce. And Berilac's only two years older than me. Look - there's a place under the horse chestnut. Let's stake a claim."
"Ours!" whooped Pippin triumphantly, breaking away to bang his plate onto the table. Plumping down on the bench with one leg tucked beneath him, he waited for Merry to arrange himself in a similar fashion, bumping knees and shins. "Did you get a bit of cake when Holly broke the first piece?"
"No, I was talking to Fatty." Merry reached across Pippin for the ale, which he thought was starting to look rather lonely and neglected, bumping their elbows as well. It reminded him of wrestling matches when they were younger, and winter nights spent at the Great Smials all bundled and bolstered up in the same bed with Pippin's hair in his face and his knees in his side, and he had no idea why it felt so comforting this evening. He did it again, for that same reason. "I never heard of a Took missing out on anything free, though."
Pippin poked him, and dug a folded handkerchief out of his pocket, opening it to display a squashed ball of fruit and crumbs. "Here, you can have my second bit."
"Pip, it's supposed to go to as many people as can catch it to share the luck around. You're not supposed to take two pieces all for yourself."
"Well, I didn't, but I trod on Pearl's foot when we were dancing before I came to you, and she dropped hers, and I only found it after she went back inside." He carefully wrapped up the cake again and tucked it into Merry's own pocket, and smiled. "I ended up with more good luck than I really ought to have, so I'm passing it on to you."
His auburny Took curls shone wine-colored in the glow of the lanterns that were starting to be lit. Merry ruffled them, and sighed. "I'll sleep with it under my pillow tonight and dream of the lass I'll marry."
Pippin stopped smiling. He picked at a crust of pie, and tapped his foot. "Do you know," he announced, "I'm rather tired of talking about weddings. I came to have a good time, and make at least a dozen of our more ancient relatives extremely cross before bed, and all I find is you sitting around with a face longer than Aunt Clary's and thinking about... things that don't matter! You've quite put me off my supper, Merry."
"Pippin!" said Merry, surprised at this outburst, but it was fairly in keeping with the Pippin of this summer, who had been increasingly wild and fey, though most people had that put down to the full weight of the tweens finally coming upon him. To the young Took, it meant taxing high spirits much of the time, and tremendous sulks out beyond the redcurrant bushes the rest of the time, shortly after which Merry would be half-strangled with anxious hugs and apologies that left him rather puzzled, but mostly relieved in a sort of unsettled, shivery way as if something awful had been averted. He hated Pippin being upset, but more than that, he hated Pippin being upset with him. It made Merry feel like a half when he ought to be a whole.
And now Pippin was tapping, and talking about missing supper, and Merry would wager he'd be back behind the redcurrants in the morning.
He uncrooked his leg and slid over to Pippin, bumping them all the way down from shoulders to hips this time, sloshing their ale gently in the cups. "Pip," he said, "I'm sorry. I'm just the wrong person to be with tonight if you want to have fun."
Pippin looked at a place between him and the table. "Merry," he said, quietly, "You could never be the wrong person."
Merry felt a peculiar tightness in his chest, almost as if he wanted to cry. "I'll make it up to you at the Bolgers' next week," he said, and Pippin rose.
"Make it up to me now. Ask me to dance."
"Pippin!"
"Rory and Everard are dancing," insisted Pippin.
Merry looked in the direction he was pointing. "Rory and Everard are drunk."
"Oh, very well! Ask a lass to dance, then, and I'll ask one at the same time, and that'll be the next best thing."
It was really very silly, Merry thought, as he went circling over the grass with the daisies looking like little stars in the half-light and his arm around the waist of Everard Took's sister Isabella, because she spent more time making sheep's' eyes at Rory over his shoulder than looking at him, and he obviously wasn't the Brandybuck she wanted to be dancing with. And he didn't much care, because it came to him after a time that she wasn't the Took he wanted to be with either.
ooo ooo ooo
It was recorded in the annals of the Hall that it was late winter when Gorhendad Oldbuck of the Marish changed his name and laid in the first stones and holes of his new home east of the Brandywine. Winter in Buckland could be a bleak affair, with the shadows of the woods lengthening and growing blacker, and the wind coming from the North Downs carrying the sorrowful banshee wails of the wolves and making younger and more imaginative hobbits shiver and tug the blankets further over their heads at night. But in spring and summer, the breeze was clement across the river, and brought forth greenery and growth with a vigor that was seen in few other areas of the Shire. Trees cast dappled pools of shade over the grass as their foliage grew more sprawling and dense, and ivy rushed upwards and stretched out to clasp hands with the tendrils from neighboring trunks, while morning glory and the subtler blues of forget-me-nots blazed at their foot. Pink and white snow covered the ground in the apple and cherry orchards that would later groan with so much fruit that every Brandybuck, half-Brandybuck, and Brandybuck three times removed would be enlisted to help pick, and the kitchen would produce an unrelenting stream of pies and tartlets and crumbles for a fortnight. The sweet chestnuts had arrived when Mirabella Took, who came to marry old Gorbadoc, planted one of the district's finest specimens in the meadow, thus beginning a great tradition of the mistresses of Buckland and their gardens. In 1360, her son Rorimac added two new wings to the house to accommodate the extended family.
Twilight was falling over Brandy Hall now, replacing the smells of grass and ale in the air with the richer ones of wine and night-blooming jasmine. Gentle conversation and the chink of dishes began to blend with the music as the older relations embarked on the clean-up operation that was part and parcel of the party itself, taking with them by the ears the youngest hobbits, stupid with fatigue and largely unprotesting. The dancers slowed in counterpoint to them, their crowd growing thinner little by little as hobbits dropped out, to wend their way laughing and yawning back towards the house, or to enjoy a last contemplative pipe or two beneath the sky before the chairs were carried away. The numbers became increasingly uneven, and after a while partners were exchanged and said goodnight to, until hardly anyone was with who they started out with, and there was more than one lass dancing with another lass, and lads with lads like it was nobody's business. And Merry soon found himself with an armful of contented Took, the right one this time.
"Where's Myrtle?" he asked, smiling.
Pippin grinned back. "She fell asleep on me. Mosco's taken her back to the guest rooms. I think she's too young for this sort of party."
Merry chuckled. "No, I don't think that anyone under the age of twenty-five should be here tonight at all," he said, and, very shortly afterwards, "Ow! Peregrin Took!"
"Next time I shan't be as kind to you as I was to Pearl."
Merry halted them mid-step, peering down at his abused toes. "When did your feet get to be so big?"
"Not long after you got to be oh, so amusing. Don't scowl, Merry. You look much nicer when you smile." Pippin ducked his head beneath Merry's chin, where he fitted quite snugly and well, and a scent rose up to Merry, warm and spicy, and suddenly so sweet that he buried his nose in Pippin's hair and remembered when he had smelled it before, when they had been picking mushrooms near Crickhollow last autumn and had fallen into a dry ditch. Pippin had been laughing, his cheeks as rosy as the little round apples he took his nickname from, and he had crawled out of the leaf mould into Merry's arms, and Merry had breathed in that scent, talking of mist and mornings and ripening things that were pleasant to nibble on around the fireplace in between meals.
"You smell good," he said absently.
"What sort of good?"
"I don't know." Merry sniffed again. "Just a 'Pippin' good, I think."
"Oh," said Pippin, and leaned quietly on Merry's shoulder as they started to move again. Merry could feel his heart thumping fiercely through the elaborate waistcoat, and wondered about it, but decided to enjoy it for the warm, friendly feeling that it was. Because everything about Pippin was warm and friendly, from the shape of his nose and the color of his eyes to the way he fit against Merry's hip and into the curve of his arm as if it were only right and proper that he should be there, far better than Isabella had, at least. Merry had kissed Isabella once, in the shadow of a haystack five summers ago, and now he saw her again with her hair red-gold against the straws, and her mouth tasted sweet, but he thought that Pippin's would be sweeter. And it came over him that he wouldn't at all mind giving Pippin a goodnight kiss at the end of the evening, and not just on the forehead this time. Kissing Pippin - what a marvelous idea. Perfectly simple. Simply perfect. Why in the Shire hadn't he done it before?
"Merry," said Pippin, in a very small voice, "you don't really mean to get married, do you?"
Merry frowned a little. "You said you didn't want to talk about that. I've been trying not to."
"I know, but even when I don't talk about it, I keep thinking about it, about some lass being with you instead of me and laughing with you and doing all the things we do together, or, worse, not letting you do them at all. I don't know if I could bear it, Merry."
He made a little unhappy, gasping sound, which gave Merry another great urge to kiss him, and then it was as if there were another sound, as if something had connected and fallen into place, like a great key turning in a lock, something which made Merry have to speak very quietly and very carefully in case he frightened it and it got away from him.
"Pip, do you want to be with me?"
He wasn't sure of quite what he meant himself yet, and he was fairly certain that Pippin didn't understand any better, but, nevertheless, there was Pippin's hand still squeezing his, and his wet green eyes bright and unafraid. Beside the musicians, Fatty Bolger began to sing into his cups, and a few of the other hobbit lads took up the refrain harmoniously. The half-moon was a transparent ghost in the sky.
Little more than a quarter of a mile from the back doors of Brandy Hall, cordoned off from the grounds only by a belt of more polite and civilized elms, the Old Forest began. After twenty minutes or so of walking, its explorers would find themselves deep enough in the wilds for unnecessary but persistent worries about being late back for dinner to begin surfacing, but until then, there were pleasant tracks and ponds that led to equally pleasant little clearings made just for those evenings when it was far too nice to think about going to bed. Many a lad or lass had courted there (and it was muttered about Buckland that a sight more than courting went on there too), so it seemed beyond perfect to Merry that he and Pippin should have slipped away and be sitting here now in the moss between the roots of a mighty oak with the careless contentment of those who have not yet been found out.
And Pippin was twining his fingers with his own in a way that simply didn't give Merry any choice but to kiss him.
Kissing Pippin on the lips, Merry discovered, was a great deal different than kissing him on the forehead, or the cheek, mostly because after a moment of total and utter stillness, Pippin started to kiss him back. He had thought that he knew all there was to know about Pippin, but now it seemed that there were a thousand new things to discover, about the damp-silk feel of his lips, and the taste of his tongue as it met Merry's in inexpert but eager flutters, and the way he sighed happily when he smiled and traced the curves and points of the young Took's ears and petted his curls.
"I'm not your first, then, Pip?"
Pippin smiled too, nuzzling his cheek against Merry's, flattening his palms against his shoulders and rubbing unevenly, as if he were unsure of his next action. "I told you Myrtle kissed me when we were in the woodshed at the Burrows', but you didn't believe me."
"You've broken my heart," teased Merry gently. "I shall never recover." He smelled mushrooms again, and felt the parchment of red and gold leaves crackle under his fingers. And it was almost too easy to let his hands fall of their own accord to where they cupped Pippin's rear and use that to pull him nearer, so that Pippin's knees were on either side of his and the comfortable round softness of his belly was pressed against Merry's, feeling like stories and overstuffed chairs and home, and Pippin buried his fingers in Merry's own light hair.
"I didn't do anything else," he said quietly, "I didn't do anything except kiss."
"I know," said Merry, and held him. He felt Pippin shaking a little, and wondered if he was crying, and the thought brought up a great bloom of feeling in him that made him hug his cousin closer and rock him against his body, keenly possessive. Pippin lifted his head, and his cheeks were flushed, and warm beneath Merry fingers when he touched them, but there were no tears.
"Merry, I think we ought to play a game."
"Lords and Ladies, Pip, right now?"
"Yes, and hush, because it's a game you'll like." Pippin delicately kissed his nose, settling himself in Merry's lap. "Kiss me," he ordered, and closed his eyes while Merry obeyed. Then he said, "If I promise not to go into any more woodsheds with lasses, will you kiss me again?"
Merry smiled, recognizing the exchange. "I will," he said, and closed what little space there was between them once more, so that both of them forgot to breathe for a time. There was a faint tremor in Pippin's voice when he spoke again.
"It's your turn now. You have to make a promise to me."
"Let's see... if I promise not to pinch you unless you ask first, and save you the biggest portion of pudding whenever we're at the Smials or Brandy Hall, will you put your arms around me again... like so?"
Pippin's hands moved from clutching Merry's shoulders to rest at the small of his back. "I will."
Privately, Merry wondered how long this would go on, because the idea of touching Pippin considerably more intimately than he was doing had planted itself firmly in his imagination and refused to go away, but he had no intention of rushing through something so strange, and so precious, and so very wonderful. "Your turn," he prompted quietly.
The tremor increased a little. "And if I promise not to cause you any more trouble than I can help, and not to push you into the stream again like I did last week, will you lay down next to me here and hold me tight? Just for a while?"
It didn't seem to Merry as if he was required to give a response to that; at any rate, he had lost interest in doing so, because Pippin's arms were around him, and his lips were brushing the pulse point in the hollow of Merry's throat, and in between the tree roots and the forest floor, Merry's breeches had started to become uncomfortably tight. That it was Pippin who had caused this to happen seemed another Strange and Wonderful thing, and when Pippin cautiously pushed a hand between them to outline and squeeze his shape through the olive velvet it made him gasp out loud with the joy of it, saying a lot of things which ended up muffled in the younger hobbit's waistcoat. Pippin tugged at his hair, urging him to lift his head.
"What? I want to be able to hear you, in case you say something important!"
Merry was about to reply that there couldn't possibly be anything so important that it would mean he had to put a hairsbreadth of space between Pippin and himself to say it, when he realized that he did, in fact, have something important to say. Something that he had only become fully aware of in the last few hours, and that was now so vitally important that he couldn't understand why he hadn't said it a year ago, and certainly couldn't put it off a second longer. He wriggled in the ferns, bringing his hips parallel to Pippin's and slowly pushing them together. "Listen carefully while I say this, then," he said. "I love you, Pip."
"Oh," said Pippin softly, and pushed back, his voice taking on a rare husky lilt. "That's nice."
Merry laughed. "What I said, or what I did?"
"Both." Pippin squirmed, pressing against Merry in a way that sent chills running all the way down to his toes, like climbing into a bath that was just slightly too hot. "I think I've loved you forever, you know. Ever since... since... Merry," he finished, still squirming frustratedly, "can't you get any closer?"
As far as Merry could see, the only things between them were clothes, and the only way that they were going to get any closer than they already were was by getting rid of a good many of them. Pippin, at least, didn't appear to have any objections to this idea, and waistcoats and shirts peeled away under his busy fingers, so quickly that Merry had to catch his hands in his own and hold them still so that he could kiss Pippin's soft belly, and touch his tongue to his nipples, and tickle him beneath the ribs, just to hear the squeaks between his gasps.
Then Pippin looked up into Merry's face, and his lips were trembling. Somewhere along the line their breeches seemed to have come open too, although Merry couldn't quite remember how or when, and although that cozy feeling was still there, it had taken on an extra spice that wasn't so soothing and made him shiver and burn and want in a way he'd never encountered with the plumpest, prettiest lasses. With questions in their eyes - Should you -? Can I -? Do you like -? - and the reply to all of them Oh, yes, they began to move together, little pushes and caresses that grew into clutching and thrusting, fingers against skin and heat against heat. Until suddenly it all came to a burst and a shudder, and was done, and little things with bright eyes paused in their foraging and instead stared in the utmost surprise at the two mostly-naked hobbits in the undergrowth, trying to kiss and breathe at the same time and failing to do either.
ooo ooo ooo
Saradoc found his wife sitting behind the marquee with Holly and Berilac's rope of flowers on her lap, looking out towards the trees at nothing, and he bent and kissed the top of her head. "Ready for a toast and a bit of seed-cake with the bride's parents?"
"I've eaten cake with half of the Shire this year, and if I have to hear or make one more toast to somebody else's children, I shall scream." She stood, brushing a satin shower from her skirt, and blinked.
"Merry's young," said Saradoc. He had the mellow assurance of middle age about him, the knowledge that one has already gathered in one's own harvest. "Give him time. Let him be a lad for a bit longer and break hearts from here to Michel Delving."
"I wouldn't mind so much if he'd try to break a few more hearts than he does, instead of..."
She trailed off, lifting her shoulders and letting them fall again. Saradoc lifted her chin. "They're both lads. Leave them in peace for now, eh?"
She nodded listlessly.
"That's my girl. Back to the Hall now, is it?"
Esmeralda sniffed, and soon she tried to smile and took his hand, looping the flowers over her arm. "It would be our luck that if Merry tried to jump over these with a lass, they'd break both their necks. It was a lovely wedding, don't you think?"
Saradoc tucked a stray coppery curl back behind her ear and turned to lead them back up the meadow. "It was, my love," he said. "It was at that."
FIN.