Title: Habits

Word Count: 1,009

Disclaimer: Merry, Pippin, Estella, along with anything else Lord of the Rings is not owned by me, instead they belong to J.R.R. Tolkien.

Beforehand Notes: Just a fun little one-shot I had in mind. It was originally Merry/Pippin, but it's pretty family-friendly. Yes, there are some spots where Pippin's jealous, but it could always be interperted as a friendly jealousy. Also the ending can be taken seven hundred different ways, choose what you will. The beginning of the story was taken from a different story I had written, Cold, though it's unpublished.

Plot Summary: Merry has a bad habit of always going back to Pippin when things get rough with Estella (or at all).

- Habits -

'The blinding light died down, though it was still troubling to see. But he could hear- oh how the he could hear once more. And his bones no longer ached, and neither did his heart-'

"Pip!" A voice yelled from somewhere outside. It was a troubled and desperate yell, not of one who was being attacked, but rather one who sought shelter from some cold, unyielding winter.

"Peregrin Took I know you're in there; let me in!" Pippin knew who's voice that belonged to. It was the same voice who yelled the same words each time comfort was in need. It was Merry.

Pippin scowled, of course it would be Merry. It would always be Merry. Whenever Estella made his heart weep, whenever he got a little too drunk at the Green Dragon, whenever he took a left rather than his intended right. The tiniest slip of the foot always brought Merry back to Pippin's door.

"Alright you, I'm comin'." Pippin said to the door, closing his book and getting out of his ever-so-comfortable arm chair.

Merry was acting worse than he looked; looking worse than he sounded; and sounding pretty bad. Pippin ushered him in, gently led him to the chairs, and began to ramble off questions.

"Why are you here? I thought you were going to dinner with Estella tonight." Pippin asked. "Did you two have another row? You said that the two of you settled the housing-and-dowry debate when the families did. Oh, don't tell me it's another tiff."

These kinds of things would always happened between Merry and Estella, especially for the stupidest of reasons. Some of the most interesting (and downright idiotic) fights had been You Left The Door Locked And You Can't Find Your Key Again? along with Rosemary! Not Basil!

"Yeah, it was another fight." Merry muttered. Though the skies were as clear as newly cleaned glass, and the last rain shower happened over two weeks ago, Merry looked like a drowned puppy lost in a hurricane. His unfocused eyes held bags under the, indicated a lack of sleep; his shoulders slumped when he walked, and his voice cracked more often than not.

"She kept complaining that I spent too much time with you; more time than I do with her. She said to me, 'Meriadoc Brandybuck you have this unhealthy habit of going to that Took's house whenever something trivial as your dinner burning happens!' and then she told me that I would have to stop seeing you, or it was over."

Pippin looked at Merry, wide-eyed, curious and cautious. "Well? What'd you tell her after that?"

"I first told her I didn't have a habit of coming to your house, it's just that I want to come to your house whenever these things do happen." Merry sighed. "Then she accused me of not being committed because apparently I don't want to try and fix the problems that I apparently bring to the relationship."

"Well," Pippin said, stopping to think for once in his life. "You probably aren't helping by being here right after your little fight. Proving her right's only going to make her angrier and more stubborn."

"So you're saying I should leave you without a second thought and forget all about my best friend since before I could walk?" Merry suddenly got angry. "The very same best friend who went on a quest to destroy an evil ring of power that one of the most powerful beings in Middle Earth wanted; continuously put his life on the line for me just as I did the same for him? Do you even want this?"

"Of course I want this," Pippin snapped, he softened after his words. "Of course I want our friendship, but you also love and want Estella. You want to have a perfect relationship with her, and you're not improving that relationship by being here."

"The thing is," Merry said. "Thing is sometimes I didn't even want the relationship."

"I thought you said Estella was the perfect one for you?" Pippin said, trying to hide his scowl. He'd had his fair share of jealous moments over the hobbit-lass that took Merry's heart and played with it like a ball; now was not the time.

"She was at some point! But then our families started weighing in, and she got all these notions on how a proper suitor should behave, and I just don't fit to standards." Merry looked at Pippin for a minute, a long, tantalizing minute, before casting his eyes back down to the floor.

"You never told me your 'secondly' to what happened; to why else you're here." Pippin commented.

"I broke up with her." Pippin's eyebrows shot to the roof to make way for two dinnerplate-sized eyes that bulged from his head.

"You did what?" Pippin yelped.

"I broke up with her," Merry continued. "Said it wouldn't work if we always fought like this. Said it was better to end it sooner than late."

"You broke off seven long months of a relationship just like that?" Pippin questioned.

"You make it sound like it was hard," Merry snorted. "She didn't even ask me to stay. Just told me to go to your house; oh, well, she did say to avoid the markets at two, but that was it. I think it was expected, with all the fighting we did. It just wasn't a relationship, it was a challenge to see if we could pull through." Merry smiled at Pippin. "Some challenges are just not meant to be completed by some people."

"You still make it sound so easy," Pippin said.

"It'll be far from easy tomorrow," Merry reminded Pippin. "Our families will be furious at us, or each other. Most likely both."

"I still don't understand why you would break up with Estella."

"Some habits break harder than hearts."

"You had everything with her, you said so yourself." Pippin reasoned.

"I had a lot of things with her, true." Merry said. "But, I didn't have everything."

"What didn't you have?" Pippin asked.

"You."