The 'I Can't Face a Christmas Without A BagEnders Special'
PseudoBagEnders Christmas Special
'The Passage of the Fangirls'
Part One
by Bridget and Trojie
Well, they said the characters could be used by others, so we thought . . . well, why not? It's Christmas, after all.
Disclaimer; None of the characters herein are ours. The Fellowship, the Twins, Faramir and Eomer all belong to J.R.R. Tolkien. Dave, Sandra, Julie and the Legolusters are all from Lady Alyssa and Random Dent's slightly scary imaginations. The characterisation of the Tolkien characters is from LA and RD's BagEnders, which we are trying to emulate. We could be said to own Kirsten, the Smallest Fangirl, but she's not actually something we really want. If anyone wishes to claim her, she's yours for a cigarette and a pint. All events portrayed herein are fictional (we hope; if not, the world is a far scarier place than we ever imagined), and are not intended to resemble any real events (as opposed to things we've seen on television or read in a book). Should anyone decide to sue us for this, then we hereby claim the concept of rigging up a generator to Tolkien's rapidly revolving corpse as our own.
xxx
'Twas a week before Christmas, and Aragorn and Legolas were off out to save the world. Again.
Or rather, they were out to protest about the destruction of the world.
'Do you have your train tickets?'
'Yes Frodo.'
'Coats? Packed lunches?'
'Yes, Frodo.'
'Have you practised your revolutionary chants?'
Legolas brandished a sign saying 'Make Tea Not War!' and Aragorn started singing 'We all live in a terrorist regime! We all live in a terrorist regime!' before being twatted by Legolas with the sign.
'Good, I think you're all ready to g-'
'Wait for us!'
Merry and Pippin appeared around the corner with their own banner. It was one of those big, multi-person lengths of cloth with a stick at either end, for carrying at the head of any activist march. Frodo eyed it carefully before saying;
'Unroll it.'
'It's just a banner, you don't need to see it.'
'S'very boring. Not even something witty about oil.'
With that they edged backwards out the door and left. Frodo sighed.
'Just try and make sure they don't get arrested again, please? I don't want a repeat of the 'eight-year-olds busted in pornography sting' incident. Child Welfare are already suspicious about us.'
Aragorn and Legolas nodded dutifully.
'Now, when you get back we'll have visitors,' Frodo added. Legolas looked suspicious.
'Who?'
'Um, well, Elbereth is incarnating to discuss the custody arrangement for Christmas,' the hobbit began awkwardly, 'and the Twins are coming.'
'Why do they keep coming here? And it's a whole week before Christmas! Isn't it a bit early for festive guests to be arriving?'
'Well, um, the surf shop burnt down, and they and Dave don't have anywhere to stay-'
'Wait, Dave? Dave is coming here?'
'Yes, and-'
'No, I don't want to know any more. Aragorn, come on, let's go.'
'Finally.'
Frodo breathed a sigh of relief, watching through the little window next to the door to make sure they'd really gone, then shouted in the general direction of Upstairs;
'They're gone, you can come down now!'
The Twins appeared, cobwebs adorning their hairdos, and with Dave, who looked almost coherent this morning, in tow.
'Nice going little dude!'
The Twins had in fact been hiding in the loft, with Dave, for a week now. The surf shop had indeed burnt down, and they'd turned up on the doorstep, sorely bedraggled and doing the 'Last Puppy in the Shop' impression so well that it tore at Frodo's admittedly easily-tugged heartstrings. It was no trouble to sneak them supplies of food when the other occupants of the house were at work, and the only awkward moment had been when Dave, waking unexpectedly from his almost permanent semi-comatose state, had stumbled downstairs and settled down to watch 'Buffy' reruns with Gandalf. Fortunately for Dave, he was wearing cast-off clothes of Aragorn's, and as the episode he had arisen in time to watch was one of the ones where Buffy fought with Faith, Gandalf didn't even notice that the human on the sofa wasn't one of his usual housemates. Frodo had managed to hustle Dave away before anything untoward happened.
A soft 'glingleglingleglingle' noise manifested itself over the usual house noises of Gimli's pneumatic snoring and Gandalf's curiously penetrative heavy breathing. Then, in front of the astonished eyes of Frodo, Elladan and Elrohir (and the not-so-astonished eyes of Dave, who saw this sort of thing all the time while under various influences), a fussy-looking woman of about middle age appeared. She smoothed down her hair, then looked at Frodo.
'Hello dear,' she said. 'Perhaps a cup of tea?'
Frodo rushed to the kitchen. The Twins stared at the woman, and then in one voice said;
'Dude, that's Elbereth!'
'Like, should we kneel?'
'Don't be silly,' said Elbereth kindly. 'Why, your father's practically family. I'm sure Frodo has enough tea for all of us. And who is this?' she asked, looking at Dave. The Twins looked at each other, obviously going through a silent pantomime of 'you say it.' Finally Elladan gave in.
'Um, that's Dave. He's our friend.'
'Is he quite all right?' asked Elbereth concernedly, for Dave's eyes were worryingly glazed, and he was dribbling.
'Like, he's fine.'
'Just fine.'
'Um, he has to go over here now,' said Elrohir, steering his unfortunate friend into the cupboard under the stairs. 'Toilet,' the peredhil explained. Elbereth decided not to ask.
The whistling of the kettle broke the awkward silence.
'Ah, tea,' said the queen of the Valar happily, and led the way into the kitchen.
When they were all sorted and seated, and biscuits had been distributed (for posterity, let it be known that Elbereth Gilthoniel has a weakness for chocolate digestives), Elbereth broached the subject of the custody arrangement.
'Well, we've really got a bit of a deal for you, Frodo dear,' she said, regarding him frankly over her steaming teacup. 'Either you take Boromir permanently, or you take Boromir, Faramir and Eomer for Christmas every year.'
'What? Why? Boromir's the only one we have any responsibility to,' said Frodo, a little shakily. Elbereth smiled.
'On the contrary. Aragorn owes both Eomer and Faramir hospitality and succour in times of need; he was their ally. And you know how seriously he takes his kingship, if he thinks anyone's watching.' The Valier watched Frodo for a moment, then added, 'Look, Frodo, it's getting intolerable in Mandos at the moment. Fights all over the place, terribly messy, and they've broken three Christmas trees already. I think they're bored, all cooped up for centuries. So either you take all three for Christmas, or Boromir gets reinstated in the Fellowship. It's the only way.'
Frodo didn't even need time to think. 'Boromir, Faramir and Eomer for Christmas,' he said. He could just about justify having the three dead men here over the holidays, and was equally sure that accepting Boromir back into the household indefinitely would be met with bloody revolution on the part of Legolas and possibly Aragorn.
xxx
Later that day, in a very girly bedroom over the road…
'It's nearly Christmas, and those really hot twins are back, and it's just them in the house with the short gay bloke. It's Fate! Fate telling us through signs that we should storm Cute-Pointy-Ears-Guy's house!'
'His name is Lars. And he's mine!'
'Says who?'
'Says me!'
'Oh, well we'll just see who gets there first-'
'Alice, put down the lamp. Can we get back to the original proposition please? Do we really want to do this?'
'If Pointy-Ears-Guy-'
'Lars-,'
'Sorry, Lars, is going to be vulnerable, then I say we do it! We can hide and wait for him to come home! An ambush!'
'Sorry to nitpick, but what do the twins have to do with this whole thing?'
'Second prize?'
'Fate gives out prizes?'
'Is the gardening guy there?' piped up the smallest stalker from the back of the room. The others turned to look at her. She was twelve, with aspirations to teenage delinquency, and was the youngest sister of the Legoluster™ whose bedroom the meeting was being held in.
'Not sure. Why?'
'Oh, she fancies him,' said the sister in a withering voice. 'Don't worry about her. Now, how are we going to get in?'
'Abseil?'
'From what, precisely?'
'Dunno, but it worked in Mission: Impossible.'
'Ooh, I loved that film!'
'Yes, but to abseil down off things we need to be up high to start with.'
'Bugger.'
'I know! Let's make passports out of jam and dig a tunnel into Pointy-Ears-Guy's bedroom!'
'Jam?'
'Tunnel?'
'Oh for crying out loud!' The Sam fangirl was up and pacing now. 'If you're all really quiet, and do what you're told, I know a way we can get in.'
'How?'
'I'm not taking orders from you-' began the older sister, only to be repressed by a companion, who hissed;
'Look, if she can get us into the house I don't care what she makes us do, ok?'
'Mmmph.'
'Good.'
The Sam-stalker carefully started undoing her elaborate hairstyle.
The others watched with bated breath.
'Hairpins,' she said, flourishing a few. 'I'll pick the lock on the back door, and we can get in.'
'Great!'
'Tally ho!'
'Let's hunt some Lars!'
xxx
'Elladan, Elrohir, I'm going shopping!'
'Oh, dude, we need more flour!'
'What?'
'Like, we made Christmas lembas!'
'It's green!'
'It's a week before Christmas, it'd be green by the time we got to eat it anyway, the way you make it.'
'Well we can eat it before then, but thing is, like, there's no flour left.'
'So, we need more-'
'-so you can make mince pies!'
'And Christmas cake!'
'And more lembas!'
'Hang on, I thought lembas was made of mystical elvish ingredients. I don't remember plain High Grade Flour being one of them.'
'Well there are some mystical ingredients-'
'-mainly in the special lembas-'
'-but flour's the rest of it.'
'And vanilla essence.'
'Oh yeah, we might have, like, used all of that too.'
Frodo dutifully added 'flour' and 'vanilla essence' to his shopping list. 'Did you put any jam in it? I'm sure we had two jars last night, and they've both disappeared. Now, is that all?'
The Twins shook their heads. Frodo looked momentarily perplexed.
'Oh dear, I hope Merry hasn't been sleep-eating again . . . Now, don't let Dave dribble on any bills or important post, and don't let him in the living room; who knows what Gandalf might do if he's disturbed during 'Enterprise'.' The Twins saluted.
Frodo, dragging his little tartan shopping bag on wheels (a birthday present from Merry and Pippin, who'd bought it for the sole purpose of mocking Frodo, and were slightly nonplussed when he thanked them profusely and started using it), made for the shops. Little did he know what chaos was to ensue while he was gone.
xxx
Gimli woke up. The sun was shining, the birds were giving melodic alarm calls, and there was a noise somewhat akin to a herd of stampeding mûmakil emanating from Downstairs. Sounds like the Hobbits at breakfast, he thought blearily, and then did a double-take. He wasn't supposed to be awake; he had work tonight . . .
'Nightshift!' he roared, in order to give the other Fellowship members a hint, and then buried his head under the pillow in the hopes that it would make the sounds go away. He heard a muffled cry of 'Ai Elbereth, we forgot Gimli!' and then found himself being dragged out of bed.
'Wha'?' he managed, before extricating his feet from the puddle of blankets now littering the floor, and running to keep up with the Twins. 'What's the matter?' he tried again.
'Like, Legolas's stalkers are here. They're here,' said one Twin in an unusually panicked voice. 'They've come,' he added just as the sound of running feet became louder, and a group of . . . girls turned the corner. Gimli eyed them, and then looked up at the Elf's suddenly tense face. Just beyond him he could see the stairs to the loft.
The stalkers paused for a moment, apparently scenting the air. Gimli had sudden and violent Warg flashbacks.
Then the boldest of them made a move, and suddenly Fellowship instincts long-buried resurfaced. Gimli stepped defensively in front of whichever Twin had routed him out of bed, and the other Twin appeared out of Aragorn's bedroom, brandishing a slightly dented sword.
And then the doorbell rang. The stalkers' heads all turned at the same time.
'Lars!' one of them squealed, and they all ran down the stairs.
'After them!' yelled the Twin with the sword (Gimli suspected it was Elrohir), and promptly leapt upon the banister and proceeded to slide down it yelling Elvish warcries and ululating fiercely, crushing fangirlish fingers in the process. Fortunately he reached the door first, and threw it open to reveal a very surprised Aragorn and Legolas, returned from their protest.
'Elro-' was as far as Legolas got before being pushed violently out of the doorway. Elrohir slammed the door behind him and dragged the other Elf and Aragorn round the back of the house and behind a convenient bush.
'Elrohir, what in Varda's name-'
'Like, ssssh, they'll hear you,' hissed Elrohir from the depths of the shrubbery. On cue, piercing female voices floated through the air.
'I think they went this way!'
'Pssst!' A whisper could be heard by the two Elven members of the party. Legolas looked up, only to spy Elladan leaning out of the skylight in the roof. 'Like, up here!'
'What?'
'They've all gone outside to look for you in the street! If you can get to the back door, you can get back in!'
'Who are 'they' precisely?' asked Legolas, although he had a horrible suspicion he already knew.
'Um, the girls who live over there-' Elrohir pointed, '-and over there-' he pointed in a different direction, '-and their friends.'
'And why are they in my house?'
'Like, they're not in the house any more, so why don't we go back inside-'
'I'll take point.' Aragorn had taken precisely six point two seconds to switch into Ranger mode, and was now Lurking under a tree, looking around shiftily. As Legolas slowly raised a single toe from the rather squelchy ground, a piercing scream indicated that a ravenous teen had spotted her prey. In a flurry of leaves, and a not inconsequential amount of mud, Elves and Man ran for the back door. Fortunately for them, it wasn't locked. Less fortunately, Gimli was on the other side, having come to check on the safety of his comrades, and the ensuing tangle of limbs took Elladan (who'd come down from the loft to aid in the mission) several minutes to completely fail to unravel. In the end the Twins actually carried Legolas (who had passed out from fright several seconds before reaching the back door and had kept running entirely on autopilot), Aragorn and Gimli up to the loft, because actually separating the heap of flesh into its constituent parts would have taken too long, and the Twins were the only ones with legs that still functioned without catching on other miscellaneous limbs.
Unfortunately, they left the back door open.
The house was overrun.
xxx
An emergency house meeting was called in the loft, it being (as judged by Aragorn) the most easily defensible part of the house.
Chairelf: Legolas Thranduilion, prince of Mirkwood and walking Fangirl magnet
Present: Aragorn son of Arathorn, Heir of Isildur;
Elladan and Elrohir, sons of Elrond;
Gimli son of Gloin, probably the only thing standing between Legolas, the Twins and death-by-stampede, literally;
Dave, lineage unknown, passed out in the corner.
Absent: Olorin/Mithrandir/Gandalf the Grey/White/Grubby/Sparkly, due to being downstairs watching
Channel 5;
Meriadoc Brandybuck, former Master of Buckland, and Peregrin Took, former Thain of the Shire (impeached), absent due to being at a protest. Quite what they were protesting is not known;
Samwise Gamgee, former Mayor of the Shire, absent due to being the only Fellowship member working (on a job he was being very reticent about) this Saturday;
Frodo Baggins, former Ringbearer, absent due to being out shopping and unaware of the current crisis situation.
Legolas thumped his fist on the floor to restore order. This resulted in a chorus of 'I think I heard something!'s from the crowd of stalkers downstairs, and the sound of footsteps in the hallway.
'I think we can leave aside the minutes of our last meeting-' he said in a whisper,
'Did we ever resolve the Paxman debate?' asked Gimli.
'No, he escaped, and Enterprise was on.'
'-and get straight to the 'what are we going to do about the stalker siege' topic,' finished Legolas.
Aragorn stood up to address the group in a kingly manner. 'As it stands, we have control over the loft, and technically the living room. They have the kitchen, bathroom and potentially the bedrooms.'
Legolas shuddered. Who knew what horrors they could perpetrate in his bedroom?
'How do we have the living room?'
'Gandalf's watching Channel 5 again, and I don't think the stalkers can stand the smell. Or the heavy breathing. Besides, anything female entering that room is in mortal peril.'
The mental images this comment conjured up silenced everyone. With a shudder, Aragorn continued. 'Now, we have several options,' he began. Legolas, recognising the beginnings of another 'heroic' episode, sat down on a box of miscellaneous weaponry and started working out how big his therapy bill would be, should the Legolusters™ ensnare him. He could feel another tension headache coming on, probably not helped by Aragorn's suggestion that they fight their way out and bury any corpses in the bomb-shelter-cum-pantry whose existence in the middle of the lawn was still a sore point with Sam. Aragorn was aware of Sam's displeasure, and was still trying to make good to a certain extent. When it suited him, that is.
'I suppose the nutrients would be useful for the grass… Sam would be pleased with that. How about we hide them in the compost heap?'
Legolas hung his head and prepared to accept his doom.
xxx
Gandalf was intrigued. The turpentine and meths had got his blood pumping, and Xena was being particularly enticing today. She was suitably sweaty and had just succeeded in ripping her leather… apparel when the chaos consuming the rest of the house was brought forcibly to his attention by the door being flung open. This, his ethanol addled brain suggested, had been immediately preceded by shrieks of 'He must be in here! It's the only room left!' and 'Dibs!'
Gandalf froze. Women . . . Women in his living room . . . He gibbered slightly, and then registered their apparent ages.
'What devilry is this?' he asked, in a suitably menacing tone, hampered only slightly by the slurred sibilants. 'You are meddling in the watching of Xena! Begone, foul shades!' With a collective whimper, the young ladies extricated themselves from Gandalf's home-made Den of Sin with admirable haste.
Gandalf considered finding Frodo, or perhaps just thumping on the ceiling with his staff and yelling 'biscuits!' until an unspecified Hobbit appeared, but then decided he'd really rather stay put. He settled back in the Chair, breath heavy and quite possibly toxic, and reached for the vadko as leather-clad bosoms heaved.
xxx
Merry stared out of the bus window and idly kicked his heels. Pippin, on the other side of the upper deck, scratched at the sore bit on his wrist where the handcuffs were beginning to chafe.
'D'you reckon they'll find us?'
'Nah. They'll be expectin' us to've legged it in a stolen car.'
'Whereas we are, in fact, fleeing the scene of a crime on a number forty seven bus.'
'It has the element o' surprise.'
'I still don't see why you had to kick that poor copper in the trousers.'
'He was askin' for it!' Pippin was feeling the righteous indignation of the unlawfully-arrested, or perhaps just the unlawful.
'By reading you your rights?'
'He didnae have to say it in that tone.'
'What tone?'
'All smug, like. He should've been more polite.'
'What, like you, you mean?' Merry considered some of the more 'colourful' phrases Pippin had directed at the unfortunate policeman, which we have sadly been unable to reproduce here due to our complete inability to understand Glaswegian, but may have involved reference to mothers, President Bush, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and some of the rather more insalubrious uses for a pork pie. Merry had been more than a little embarrassed; thus they were now sitting at opposite sides of the bus and pretending, in between bitching at each other, that neither of them knew the other.
'Don't see why the coppers were even there,' Merry said. 'It's not like anyone was planning to get violent.'
'It only got violent 'cause o' them anyway,' Pippin announced.
'How d'you figure that one out?'
Pippin, realising that he didn't have a leg to stand on in this case, given that the violence had kicked off right around the time when he tried to pull one of the female officers, decided to change the subject.
'How'm Ah gonna get these off?' He indicated the handcuffs. 'Ah won't be able to hold a pint without lookin' like a sissy.'
Merry had just realised something of rather more importance. They had left the special banner behind. In fact, if his memory of those last blurred moments before Pippin had yelled 'Run like buggery, Merry!' was anything to go by, they had left the banner on the roof of the police car. This would not have been a problem, except that they had recycled one of Frodo's best bedsheets to make it, and Frodo, conscientious househobbit that he was, was in the habit of stitching nametags onto everything he owned. 'Frodo Baggins' would be easy to trace. All the police would have to do would be to mention the name to a passing medical professional.
Merry considered the likelihood of Pippin being allowed onto a plane to Australia while wearing handcuffs.
'Ah'm booooored. Can we go to the pub?'
Merry considered how the handcuffs might hinder Pippin in trying to catch him if he got off the bus right now and ran as fast as he possibly could.
xxx
'Lars!'
'Come out, come out and play!'
'It's not working.'
'I know it's not! Give me time to think!'
The Legolusters™ had hit a snag. The picking of the locks had gone off without a hitch, as had the conquering of the kitchen, due to Frodo's disappearance to the local supermarket. The living room had been declared out-of-bounds by all those who wished to see their fourteenth birthday with innocence and vital signs intact. The cupboard under the stairs had been thoroughly examined, but had turned up nothing of interest save for a doggy bowl with the word 'Paxman' inscribed around the rim. The stairs beckoned.
'He's not outside. We've checked.'
'He must be up there somewhere.'
'Okay. We go up together. I'll take the first bedroom. You take the second, you take the third, you two take the fourth and you take the fifth. Alice, you're on bathroom duty-'
'Aww, he's not going to be in the bathroom-'
'-With hair like that?'
'Can't I take the bathroom?'
'Five bedrooms? We're not in Walford, you know.'
'They must have five, unless…'
'No! They can't be sharing…Lars isn't gay,' the unnamed fangirl said, her tone a mixture of defiance and prayer.
The fangirls' plotting was interrupted by a 'Silence! For the Buffmeister is here, and ye shall worship her!' from the living room, coupled with the sounds of a bottle being opened and a large quantity of pure alcohol being poured down one Istari throat.
With a collective grimace of horror, the stalkers headed for the stairs.
xxx
'Now, if Ah still had the moped, then we wouldnae be in this position.'
'If you still had t'moped, how would you drive it with handcuffs on?'
'Shut up.'
'Wanker.'
'No' with these handcuffs on, Ah'm not.'
'And you're crap at levity.'
Pippin rolled his eyes. There was no talking to Merry when he was in one of his moods. And so the two hobbits, jackets rolled up and hung over their respective handcuffs in order to disguise them, trudged home from the bus-stop in silence. Relative silence, at least.
'How are we goin' to get these cuffs off?'
'Does Gimli still have t'cuffs he got free with his last order of chainmail underpants? 'Cause someone told me that all handcuffs have the same key.'
'Ah don't think those handcuffs have much in common wi' these ones. Did you even see them?'
'Not as such, no-'
'They were pink. An' fluffy.'
'Ah.'
A pause, and then;
'We are really, really screwed.'
'Ah know. Shut up abou' it, would you?'
'I know! Aragorn has Numenorian strength! He can break t'cuffs open!'
'More likely to break our wrists in the process.'
'True.'
'And Sam'll be at work . . . so we've only got one choice-'
'No Pippin, don't even say it-'
'We're goin' to have to let Aragorn saw them off, aren't we?'
Merry hung his head and sighed heavily.
'Well how bad could it be?'
'Shut up. I want to enjoy my remaining time with my hands intact.'
'He's no' that incompetent-'
'Pippin. Fallout Shelter. Feet and inches, confusion between. That's all I'm saying.'
For a while, the only sound that could be heard was the wind. Then shrieks, giggles, and shouts of 'coo-ee!' manifested themselves, about the time that the Fellowship house reared above the horizon. Merry and Pippin looked at each other, then back at the house, just as someone screeched 'Lars! Oh Laaaaaaars!'
'Bugger.'
xxx
There was a girl sitting on the front doorstep. Merry and Pippin looked at one another. Merry shrugged, but Pippin never turned down a challenge, even while handcuffed. The girl's age wasn't a problem; he could easily pass for a twelve year old. Merry leaned against a tree and watched with interest.
Seventeen seconds later, the girl screamed, and ran into the house, shrieking like a banshee. Frantic questioning could be heard, followed by doors slamming. Pippin looked at Merry.
'Was it somethin' Ah said?'
Without bothering to reply, Merry wandered into the house. It seemed oddly empty, although a quick sniff in the region of the living room door indicated Gandalf was in there. Aragorn and Legolas presumably weren't home yet. He wandered into the kitchen, and headed for the fridge.
'What was she doin' on our doorstep, anyway?' Pippin wondered. 'And she ran upstairs. D'you think she's here for one of Frodo's meetings?'
'Don't suppose so,' Merry muttered, somewhat preoccupied with the realisation that making a five-tiered ham, cheese, Branston pickle, peanut butter and Mars bar sandwich while wearing handcuffs was not going to work. 'She were a bit young. Besides, Frodo's lasses tend to be a bit more… floral.'
'Ah'm goin' to see what's goin' on.'
Merry followed, his stomach rumbling.
As they climbed the stairs, eyes were visible, peering through gaps round the bedroom doors. As Pippin came into view, every single door slammed. He thought he heard someone reciting the Lord's Prayer. From above came the sounds of frantic whispering, and the loft hatch opened.
'Pssst!'
'Elladan? What're you doin' in our loft?' An identical Elvish face appeared beside the first.
'Dude, you guys look really short from up here!'
'Dude, they always look short.'
'Yeah, but now they're, like, shorter than usual-'
The Twins' faces disappeared suddenly, and Aragorn came into view.
'Merry! Pippin!' he hissed. 'Are you alright?'
''Cept for these handc-' Merry quickly shushed Pippin with a swift elbow to the ribs.
'We're fine. Who're all these girlies?'
'Did they get you? Are all your bits intact?'
Merry and Pippin shared a glance. Clearly, Aragorn had finally done what he had been threatening to do ever since the advent of sliced bread (which apparently lacked moral fibre and backbone, and was the reason the country was going to the dogs), and had lost his final marble. Nevertheless, they clambered up the ladder. There could be some special lembas up there, after all.
xxx
'Have they gone?'
'I don't know, I can't hear anything.'
Curled up on the bed, the unfortunate victim of Pippin's advances rocked to and fro, clearly deeply traumatised. She was seriously considering becoming a lesbian. It meant that she wouldn't be able to enjoy Lars when they finally found him, but if it prevented anything like THAT from ever happening again, it would be worth it.
'What was that thing?'
'I'm not sure. And I think I'd rather not know.'
'I think it's clear. Come on, let's try downstairs again.'
'Do you think I'd suit a shaved head?'
xxx
Merry and Pippin had been appraised of the situation, and were now sitting on cardboard boxes, looking surprisingly unperturbed by the siege. This may have been because Elladan and Elrohir had in fact brought the special lembas to the loft when the siege began, and the Hobbits had already consumed the lot, even the green bits. Better still, Dave was still unconscious, and hadn't had chance to eat any of it. Stuffing their faces without revealing their handcuffs had been a little difficult, but they had tapped into their reserves of that special Hobbit resourcefulness that always manifested itself when food was in the offing, and had remarkably succeeded in keeping the morning's activities a secret. They were now completely incapable of speech, and were in any case far more interested in the dust motes floating around one another's heads than in the crisis.
'Dude! We have an idea!'
'What is it?' Legolas asked, with a weary sigh.
'We, like, steal one of the little dudes' hair-'
'-From their feet, 'cause it's stronger-'
'-Yeah, and we, like, climb out of the skylight-'
'-Taking care to stay low-'
'-Just in case scary dude-girls are watching-'
'-Then we go to that, like, wire thing…'
Merry was shocked out of his torpor by the threat to his precious foot hair. 'You mean the phone wire?' he asked, cautiously sliding his feet out of sight.
'Yeah, little dude, and we put the hair on it-'
'-And then we get some saucepans-'
'-And then we, like, put pegs on our noses-'
'-And go into, like, little dudes' room-'
Legolas stopped listening. It was a survival technique he had been forced to develop while living with the Fellowship, and it was solely the ability to actually turn his ears off that had allowed him to remain sane in recent years. It had the unfortunate side effect of giving him a glazed expression that surpassed even Merry's after an exceptionally large meal, but otherwise went unnoticed.
'-Dude, it'll go down in history!'
'It'll be, like, that siege, you know, with the, like, things, with the tails-'
'No! I'm sure there's something in some convention or other banning the use of socks as an offensive weapon…'
'Really?'
'If there isn't, there should be. Those two's socks are up there with nuclear warheads-'
Legolas tuned out once again, and began to mentally hyperventilate.
xxx
Some time later…
'So,' said Aragorn, 'We run down the stairs, Legolas excluded due to fears for his personal safety, and assess the situation. Should there be no immediate attack of hormonally charged teenage acne-ridden females, we make for the bathroom and prepare for stage two. Should we in fact become surrounded by the enemy, we make a last ditch stand on the upstairs landing, protecting Legolas with our lives if need be. Are we all agreed?'
'Yes!'
'Erm…'
'What?' Aragorn was growing a little tired of Merry and Pippin. They had thwarted every single one of his plans so far, even the one involving the handkerchiefs, the chimney stack and the Twins wearing antlers, and he really wished they'd bugger off back to their protest and leave the military strategy to those more accustomed to it.
'What if they're not only after Legolas?'
'What's stage two?'
Aragorn sighed, although he had to admit Pippin had, for the first time in approximately fifty seven years, made a valid point. There was a chance, admittedly small, that the deranged young ladies currently occupying the house were after some hot king-of-Gondor action. However, Aragorn was prepared for this eventuality, and had already donned trainers and a tracksuit (stored in the Loft several years previously in one of his 'we-must-prepare-for-our-impending-doom' episodes, and now smelling strongly of mothballs) to aid his speedy escape. Before he had chance to explain this cunning plot to Pippin, Legolas stirred.
'I'm just going out. I may be some time,' he said in a dead voice, and made for the hatch in the loft floor. Before he could make it, Aragorn leapt to his side and dragged him back.
'What do you think you're doing? Are you mad? They'll tear you limb from limb!'
'If I go, the rest of you may survive.' And I'd be out of the Fellowship for good, Legolas added mentally.
Aragorn was having none of this obvious attempt to sabotage his heroics.
'We are a Fellowship, we will live or die as one!' he cried, springing to his feet, grabbing a sword, cracking his head on the low ceiling and descending to a stunned crouch again, all in one gracefully executed movement. Legolas took advantage of the diversion this caused, and once again made for the hatch. The Hobbits were too busy laughing raucously to notice, but fortunately Gimli had been prepared for an attempt at Elvish sacrifice, and followed his doomed comrade. Aragorn, meanwhile, had spotted a metallic flash.
'Pippin, what's that around your wrists?'
'Um…'
xxx
Sam's biggest fan, who went by the name of Kirsten when she wasn't writing very bad Tenth Walker fanfics under the name of 'Silmarillienna', was not happy. Her sister kept making snide remarks, she had not received a suitably vast amount of praise for coming up with the plan that got them this close to Lars, and Sam apparently was not on the premises. To make matters worse, the noises and the curiously penetrative stench from the living room were causing her some distress, and she was developing an itchy rash where the old man's breath had come into contact with her arm. Resisting the urge to sniffle, the youngest of the stalkers sat on the bottom stair and contemplated going home to her mother and grassing Alice up.
The front door handle rattled.
The chain had been put on, to lessen the chances of parents or police scuppering Lars's kidnapping. The door opened slightly, and a voice called, 'Hello? Elladan? Elrohir? I brought your flour…' Fortunately the rabid fangirls upstairs were too busy being noisily destructive in the only bedroom that was neither filled with paisley, chock-a-block with mechanical gubbins or entirely coated in raspberry jam, and didn't hear. Kirsten wandered into the kitchen moments before the back door opened and a towering mass of shopping bags entered.
'I've got the flour, but they were all out of vanilla essence. Apparently two 'short gentlemen' bought out the entire stock this morning,' said the bags.
'Um…'
The bags shifted, and a face appeared from behind a box of muesli. It looked deeply suspicious.
'Merry! Pippin! How many times do I have to tell you? Just because you found it in the park doesn't mean it's lost and in need of rehoming!'
'Um, no one found me…'
'Then what are you doing in my kitchen?'
'Um…well-'
Kirsten was interrupted by a dwarvish war cry from the direction of the stairs, and Legolas flung himself into the kitchen, slammed the door and leaned against it, panting heavily. He was missing several chunks of hair, and had numerous red and sticky-looking handprints about his person. He turned around, to see Frodo, arms folded around a vast quantity of groceries, eyebrow raised, and one of the nameless terrors of his darkest nightmares, looking upset. He shrieked, and dived into a cupboard. Whimpers and gibbering could be heard.
Frodo put the kettle on. It looked like it was going to be a long day.
'Cup of tea?' he asked the quivering cupboard, glad that for once it wasn't him hiding amongst the crockery.
'Yes please,' said the cupboard in sepulchral tones. 'But not the Moroccan Mint,' it added.
'Tippy Assam?'
'That'll do.'
'Are you sure you wouldn't like to come out of that cupboard and tell me what the matter is?'
'Just leave me to die, Frodo. But give me my tea first.'
Frodo opened the door of the cupboard and placed the cup of tea in Legolas's hand.
'So, what are all these girls doing in the house? And what does Gandalf have to do with it? Are we going to have to pay compensation again?'
'They're my stalkers, I don't know how they got in, and Gandalf has nothing to do with it,' said Legolas-in-the-cupboard. 'Don't leave the kitchen. Those girls are dynamite.'
'I take it Aragorn is home. Are Merry and Pippin back yet?'
''es.' There was the suspicion of a sniffle from inside the cupboard.
'Legolas, are you crying?'
'N-no.'
'Sorry. Are your eyes watering? It's very dusty in that cupboard,' said Frodo sympathetically. 'You really should come out.'
'If I come out then they'll get me.'
Frodo was almost on the point of calling Julie, but decided perhaps he'd better first deal with the young lady now sitting at the kitchen table sipping a cup of tea and looking as though the world was about to end. This, it occurred to Frodo, was not quite in keeping with the usual behaviour of Legolas's myriad admirers. Under normal circumstances, any teenage girl within thirty feet of the Elf would pay no heed to the prospect of sexual assault charges, cupboard or no cupboard.
'What's wrong?' he tried. There was no response, save for a hearty sniff and the mumbled sounds of an Elf praying to be allowed to shuffle off the mortal coil with his dignity and flesh intact.
After several moments' wringing his hands together helplessly, Frodo realised he had, over the past six thousand years, accrued absolutely no experience in the field of Talking To Women. At least, not to women with carnal relations aforethought; the ladies from the Women's Institute were unlikely to even consider breaking into an innocent Elf's house and forcing him to hide in a sideboard. In the absence of any better ideas, Frodo reverted to the tried and tested Forcing-Merry-and-Pippin-to-Own-Up voice.
'How did you get in?'
'Picked the lock.'
'Why did you pick the lock?'
'They wanted Lars's body.' The girl seemed a little surprised to be admitting this, but a hormonal not-quite-teenage girl was no match for the power of the Voice. Ignoring the sudden intake of breath and increased gibberish from the cupboard, Frodo continued;
'What did you want?'
'Mumblemumble.' Clearly some information was precious enough to allow resistance.
'I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that,' said Frodo, subtly shifting from Own-Up-Now to Don't-Make-Me-Have-To-Get-The-Rolling-Pin.
From the depths of the cupboard a quavering voice said, 'She said 'Sam'.'
'He's not here,' said Frodo, 'he's still at work, and he's not very good at fighting off crazed hordes of psychopaths, anyway. Speaking of which, where have Aragorn and Gimli got to?'
'Gimli . . . ' Legolas muttered. 'Dearest of friends . . . I'll miss him . . .'
'What? Do you mean to tell me that they got Gimli? And you left him out there with them, and ran and hid in a cupboard?'
'. . . Yes . . . But I don't think they'll have . . . tainted him. He's probably just been slowly crushed to death.'
'And Aragorn?'
'Defending the other side of the door.'
Frodo, eyebrow raised so high it was beginning to ache, poured another cup of tea and opened the kitchen door. Aragorn appeared to be doing well, and had seemingly remembered not to actually kill anyone. That was a relief, at least; it had taken Legolas and Frodo several years in the 1920s to make him understand that you couldn't just chop people's heads off any more, or even just their limbs, because things were Civilised now, and people would Talk. Aragorn had insisted for some months that people were supposed to Talk, and that putting the fear of the devil into people was a tried and tested method of keeping them under control, but the incident with the nutcrackers and the hatpin had set him straight. It was nice to know their efforts hadn't gone to waste.
'Tea, Aragorn?' Frodo asked, rather more loudly than usual in order to be heard over the chanting from the Legolusters™.
'What do we want? Lars's naked body!'
'When do we want it? Now!'
In the depths of the cupboard, Legolas curled into a tighter ball and made a noise like a drowning kitten.
xxx
'He's never going to, dude.'
'Little dude won't like it.'
'What won't I like?'
'Not you, little dude. Frodo-dude.'
'What won't he like?'
Elladan gave up on trying to explain the subtleties of Frodo's views on full frontal nudity in the kitchen to Merry, and threw a T-shirt at Dave. Elrohir stopped what he was doing, and looked over.
Dave woke slowly, his eyelids unused to opening, and scratched an intimate area.
'Woss goin' on? Why'm up here?'
'We're being, like, besieged, dude.'
'Yeah, and you're, like, naked-'
'-And it's, like, December-'
'-And you'll get, like, hypothermia-'
'-Or something worse-'
'TB?' Merry interjected. But sadly Pippin had not yet relinquished the joys of dust-mote watching, and didn't join in the game of Name-That-Horribly-Disfiguring-Disease.
'-And we need to, like, escape-'
'-By abseiling-'
'-Right, and if Frodo sticks his head out the kitchen window when you're, like, naked-'
'-And, like, abseiling down the side of his house-'
'-He'll probably kill us. Even if we are trying to rescue him.'
'We don't want to die before Christmas.' The Twins once again turned on the 'Last Puppy In The Shop' expression. Dave was in fact immune to this expression, all of his vaguely maternal instincts having been fused into a solid mass of rotting brain cells several years previously, along with his pride, coherency and motor control, but he struggled into the t-shirt and looked expectantly at the Twins, awaiting further instruction.
'So, we're abseiling?'
'Yeah,' said a Twin. The other was once again engrossed in his work.
'When?'
'We have to finish this first. Then we search all the boxes for string-'
'-Which may take a while-' the other Twin noted, glancing round at the festering mounds of rotting cardboard boxes.
'-And then we turn it into rope. Ever made rope before?'
Dave shook his head. 'Made rice before,' he offered.
'No, dude, it'd never support our weight-'
'-And it's not really long enough.'
During this exchange, Merry had become slowly aware of something subtly wrong in the room. He looked around, trying to ascertain the source of the wrongness, and spotted a box that appeared to be filled, conveniently enough, with rope. Probably Sam's, he suspected. He'd always been rather suspicious of Sam's relationship with rope, and often found coils of the stuff in unexpected places, such as the back of the freezer. Mutely, he pointed at the box.
'Dude!'
'Excellent!'
'Now we don't need string!'
'And we're finished, so let's go!'
'What 'bout dread-dude?' asked Dave.
'We'll, like, carry him-'
'-Like this-' Elrohir picked up Pippin, and draped his arms, still handcuffed together, around his neck. Pippin hung there limply. It was entirely possible that he had scoffed rather more than his fair share of the special lembas, Merry thought. The Twins opened the skylight and climbed onto the roof. Dave blinked a lot, unused to the sunlight, and as the Twins began tying lengths of rope around the chimney stack, Merry finally realised what was different.
The Twins had put Pippin's hair in dreadlocks.
Before he had chance to comment, or wonder how they had achieved this so quickly, first one and then the other swung off the roof, rope in hand. Dave, after a moment's thought, followed. Merry considered the situation, and decided to chance it on the stairs.
xxx
A curiously rhythmic sound (minds out of the gutters everyone, this is a clean, Christmassy episode, for the time being at least) coming from outside made Frodo look up from his mixing bowl. He'd been making scones in order to try and calm down. Even though the lusters weren't his lusters, the stress was getting to him. And Sam hadn't come home yet. This was worrying.
Through centuries of practice, ever since they'd invented the grindstone, in fact, Frodo could make scones by memory alone (a mystical ability), and even as he threw in some extra flour (make the most of it before the Twins get to it again) and dumped the bowl's contents on his benchtop ready to roll out, he was listening intently and trying to peer out of his net curtains. He wondered if maybe Next-Door had actually gone ahead and had piles laid down for the new decking they kept talking about. A piledriver would make that sort of noise, Frodo reasoned, although surely it would be louder if it were next door?
Oh well. He bent down to grab the rolling-pin from the cupboard under the sink.
'Hadooooo iiiiii phiiiliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin!'
'Dude, that doesn't sound riiiiiiiiiight!'
CRASH
Frodo, on hearing the first phrase, had curled up into a tight little ball, the better to stay out of the way of the Elven SWAT team that appeared to be climbing through his window.
xxx
It was six o clock in the evening, and the siege was getting impractical. In the cupboard under the stairs, the fangirls were having a conference.
'What are we going to tell our parents?'
'Well, you can tell them you're staying at Alice's house, and Alice, you say you're at Shirley's, and Shirley, you're staying with Rosie-'
'One problem though.'
'What?'
'What do we do with Alice's sister?'
'Where is Alice's sister? And what do you mean, what do we do with her?'
'I mean, she can't be staying with Alice; World War Three would break out, and their parents know it. But there aren't any of her friends she can swap excuses with here.'
'Bugger.'
'Just wait for it to stop!'
'Aww, is widdle baby Boromir getting sea-sick?'
'Shut up you sadistic Rohirric bastard! Oooh my stomach.'
A male laugh issued from thin air.
The lusters looked at each other.
Suddenly, what could only be described as a door opened in the middle of the cupboard, and three large, hairy men emerged and looked around.
'Bit dark in here.'
'Bit cramped too.'
'Frodo?'
'That's not Frodo. It's in a dress,'
'Last time I saw Frodo he was in a dress,'
'Faramir, last time you saw Frodo it was the Annual Gondorian Drag Night, and he was carried shoulder-high around the Third Circle for his rendition of 'The Road Goes Ever On and On', the adult version.'
'He was still in a dress. And he's about that height. And has the right colour hair and eyes.'
Faramir bent down to better address the quaking, four-foot high fangirl. 'Hello there Frodo, and how are you?'
'Not Frodo!' squeaked the luster.
'Hah! See, I was right!' said the heaviest-set of the three. 'And those eyes aren't the right colour. I was here last Christmas. I can remember better than both of you. Not that that's hard, your memories are shite. I mean, come on, 'the ring is evil', not even a long sentence is it?'
'Contacts!' the luster said, and signalled to the others that they should probably try to sneak out of the cupboard, because the two dark-haired men had started a slanging match with the blond one, and they looked distracted.
Before they got two feet, however, the three men stopped and glared at them.
'And where do you think you're going?'
'If you're not Frodo, you're definitely not Merry, Pippin or Sam. So who are you?'
'What business do children in dresses have in the Riddermark?'
Faramir and Boromir glared at Eomer. 'Sorry, got carried away.'
'We're, um, holy cow, look over there!' tried Shirley. Boromir raised a sardonic eyebrow, but other than that, she got no reaction to her amazingly cunning plot to distract the three men.
'FRODO!' bellowed Eomer at the top of his not-inconsiderably-loud voice. 'COME IN HERE A MINUTE, WOULD YOU?'
xxx
'I don't care! The essential decencies must be maintained!'
'Says the hobbit who hoovers naked! Dude, that sounded cool!'
'Hobbitwhohooversnaked! Hobbitwhohooversnaked! You're right, it does sound cool!'
'Shut up, the pair of you.' Frodo had the Don't-Make-Me-Have-To-Get-The-Rolling-Pin look on again. 'The point is that Dave has to wear underwear. I'm not having him wandering the house in nothing but a Jim Morrison t-shirt, which, I might add, has seen far better days. It's . . . unhygienic.'
'Dude, he used to do it all the time back in Cornwall.'
Frodo didn't even want to ask. 'The house is full of thirteen year old girls!'
'So, this is, like, the perfect way to get rid of them!'
'Yeah, and if we get him to sing, then they'll be really scared!'
'You should hear him do 'Light My Fire'! He did it in the shop one day when the police were there-'
'-I don't think he meant to-'
'-but it made the police leave really fast.'
'Yes, but do you want him to get arrested for indecent exposure?'
'Like, I don't think he's ever been exposed decently.'
'You can be exposed decently? Is there a manual?'
'I mean, he'll get arrested for parading around naked.'
'Dude, he's not naked. He's got a t-shirt on.'
Frodo decided to give up before his head exploded. He therefore resorted to bribery, and put on a stern face. 'No more food until he gets some trousers on. And that's final.'
The Twins ran off to coerce their friend into trousers, and Frodo went to get a paracetamol.
Sams's little admirer was still in the kitchen. She seemed to have abandoned Legolas's stalkers in favour of sitting at the table, staring into the depths of her now presumably stone cold tea. Frodo bustled around her. In a way she reminded him a bit of Sandra.
'Scone?' he asked, proffering a plate of them.
At the prospect of food, Pippin stirred for the first time since Aragorn had smacked him upside the head and gone after Legolas.
'Sc… sc'n…' he managed. Frodo, being well-versed in the language of spaced out Hobbits, thrust an entire scone into Pippin's open mouth. Merry was also aware of the prospect of scones, thanks to his home-made-food-radar (capable of detecting freshly baked buns at a distance of a hundred feet), and chose that moment to saunter into the kitchen. He stopped dead under the power of Frodo's glare.
'I can't help but notice, Merry, that you and Pippin both appear to be wearing handcuffs. And not the kinky kind.'
'We found a sex shop that specialises in accuracy?'
'Why were you arrested, Merry?'
'It was Pippin's fault!'
'It always is.' Frodo sighed. 'Cup of tea?'
'Alright. Why is that cupboard making noises?'
'Legolas is in there. I don't suppose you've seen Gimli on your travels?'
'I think he's taken refuge in the living room.'
'Ai Elbereth, is it that bad out there?'
Merry shrugged. The ladies currently occupying most of the house had steered well clear of him on his journey down the stairs. News like Pippin spreads, and no-one wanted to take any chances. From the looks of things, they hadn't trusted Aragorn's highly dubious level of personal hygiene, and were trying to avoid him as well. If it weren't for the stubble, the kitchen would probably have already fallen. As it was, none of the girls dared go near the door. Quite why they seemed so desperate to get hold of Gimli remained a mystery best left unexplored.
The Twins came back into the room.
'Dude, there's one of them now!'
'Frodo-dude, like, stand still! We'll rescue you.'
'I am not in need of rescuing, thank you very much. Has Dave got some trousers on?'
'Like, yeah-'
'-but they're a bit short-'
'-I think he's got Pippin's boardshorts on.'
'Hey!' said Pippin, but he was too full of lembas, and was too, ahem, tied up (pardon the pun) to do anything about it.
'Like, they've got the Playboy bunny on them-'
'-but they're trousers.'
'I think he's passed out again, though.'
'Anyway, that's why we came here, to rescue you from the lusters!'
'She's not my luster-'
'Like, no. She's Mirkwood-dude's luster. They all are!'
'Actually, she fancies Sam-' began Frodo, before a voice assailed his ears.
'FRODO!' said the voice, which was suspiciously familiar. 'COME IN HERE A MINUTE, WOULD YOU?'
'Excuse me,' said Frodo frostily, and opened the door cautiously. The stalkers had moved on to greener pastures, it seemed. The voice, which was still bellowing, appeared to be coming from the cupboard under the stairs.
'Hello?' said Frodo, before opening the door.
'Frodo?' asked the voice. Recognition dawned.
'Eomer?'
'The very same. And Boromir and Faramir are here too.'
'What did you want to see me for?'
'There are all these small girls . . . I think they're girls, anyway, in here. What do we do with them?'
Frodo blanched. Legolas was still in the cupboard, Gimli was in the living room, facing goodness knows what horrors, Merry was in the kitchen with a large plate of scones and Pippin was unconscious. Frodo had no idea where Aragorn had got to, and Dave and the Twins could be quite literally anywhere. The forces of the Free Peoples were hopelessly scattered. The Dark, Evil Menace of the fangirls was in his understairs cupboard. However, Frodo did have at his disposal three large, strong men.
'Take them outside and lock them out.'
'No! Lars! Larslarslars!' shrieked one of the fangirls.
'Lars?' said Boromir. Realisation dawned. 'You mean you broke in to molest Lego- I mean, Lars?'
'What do we want? Lars' naked body! When do we want it? Now!' The chant was taken up, if a little half-heartedly. The upstairs fangirls, still laying siege to the loft, heard it, and took it as a signal to regroup. In a flash, Frodo found himself surrounded.
To be continued…
Trojie's A/N: We just couldn't face a Christmas without Fellowship-ly chaos. And I knew Bridget could write under all her sarky comments and constant litany of 'I don't write, I don't write.' Next part should be up by Christmas.
Bridget's A/N: Or more likely by Christmas Eve Eve, given that this only took three days to write. If it's terrible, blame Trojie – she made me do it.
