Authors note: Yeah I know this story sucks. I expect flames. But...
"I Can't Be With You"
by Nora Lennon
'Lying in my bed again and I cry cause you're not here,
Crying in my head again and I know that it's not clear.
Put your hands,
Put your hands,
Inside my face and see that its just you,
And it's bad and it's mad and it's making me sad,
Cause I can't be with you...' –The Cranberries
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"Merry?" Pippin asked, so softly Merry wasn't sure he had even spoken.
"Wha Pippin?" Merry asked, opening his eyes. He had almost been asleep, lulled by Pippin's rhythmic breathing against his chest. It was just like Pippin to think of some silly question, when Merry was so drowsy he could hardly think straight.
Pippin lifted his head off Merry and sat up. "Merry, will I really have to marry Diamond of Long Cleeve when I come of age?"
Merry was quite taken aback by this question. It was true that Pippin had been promised to a lass when he was old enough to be wed, but that wasn't for quite a while and Merry, for one, had put it out of his mind. "I suppose...well yes Pip. You were promised to her weren't you? You know what." Merry paused and propped himself up on his elbows. "Why d'ya ask that?"
Pippin turned, looking off into the distance, rather forlornly Merry thought. " I dunno...I just think that's unfair...I don't even like Diamond!" he scrunched up his face and Merry laughed.
"I'm sure you'll learn to love her Pip. Diamond's a fine lass. I wouldn't worry about it so."
Pippin was silent for a moment, and Merry assumed, with a great amount of relief, that the conversation was over. Thinking about Pippin getting married to that pretentious hobbit lass made him feel sick. Although, come to think of it, he wasn't quite sure why. Maybe it was just the thought of arranged marriages. Or maybe...
The unusually highness in Pippin's voice startled Merry from his thoughts. "But what if I'd rather be with someone else?"
Merry felt his stomach drop a thousand feet, but he firmly ignored it, sitting up next to Pippin. He gave himself a moment to gain control of his voice. "Fancy someone Pip?" he said trying to sound teasing, and ruffling his younger cousin's hair.
Pippin continued to look into the distance, looking anywhere but at Merry. "Pippin..." Merry started.
"Well...yes I suppose," Pippin said slowly, without turning. "Yes, I fancy I quite love someone." He bit his lower lip, nervously and Merry noticed that it was quivering ever so slightly, as it did when Pippin was holding back his tears.
"And...it is?" Merry prodded. Usually he wouldn't pry at Pippin like this, especially when he was, as he appeared to be, on the verge of tears. But suddenly Merry felt an overwhelming need to know who had captured the younger hobbit's heart.
Pippin was silent and Merry's heart crumbled into a million pieces as a single tear role down his cousin's cheek, escaping from where he had been trying so hard to contain it. Merry reached forward and put his hand on Pippin's shoulder. "Pippin you don't have to tell me. I didn't mean to upset you."
Pippin turned to him and as his gaze met Merry's, Merry let out a small squeak of disbelief at what he saw there.
In those dazzling green eyes, Merry could see right into Pippin. Into his heart, into his soul, the way Merry had always imagined Pippin could see into him. And what he saw there was...well...himself. Overwhelming love and passion and devotion poured out of his cousin's soul into his and Merry knew. It was for him.
Pippin fancied him. Pippin fancied he loved him.
And Merry knew that all these years the feelings he'd had towards Pippin had been exactly the same. He loved Pippin insatiably. He had always loved him. Since the day he had met him, until the day he died, he would always love him.
And now...Pippin loved him back. Merry let out a small "oh", and Pippin quickly turned away knowing Merry had seen it, that he had revealed too much.
Now the younger hobbit's tears came in floods and sobs shook his small form. Merry felt his own eyes filling with tears of a thousand nothings and a thousand more everythings and he pulled Pippin into his arms. "You fancy me don't you?"
Pippin nodded and buried his face into Merry's neck. "I..I'm s...sorry Merry. I kn...know it's wr...wrong...b...but I can't help i...it..." Pippin sobbed and Merry was aghast with guilt. He pulled Pippin up and wiped away his friend's hot tears with his thumb. Pippin closed his eyes at the touch. When he opened them again, Merry was staring at him intently, willing him to see what was in his own being. Pippin looked back at him in surprise, seeing his own soul reflected back at him through Merry.
Before he could speak Merry kissed him and their tears, and their mouths and their worlds and lives and souls and hearts melded into one. And it felt so right.
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Merry woke up with a start. He opened his eyes to darkness and knew it had all been a dream. But what a dream...
He sighed and felt the cold, dark, emptiness of his life envelop him in his wake. He was alone. Utterly alone. And he always would be.
Pippin would never love him like that. Ever. No matter how much he cried, no matter how many nights he lay awake, no many how many times he punished himself, he would always love Pippin and Pippin would never love him.
It hurt so much. I was like...well nothing else in the world. He thought he understood now why even the immortal Elves could die of heartbreak. The pain was everything, and it consumed him everyday, in everything he did.
And there was no hope of that sweet relief he yearned for in sight. Ever. And he was so alone.
The dark, the cold, the misery, the tears, the longing, the hoping, the pain, the wanting so much you needed to scream, the holding your tongue anyway...it was all becoming too much for him. It had plagued his fragile mind for too long.
He needed it all to stop.
And suddenly it all made sense. Something unlocked in the back of his mind. He knew how to get ride of the pain. He understood how to stop it. It was so simple. Why had he never thought of it before?
Merry slowly got up, his aching body beginning to feel light with this new idea. He quietly got dressed and opened his bedroom window, before looking around one more time into the dark, cold...emptiness.
It was a brisk autumn night, but Merry was oblivious to any coldness as his own began to thaw slowly but surely. He walked as quickly as he could, knowing the path to the Brandywine as well as he did each soft copper curl on Peregrin Took's head. His heart skipped a beat as he remembered how beautiful Pippin looked when the sun caught in his hair and played over his still summer tanned skin.
Merry shook his head and held back the tears that threatened to spill over his eyelashes. He sniffed and continued, with renewed vigor, as his destination approached and the coldness over his heart groped to return. It soon however, was forgotten when Merry heard the rush of water he had been waiting for and the Brandywine came into view between the trees. His heartbeat quickened and his breath, visible in the chilly air, came in heavy, excited puffs. He sprinted the last few yards to the end of the cold river and looked down into the rushing water, gleefully.
There had been an amazing amount of rain this past season and the level of the Brandywine was the highest even the oldest hobbit in the Shire could recall. The water was so deep, young hobbit children had been forbidden to go near it and the best swimmers in Buckland refused to risk their life in it. Merry blatantly ignored the large sign of warning posted by the waters edge and headed downstream to where the current was the strongest. There he stopped and smiled to himself.
Yes he knew how to make the pain go away. He knew how to keep to cold out. How to fill the emptiness in his soul. If he was to be alone, this is how he wanted to be.
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After a moment, they parted and Pippin leaned back into Merry's arms, dizzy with ecstasy, and clung to the front of Merry's shirt as if he'd never let go.
"Oh," he repeated to himself quietly. "Oh."
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Merry winced as the frigid water stung all around him. Yet he continued to wade into the water, fighting the current until he was sufficiently far from the shore.
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"I love you so much Merry..." Pippin breathed as he rested his head against Merry's chest, listening to his steady heart beat.
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And then he let himself go, giving himself to the violently sputtering river. He felt himself being pulled under. Deeper, deeper...
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"I love you to Pippin..."
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His whole body became numb with the cold, the cold that was not his own. Slowly, he felt the years of hurt and suffering subside inside him and as he lost consciousness he congratulated himself on such a perfect ending to his tragic life. He hoped when the found his body it would be so mangled, that even Pippin would turn have to turn away in horror.
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"...but I can't be with you."
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A week later the frozen but still recognizable body of Meriadoc Brandybuck, sole son and heir to the Master of Buckland, was found on the banks of the Brandywine. They said he had fallen into the river by accident in the dark. That's what they said, but it was a lie. He had drowned quickly and painlessly. That was a lie too. Pippin knew they were lies. Merry was not foolish enough to drown in the river he had grown up in. Pippin knew that. But he said nothing.
And it was left at that.