Summary: In which Sam sets the table, several hobbits take baths, a meal is consumed and everyone talks too much.
Frodo's Cousins or Some Things Happen
"I won't give you mud pups so much as a morsel until you scrub off." Bilbo ushered the small hobbits into the hall and off of his now wet front mat. He shooed them on down the hall towards the bathroom, murmuring amused things about their unkempt state.
When they reached the bathroom door he paused and surveyed them again, his eyes fell closely on young Samwise Gamgee who felt the keen gaze and ducked his head even lower against his chest.
How odd that he was the only young hobbit who had not come in dripping with water and trailing stream-weeds.
"Sam, will you help me set the table? You look tidy enough to polish my silver, how you managed that while keeping company with these knaves I'll never know." He crinkled his eyes in mock severity at the three hobbits leaving mud trails down his hall.
Bilbo turned a more baleful eye on the three muddy hobbits dripping on his tiled floor and gestured them through a door. "Into the washroom, you three, and I'll not have you out until your ears are scrubbed pink. I'll boil water but it'll take a bit to get ready so just go and sit and smell dinner coming along. Frodo, you take the first bath, your feet are filthy."
Once in the dining room Sam had to keep his head ducked to keep from floating off into the rafters with giddiness, here he was setting the table of Mister Baggins after a long days adventuring, this was quite a new treat for him.
He had only met Merry and Pippin early in the week when they had rattled into Hobbiton astride a roly-poly pony--a gift they had each received half of on old Thistle Brandybuck's birthday--but they had ingratiated themselves so completely into life at Bag End that, in between helping his Gaffer weed the strawberry patch and plan the orchard he had come to think on them as friends.
Not the best of friends, however. He felt a flash of discomfort as he laid plates out on the table. Merry and Pippin were far closer to each other than any two hobbits he had ever seen and teased each other back and forth in a near-constant stream of inside jokes too mysterious for Sam to even guess at. But Frodo managed to get along with them without ever feeling left out and their heated pace of conversation alone sometimes made Sam's head spin.
"I must say that the garden looks nice this year. The strawberries are finally coming along." Bilbo moved a vase full of dianthus from the windowsill to the middle of the table.
Sam was at such an age that blushing seemed to be the best reaction to everything, followed closely by a good stutter. "Th-thank you, Mr. Bilbo. I think they just needed a bit more sun, that clump of cleomes was blocking them. " He bobbed his head several times, like an enthusiastic duck diving for a bit of bread.
In the bathroom they could already smell supper coming along and it tugged their noses and stomachs towards the kitchen where the sensational smells came from, a steamy cooking onion smell and from the warm depths of the stove the even more delicious aroma of hot baking bread.
Wet feet sloshing against the cold tile. Frodo was getting water for the baths.
Merry tried to spring across the room and land on the drying mat near the unlit fireplace and missed his landing pad, skidding on the slippery floor. He wheeled his arms about wildly and regained his balance, with only a little dignity lost.
"I could try that-" Pip started to say but Merry interrupted him with a protest.
"Not on your life, you'd fly over here and knock me over where I stand! You stay where you are. C'mon, who shall go first, as there's only this one tub? Two at most, and that'd be a squeeze. Older to youngest? I've got seniority." He boasted.
"I'm still over you when it comes to that!" Frodo dusted his damp hair, getting mud on his nose as he did so, it looked like one large, unsightly freckle. "You'll never catch up to my number of birthdays."
"Whoever goes first it shall not be Pippin," Merry decreed, "He's /slow/, he's a snail in water, splashing about and washing between each toe."
"He gets the cold water at the end, than." Frodo agreed and they shook hands on it.
"Slowest about bathing, cold water! Now I say." Pippin muttered to himself and shimmied out of his wet shirt as Frodo and Merry hurried off to see if the water was hot yet, and to haul it back if it was fit to bathe in.
Merry brought in some cold water from the pump outside to balance out the water that was boiling hot, Merry had no wish to be boiled up like a crawfish or steeped in his bathwater like a tealeaf. He tipped the bucket poured it into the tub. "It'll take a great deal to fill that thing," he mourned, and gave Pippin a hinting stare.
Pip looked at him, "What?" His sweet mock innocence was believable except for the drunken butterfly flipping of his eyelashes.
"You could help."
"Can't," Pippin chirped and gave his naked chest a hollow thump. "I'm a modest robin, I can't go wandering around Mister Bilbo's house in my skivvies."
Frodo huffed in, carrying another bucket that he set down by the tub but didn't pour in. "You guard the door then and make sure no one comes in and steals our water." He could tell Pippin was worn out by the trek across-fields and through streams or he would jump to help and make whatever the chore into some sort of mischief.
"Right!" Pippin gave a mock bow as if Frodo were his king. Merry gave his shoulder a light slap but Pippin remained at rigid guard until his friends had disappeared into the hallway. Then he turned to more pleasant offices, thoughts of climbing into the clear water, clean as fresh rain, cool as a puddle. And the more he thought about it the harder it became to resist, the more gritty and mud-crusted he felt. It wasn't long until his fragile resolve crumbled and he clambered splashing into the shallow water that filled the bottom of the tub. It was cold, but clean which suited his purposes. He paddled his feet in it and bent over to scrub between each toe.
Merry was the first to burst in the door, carrying more water. He set his bucket down by the tub and was about to leave when he saw where Pippin had enthroned himself. Pip had been scrubbing half-heartedly at a few of the grass stains on the knees of his trousers but he made a great show of relaxing as Merry watched him.
"Oooh, you've mucked it up." Merry complained, and dipped his hands into the now muddy tub water to rinse his hands. He lunged close to tickle Pippin on the stomach but Pippin squirmed and yelped in ticklish protest.
"Dreadful Took, come out of there and give us a hand hauling the water!" Merry gave up the pursuit of tickles and put his hands on his hips.
Pippin looked up, beaming from his mud puddle in the tub. "I'll get the floor filthy if I do, you must bring me some more water, I have to wash these trousers while I'm in here, I don't think the old Egg would appreciate the fact that I got them this stained while /adventuring/."
"They're only your travel things, even your mother wouldn't be upset if they got a little dusty," but Merry shrugged and let his friend have the excuse. "Empty that filthy water out before I bring back another bucket or we'll be bathing in swamp water, you foul frog." He gave a fake scowl, eyeing Pip levelly. He swept up his bucket and pantomimed dumping it over Pip's head. "Right." He grinned in a forgiving way and set the bucket down, hurrying off to bring back more.
Pippin was nudging sand down the drain of the tub when Frodo came in, lugging a bucket in each hand, "These are cold. Merry said I should pour them /both/ over your head, because you referred to your mother in a disrespectful way. And you took our bathtub." He sloshed the water dangerously, "What do you say?"
"You said I could go first!"
"No--Bilbo said I should go first, Merry and I agreed you /shouldn't/ go first!" Frodo cried in indignant amusement.
"You /were/ most filthy. I suppose you still are." Pippin tried to change the subject by giggling at Frodo's muddy clothing, but Frodo was not distracted and Pippin could not avoid the arc of water that Frodo itself over his head. "You fell down more then I did!" He rubbed water out of his eyes and quickly plugged up the bathtub, standing up and streaming water in all directions as he gave himself a little shake to dry himself.
"I didn't fall down I-I meant to slide around a bit, that was all." Frodo mopped his brow, rubbing his forehead against the only dry patch he had on his whole body, the corner of his sleeve which had escaped immersion by some miracle of flailing when he had slipped, slid, tripped and been pulled into the water.
"Went down like nine pins, you did!" Pippin stuck out his tongue made bug-eyed faces at Frodo while Merry struggled through the door with a pan of warm water. "And more than once."
"Hey, that was a lot more fun then mincing around the edge of the stream like water would bite you." Frodo muttered, keeping the laughter from his voice admirably.
"I didn't!" Pippin shook his wet head adamantly, "I really didn't." He added for Merry's benefit.
"Yes you did Pip. When we started it was you and Sam both. Poor Sam, why can't he just wet his toes?" Merry had quickly changed the subject because he could hear a bad-tempered squeak coming into Pippin's voice, he knew his cousin to be impatient when unfed. He gestured Pippin out of the tub and made him rinse the rest of the sand down the drain by pulling up the plug for a moment, communicating this complicated maneuver in voiceless pantomime.
Frodo watched them for a moment, amused at their language without words, thinking that they looked remarkably like a pair of clever ravens trying to unlatch a barn door to get into the grain store. "He likes the rain well enough, just not the stream." He broke their lock-picking silence.
"Thinks it's too deep, does he?" Merry mixed the cold and warm water together, dipping in a finger at a time to make sure it was hot enough but not hot enough to boil anyone.
"When I tried to take him out on the pond in my raft he wouldn't go." Frodo still remembered the incident with a touch of prickliness. Much as he liked Sam, he found his friend in Hobbiten was a great deal lacking in the spirit of fun that his cousins had in flush.
"But Frodo, is that a fair argument? No one save your uncle went out in that raft of yours for fear of sinking-I wouldn't, even if you had asked me." Merry shook his head. "And he just did it out of niceness."
"And you did sink, didn't you?" Pippin asked, as though he couldn't remember, even though he had drawn the story out of Frodo half a dozen times on Midsummer's when Frodo had been in Buckland.
Frodo broke into a laugh, sloughing off the ill-feeling. "I might have." He shook his head, "Go on, have your bath."
"Better to have sunk with Mister Bilbo then with Sam-you'd've had to save him." Pippin squeaked a last word on the matter.
Splash and wallow, Merry tumbled into the tub and charged, "Pippin, since you're drenched already, we'll have this bath and Frodo can try to peel of his clothes while we hurry it up. Oooh, it was agony to pass the table every time we came in with the water, there's bread out and stew's on the stove. Mister Bilbo was teaching Sam how to fold napkins into swans. Did he learn /that/ from the dwarves d'you figure?
"While you're up, give us a bit more water?" Pip beamed pleadingly at Frodo, who took it very well and splashed a bucket over Pippin's back, sending water streaming off of him in muddy rivulets.
"There!" Frodo drew up a low stool to sit beside the tub.
Pippin noted without worry, where Frodo was sitting. "Hey now, you'll get that shirt all wrinkly."
Frodo stood up and checked the shirt. "Hurry up, /I'm/ getting wrinkly just waiting for you to finish." Frodo teased, but hung the short over the back of a chair near the fireplace.
"These too!" Pippin cried as he wriggled out of and then tossed his soaking trousers on to the tiles with a damp slap.
Merry splashed a bit of water in Pippin's direction. "I think you've got swan blood in you. You hate to get in the water but when you are you're as graceful as a minnow."
Pippin struck a short-lived graceful pose then turned and splashed water over the side of the tub in an effort to send an arc of water over Merry.
Merry dipped his head and rinsed his hair in the water, shaking off like a damp duck and sending water droplets all over the room.
Merry was first to declare himself good and clean enough.
"Your go Frodo, and I must say, you're a jolly good host to let me have such a good wash off, I'll give you good soap on my next birthday and you can think of me and use it." He climbed out of the tub, leaving room for Frodo. "I'll save you some crumbs, but not much more, not even Mister Bilbo Baggins can keep me away from that table for much longer." Merry sucked hungrily at his teeth.
"Pad along, take a towel and dry off in my room, if you like you can snitch some of my dry clothes and lay out some for me and Pip while you're at it?
"No trouble."
"Good y'don't mind sharing." Pip slitted his eyes and wiggled his nose. "Because we heartless invaders would take, even if you didn't offer."
Merry had to pass through the busy kitchen on his way and ask, "Frodo says I'm to wear some of his dry things." He leaned his head against the doorjamb and rapped out a short rhythm on the wood with the tips of his fingers.
Sam cocked an ear and turned away from his job of stirring the salad dressing, whipping it until the fragments of pepper were well distributed and it was a nice bright green color.
Bilbo bustled around the kitchen, dipping a finger into Sam's dressing as he passed. "Salt, mmm," he advised.
"Yes," Sam said quietly, sadly almost, though surely not over the state of his dressing and the meal preparations, which had been quite fun, Bilbo made jolly company in the kitchen.
"Anything troubling you? I hope Frodo's cousins were kind to you, but I noticed you didn't get wet."
"Can't bare to wade in very deep." Sam mumbled.
Bilbo didn't press the question further. "Go and knock on the door to the bathroom, lad, see if they're done yet, or almost."
Sam felt awkward standing on the hallway side of the door.
Splash.
"Whoa!"
Sam recognized Frodo's voice through the door and felt a twinge of self-pity that he wasn't being included in this new fun.
He leaned closed and knocked quickly on the door, a soft rap with the backs of his knuckles. "Are you finished yet? The table's set." He sang, leaning his weight against the door and listening to the splashing sounds coming from within.
Slippery, splashy, wet and wallow, he heard a sheet of water hit the floor and a brief struggle.
He opened the door and peered in, "Did you hear me?"
Frodo was kneeling, dipping water down his back and scrubbing at his neck but just as the door cracked open Pippin reached around Frodo's shoulders, and tipped his face up, latching mouth to mouth. Frodo didn't resist, only laughed into the kiss, quite unaware of Sam.
Sam gave a worried gasp and chirped, "The table is set." He shut the door with a sharp click.
Frodo turned and looked at the door, then back at Pippin, he widened his eyes a little and his furry eyebrows lifted but he spoke no word of protest, only climbed out of the tub and began to dry himself, leaving Pippin to wrinkle with wetness if he desired.
At that moment Merry returned, bearing a fluffy towel and piling dry clothes onto the stool. On his way back to the door from setting down the clothes he stepped in a puddle of water to the side of the tub and gave and squawk. "You've been playing in here, Pippin, I never made so many splashes."
"It was partly me…" Frodo smiled to himself but Merry paid him no mind.
"I'll get a mop and Pip, you get to mop this up, you made the mess and you made Frodo wait for the last bath even though you are youngest."
"We went youngest to oldest," Pippin protested.
"You didn't even help with the water. You mop it up or no pie and sauce for you."
"Oooh, is it pie? Allright, lead me to a mop and I shall."
"Lawks, cheeky thing, I'll find you one." Merry hurried off to find a mop so that the chore of cleaning up after his cousins might be finished as quickly as possible and dinner devoured.
Frodo pulled a shirt over his head and shook himself, still in the middle of the shirt-when he pulled it down over his eyes he was met with Pippin's cheerful face.
Pippin leaned in for another peck of a kiss but at this Frodo did protest, "What's this?" He asked, "Really."
Pippin shrugged, "I'd missed you," he touched Frodo's cheek and forehead and eyebrow, tracing the lines of his face to remember the looks of him.
Frodo looked down to button the top of his shirt. "You've got a showy way of proving it."
The floor didn't take as long as they thought it would and at last they trailed down the hallway and sat at the table, all wet hair and gleaming clean faces.
Except Sam, of course.
"Weren't you planning on staying the night?"
"Oh, no, many apologies Mister Baggins, but we have to be off home." Merry was skating the last crust of his bread around the edge of his soup bowl, there had been very little talk during dinner.
"But you won't get back to Buckland before nightfall, not if you start this late, it's nearly dark out there as it is."
"Why no, sir, but we don't plan to. We're going cross fields," at this point Merry gave Pippin an odd serious grin and barely resisted the urge to wink at him, "Don't give it a worry, we're to camp off the road and we both know the way very well." He smiled and nodded, though Bilbo still looked dubious.
Frodo was scandalized, "Leaving already? I expected you to stay /much/ longer."
"Only until out clothes dry." Pippin fluffed his hair up a little higher and nestled back into his borrowed clothing.
"Fine then, and a fare thee well too, you just came along for breakfast, a good bath and luncheon!"
"Nooo, surely! We wished to see /you/ most of all, Frodo!" Merry protested.
"Well, most once after-"
Frodo interrupted, "After who?"
"Sam Gamgee of course!" Pippin cried.
The outburst made Sam lift his sleepy head and the nap went out of his eyes. "Eh?"
Everyone was quiet for a moment, thoughtful. Then Bilbo rose to tend the fire and the silence went from tense to easy.
"Of course," Frodo smiled at his cousins and dipped his head in agreement, "You must go back then, but have a care on the road, and do not make me wait until Merry's birthday before you invite me to Buckland again."
"Say no more! As soon as we get home I shall clamor for a visit and send a dozen couriers to flood your smial with invitations." Pippin assured him before leaning over the table and helping himself to his third piece of pie. "And invitations for Sam Gamgee as well, it was nice to have met you, my fine fellow."
And then, before the dishes were done and leaving almost two whole piece of pie uneaten, they were gone.
Frodo and Sam wandered down the front path, shading eyes and waving until they two were long out of sight, then they cut across fields in the general direction of the Gamgee smial, though they took their own sweet time about it, stopping to find walking sticks under the oak tree and scuffing through last years dead leaves.
"I liked your cousins, Frodo." Sam said, after they had passed the leaves and conversation was possible.
"They're impetuous. I think they would prick their fingers and swear themselves blood brothers to you, Sam." He wasn't watching where he was going, he was checking the horizon in the direction the travelers had taken. "They took a shine."
Sam ducked his head and hummed quietly to himself.
"They really did, I'm not just being flatterful." Frodo spoke softly, when he came back to earth.
"Ah, but they thought it funny I didn't join you in the water…"
"Don't mind that in the least! They will go on. But do you not want to know how to swim? I could teach you myself, the stream is very shallow there and not over your head." Frodo crept his hand along the stone wall as they walked, as though to keep his balance on the flat path.
"Why, no, though thank you for the offer, I haven't the courage for such a thing." Sam could not bear to look over at Frodo for fear that there would be disappointment written on his friend's face. "You shall go to see them very often, now that you are older, I think."
"Why, it is the nicest thing in the world to walk from one end of the Shire to the other." Frodo paused for a moment, unable to keep from staring at the sky again.
"Yes, but what of me left here in Hobbiton?"
"Why Sam, I would need company for such a journey, and you would be the best sort."
"Really?" Sam wasn't at all sure.
"Indeed I could not bear the thought of you left here alone. You're the very nice hobbit to take along on a journey, packed in with apples and a nice raisin cake." Frodo grinned.
"Thank you. I-I like the thought of that very much. I. Very much. I like you, very much."
"I like you too, Master Gamgee." Frodo resorted to the title as a last dash for lightness.
Samwise hung his head, hiding his silly grin. "Thank you, Master Frodo." Something changed him, and a difference crept into his matter. "You have strange cousins. I mean, queer. No offense meant."
"None taken, they are birds of a different color."
"Stripy."
"Stripy?"
"Yes, I say stripy. Like… jays. Like bluejays. Stripy and flashy."
"They were only showing off because you'd never met them, they're just regular as ponies once you get to know them. Green as grass. Not stripy at all!"
"Well, Pippin seemed stripy."
Frodo had to stop and think this over, how should he make an argument against the color of Pippin's character? He /was/ a bit stripy, but not at all as bad as Sam's tone made it sound. "No, not stripy, he's just a spring finch, never shutting up, never sitting still, when he's not flying he's hopping up and down."
"And being slippery…"
"What?"
"I said-well, it… it's rude of me to say."
"Say it anyway, I'm getting impatient with you."
"Now let's not have that I don't mean to be awful." Sam really seemed upset now. "But he was slippery as an eel about you."
"You saw a bit in the bathroom, didn't you?"
"Well, when Merry had gone through Mister Bilbo told me to check on you-"
"So you did. And you saw us-"
Sam was turning red. Again. "Kissing." He flashes hotly, a jealous hobbit.
Frodo laughs, touching Sam's clenched hands. "So? He's my cousin, I don't see him often. And as you said, he is a bit stripy." He winked, and somehow this was more reassuring then any of his words.
Sam relaxed and stopped biting his lips. "Really?" It was the last question though, because he reached out and tapped Frodo on the shoulder. "Right."
"Your gate!" Frodo bowed and opened it for Sam, who grinned and got as flustered as a bird in the rain.
"Thank you." Sam started to mumble and walk away at the same time but Frodo caught the back of his vest in the ball of his fist, "Wait a minute." Sam spun around and for a moment they met each other's gaze, and strangely that is enough to make them stop and wait. "What?" Sam asked finally, because the light was leeching out of the sky and they couldn't stand like that forever. Could they?
"Don't forget. You're coming with me."
Frodo's Cousins or Some Things Happen
"I won't give you mud pups so much as a morsel until you scrub off." Bilbo ushered the small hobbits into the hall and off of his now wet front mat. He shooed them on down the hall towards the bathroom, murmuring amused things about their unkempt state.
When they reached the bathroom door he paused and surveyed them again, his eyes fell closely on young Samwise Gamgee who felt the keen gaze and ducked his head even lower against his chest.
How odd that he was the only young hobbit who had not come in dripping with water and trailing stream-weeds.
"Sam, will you help me set the table? You look tidy enough to polish my silver, how you managed that while keeping company with these knaves I'll never know." He crinkled his eyes in mock severity at the three hobbits leaving mud trails down his hall.
Bilbo turned a more baleful eye on the three muddy hobbits dripping on his tiled floor and gestured them through a door. "Into the washroom, you three, and I'll not have you out until your ears are scrubbed pink. I'll boil water but it'll take a bit to get ready so just go and sit and smell dinner coming along. Frodo, you take the first bath, your feet are filthy."
Once in the dining room Sam had to keep his head ducked to keep from floating off into the rafters with giddiness, here he was setting the table of Mister Baggins after a long days adventuring, this was quite a new treat for him.
He had only met Merry and Pippin early in the week when they had rattled into Hobbiton astride a roly-poly pony--a gift they had each received half of on old Thistle Brandybuck's birthday--but they had ingratiated themselves so completely into life at Bag End that, in between helping his Gaffer weed the strawberry patch and plan the orchard he had come to think on them as friends.
Not the best of friends, however. He felt a flash of discomfort as he laid plates out on the table. Merry and Pippin were far closer to each other than any two hobbits he had ever seen and teased each other back and forth in a near-constant stream of inside jokes too mysterious for Sam to even guess at. But Frodo managed to get along with them without ever feeling left out and their heated pace of conversation alone sometimes made Sam's head spin.
"I must say that the garden looks nice this year. The strawberries are finally coming along." Bilbo moved a vase full of dianthus from the windowsill to the middle of the table.
Sam was at such an age that blushing seemed to be the best reaction to everything, followed closely by a good stutter. "Th-thank you, Mr. Bilbo. I think they just needed a bit more sun, that clump of cleomes was blocking them. " He bobbed his head several times, like an enthusiastic duck diving for a bit of bread.
In the bathroom they could already smell supper coming along and it tugged their noses and stomachs towards the kitchen where the sensational smells came from, a steamy cooking onion smell and from the warm depths of the stove the even more delicious aroma of hot baking bread.
Wet feet sloshing against the cold tile. Frodo was getting water for the baths.
Merry tried to spring across the room and land on the drying mat near the unlit fireplace and missed his landing pad, skidding on the slippery floor. He wheeled his arms about wildly and regained his balance, with only a little dignity lost.
"I could try that-" Pip started to say but Merry interrupted him with a protest.
"Not on your life, you'd fly over here and knock me over where I stand! You stay where you are. C'mon, who shall go first, as there's only this one tub? Two at most, and that'd be a squeeze. Older to youngest? I've got seniority." He boasted.
"I'm still over you when it comes to that!" Frodo dusted his damp hair, getting mud on his nose as he did so, it looked like one large, unsightly freckle. "You'll never catch up to my number of birthdays."
"Whoever goes first it shall not be Pippin," Merry decreed, "He's /slow/, he's a snail in water, splashing about and washing between each toe."
"He gets the cold water at the end, than." Frodo agreed and they shook hands on it.
"Slowest about bathing, cold water! Now I say." Pippin muttered to himself and shimmied out of his wet shirt as Frodo and Merry hurried off to see if the water was hot yet, and to haul it back if it was fit to bathe in.
Merry brought in some cold water from the pump outside to balance out the water that was boiling hot, Merry had no wish to be boiled up like a crawfish or steeped in his bathwater like a tealeaf. He tipped the bucket poured it into the tub. "It'll take a great deal to fill that thing," he mourned, and gave Pippin a hinting stare.
Pip looked at him, "What?" His sweet mock innocence was believable except for the drunken butterfly flipping of his eyelashes.
"You could help."
"Can't," Pippin chirped and gave his naked chest a hollow thump. "I'm a modest robin, I can't go wandering around Mister Bilbo's house in my skivvies."
Frodo huffed in, carrying another bucket that he set down by the tub but didn't pour in. "You guard the door then and make sure no one comes in and steals our water." He could tell Pippin was worn out by the trek across-fields and through streams or he would jump to help and make whatever the chore into some sort of mischief.
"Right!" Pippin gave a mock bow as if Frodo were his king. Merry gave his shoulder a light slap but Pippin remained at rigid guard until his friends had disappeared into the hallway. Then he turned to more pleasant offices, thoughts of climbing into the clear water, clean as fresh rain, cool as a puddle. And the more he thought about it the harder it became to resist, the more gritty and mud-crusted he felt. It wasn't long until his fragile resolve crumbled and he clambered splashing into the shallow water that filled the bottom of the tub. It was cold, but clean which suited his purposes. He paddled his feet in it and bent over to scrub between each toe.
Merry was the first to burst in the door, carrying more water. He set his bucket down by the tub and was about to leave when he saw where Pippin had enthroned himself. Pip had been scrubbing half-heartedly at a few of the grass stains on the knees of his trousers but he made a great show of relaxing as Merry watched him.
"Oooh, you've mucked it up." Merry complained, and dipped his hands into the now muddy tub water to rinse his hands. He lunged close to tickle Pippin on the stomach but Pippin squirmed and yelped in ticklish protest.
"Dreadful Took, come out of there and give us a hand hauling the water!" Merry gave up the pursuit of tickles and put his hands on his hips.
Pippin looked up, beaming from his mud puddle in the tub. "I'll get the floor filthy if I do, you must bring me some more water, I have to wash these trousers while I'm in here, I don't think the old Egg would appreciate the fact that I got them this stained while /adventuring/."
"They're only your travel things, even your mother wouldn't be upset if they got a little dusty," but Merry shrugged and let his friend have the excuse. "Empty that filthy water out before I bring back another bucket or we'll be bathing in swamp water, you foul frog." He gave a fake scowl, eyeing Pip levelly. He swept up his bucket and pantomimed dumping it over Pip's head. "Right." He grinned in a forgiving way and set the bucket down, hurrying off to bring back more.
Pippin was nudging sand down the drain of the tub when Frodo came in, lugging a bucket in each hand, "These are cold. Merry said I should pour them /both/ over your head, because you referred to your mother in a disrespectful way. And you took our bathtub." He sloshed the water dangerously, "What do you say?"
"You said I could go first!"
"No--Bilbo said I should go first, Merry and I agreed you /shouldn't/ go first!" Frodo cried in indignant amusement.
"You /were/ most filthy. I suppose you still are." Pippin tried to change the subject by giggling at Frodo's muddy clothing, but Frodo was not distracted and Pippin could not avoid the arc of water that Frodo itself over his head. "You fell down more then I did!" He rubbed water out of his eyes and quickly plugged up the bathtub, standing up and streaming water in all directions as he gave himself a little shake to dry himself.
"I didn't fall down I-I meant to slide around a bit, that was all." Frodo mopped his brow, rubbing his forehead against the only dry patch he had on his whole body, the corner of his sleeve which had escaped immersion by some miracle of flailing when he had slipped, slid, tripped and been pulled into the water.
"Went down like nine pins, you did!" Pippin stuck out his tongue made bug-eyed faces at Frodo while Merry struggled through the door with a pan of warm water. "And more than once."
"Hey, that was a lot more fun then mincing around the edge of the stream like water would bite you." Frodo muttered, keeping the laughter from his voice admirably.
"I didn't!" Pippin shook his wet head adamantly, "I really didn't." He added for Merry's benefit.
"Yes you did Pip. When we started it was you and Sam both. Poor Sam, why can't he just wet his toes?" Merry had quickly changed the subject because he could hear a bad-tempered squeak coming into Pippin's voice, he knew his cousin to be impatient when unfed. He gestured Pippin out of the tub and made him rinse the rest of the sand down the drain by pulling up the plug for a moment, communicating this complicated maneuver in voiceless pantomime.
Frodo watched them for a moment, amused at their language without words, thinking that they looked remarkably like a pair of clever ravens trying to unlatch a barn door to get into the grain store. "He likes the rain well enough, just not the stream." He broke their lock-picking silence.
"Thinks it's too deep, does he?" Merry mixed the cold and warm water together, dipping in a finger at a time to make sure it was hot enough but not hot enough to boil anyone.
"When I tried to take him out on the pond in my raft he wouldn't go." Frodo still remembered the incident with a touch of prickliness. Much as he liked Sam, he found his friend in Hobbiten was a great deal lacking in the spirit of fun that his cousins had in flush.
"But Frodo, is that a fair argument? No one save your uncle went out in that raft of yours for fear of sinking-I wouldn't, even if you had asked me." Merry shook his head. "And he just did it out of niceness."
"And you did sink, didn't you?" Pippin asked, as though he couldn't remember, even though he had drawn the story out of Frodo half a dozen times on Midsummer's when Frodo had been in Buckland.
Frodo broke into a laugh, sloughing off the ill-feeling. "I might have." He shook his head, "Go on, have your bath."
"Better to have sunk with Mister Bilbo then with Sam-you'd've had to save him." Pippin squeaked a last word on the matter.
Splash and wallow, Merry tumbled into the tub and charged, "Pippin, since you're drenched already, we'll have this bath and Frodo can try to peel of his clothes while we hurry it up. Oooh, it was agony to pass the table every time we came in with the water, there's bread out and stew's on the stove. Mister Bilbo was teaching Sam how to fold napkins into swans. Did he learn /that/ from the dwarves d'you figure?
"While you're up, give us a bit more water?" Pip beamed pleadingly at Frodo, who took it very well and splashed a bucket over Pippin's back, sending water streaming off of him in muddy rivulets.
"There!" Frodo drew up a low stool to sit beside the tub.
Pippin noted without worry, where Frodo was sitting. "Hey now, you'll get that shirt all wrinkly."
Frodo stood up and checked the shirt. "Hurry up, /I'm/ getting wrinkly just waiting for you to finish." Frodo teased, but hung the short over the back of a chair near the fireplace.
"These too!" Pippin cried as he wriggled out of and then tossed his soaking trousers on to the tiles with a damp slap.
Merry splashed a bit of water in Pippin's direction. "I think you've got swan blood in you. You hate to get in the water but when you are you're as graceful as a minnow."
Pippin struck a short-lived graceful pose then turned and splashed water over the side of the tub in an effort to send an arc of water over Merry.
Merry dipped his head and rinsed his hair in the water, shaking off like a damp duck and sending water droplets all over the room.
Merry was first to declare himself good and clean enough.
"Your go Frodo, and I must say, you're a jolly good host to let me have such a good wash off, I'll give you good soap on my next birthday and you can think of me and use it." He climbed out of the tub, leaving room for Frodo. "I'll save you some crumbs, but not much more, not even Mister Bilbo Baggins can keep me away from that table for much longer." Merry sucked hungrily at his teeth.
"Pad along, take a towel and dry off in my room, if you like you can snitch some of my dry clothes and lay out some for me and Pip while you're at it?
"No trouble."
"Good y'don't mind sharing." Pip slitted his eyes and wiggled his nose. "Because we heartless invaders would take, even if you didn't offer."
Merry had to pass through the busy kitchen on his way and ask, "Frodo says I'm to wear some of his dry things." He leaned his head against the doorjamb and rapped out a short rhythm on the wood with the tips of his fingers.
Sam cocked an ear and turned away from his job of stirring the salad dressing, whipping it until the fragments of pepper were well distributed and it was a nice bright green color.
Bilbo bustled around the kitchen, dipping a finger into Sam's dressing as he passed. "Salt, mmm," he advised.
"Yes," Sam said quietly, sadly almost, though surely not over the state of his dressing and the meal preparations, which had been quite fun, Bilbo made jolly company in the kitchen.
"Anything troubling you? I hope Frodo's cousins were kind to you, but I noticed you didn't get wet."
"Can't bare to wade in very deep." Sam mumbled.
Bilbo didn't press the question further. "Go and knock on the door to the bathroom, lad, see if they're done yet, or almost."
Sam felt awkward standing on the hallway side of the door.
Splash.
"Whoa!"
Sam recognized Frodo's voice through the door and felt a twinge of self-pity that he wasn't being included in this new fun.
He leaned closed and knocked quickly on the door, a soft rap with the backs of his knuckles. "Are you finished yet? The table's set." He sang, leaning his weight against the door and listening to the splashing sounds coming from within.
Slippery, splashy, wet and wallow, he heard a sheet of water hit the floor and a brief struggle.
He opened the door and peered in, "Did you hear me?"
Frodo was kneeling, dipping water down his back and scrubbing at his neck but just as the door cracked open Pippin reached around Frodo's shoulders, and tipped his face up, latching mouth to mouth. Frodo didn't resist, only laughed into the kiss, quite unaware of Sam.
Sam gave a worried gasp and chirped, "The table is set." He shut the door with a sharp click.
Frodo turned and looked at the door, then back at Pippin, he widened his eyes a little and his furry eyebrows lifted but he spoke no word of protest, only climbed out of the tub and began to dry himself, leaving Pippin to wrinkle with wetness if he desired.
At that moment Merry returned, bearing a fluffy towel and piling dry clothes onto the stool. On his way back to the door from setting down the clothes he stepped in a puddle of water to the side of the tub and gave and squawk. "You've been playing in here, Pippin, I never made so many splashes."
"It was partly me…" Frodo smiled to himself but Merry paid him no mind.
"I'll get a mop and Pip, you get to mop this up, you made the mess and you made Frodo wait for the last bath even though you are youngest."
"We went youngest to oldest," Pippin protested.
"You didn't even help with the water. You mop it up or no pie and sauce for you."
"Oooh, is it pie? Allright, lead me to a mop and I shall."
"Lawks, cheeky thing, I'll find you one." Merry hurried off to find a mop so that the chore of cleaning up after his cousins might be finished as quickly as possible and dinner devoured.
Frodo pulled a shirt over his head and shook himself, still in the middle of the shirt-when he pulled it down over his eyes he was met with Pippin's cheerful face.
Pippin leaned in for another peck of a kiss but at this Frodo did protest, "What's this?" He asked, "Really."
Pippin shrugged, "I'd missed you," he touched Frodo's cheek and forehead and eyebrow, tracing the lines of his face to remember the looks of him.
Frodo looked down to button the top of his shirt. "You've got a showy way of proving it."
The floor didn't take as long as they thought it would and at last they trailed down the hallway and sat at the table, all wet hair and gleaming clean faces.
Except Sam, of course.
"Weren't you planning on staying the night?"
"Oh, no, many apologies Mister Baggins, but we have to be off home." Merry was skating the last crust of his bread around the edge of his soup bowl, there had been very little talk during dinner.
"But you won't get back to Buckland before nightfall, not if you start this late, it's nearly dark out there as it is."
"Why no, sir, but we don't plan to. We're going cross fields," at this point Merry gave Pippin an odd serious grin and barely resisted the urge to wink at him, "Don't give it a worry, we're to camp off the road and we both know the way very well." He smiled and nodded, though Bilbo still looked dubious.
Frodo was scandalized, "Leaving already? I expected you to stay /much/ longer."
"Only until out clothes dry." Pippin fluffed his hair up a little higher and nestled back into his borrowed clothing.
"Fine then, and a fare thee well too, you just came along for breakfast, a good bath and luncheon!"
"Nooo, surely! We wished to see /you/ most of all, Frodo!" Merry protested.
"Well, most once after-"
Frodo interrupted, "After who?"
"Sam Gamgee of course!" Pippin cried.
The outburst made Sam lift his sleepy head and the nap went out of his eyes. "Eh?"
Everyone was quiet for a moment, thoughtful. Then Bilbo rose to tend the fire and the silence went from tense to easy.
"Of course," Frodo smiled at his cousins and dipped his head in agreement, "You must go back then, but have a care on the road, and do not make me wait until Merry's birthday before you invite me to Buckland again."
"Say no more! As soon as we get home I shall clamor for a visit and send a dozen couriers to flood your smial with invitations." Pippin assured him before leaning over the table and helping himself to his third piece of pie. "And invitations for Sam Gamgee as well, it was nice to have met you, my fine fellow."
And then, before the dishes were done and leaving almost two whole piece of pie uneaten, they were gone.
Frodo and Sam wandered down the front path, shading eyes and waving until they two were long out of sight, then they cut across fields in the general direction of the Gamgee smial, though they took their own sweet time about it, stopping to find walking sticks under the oak tree and scuffing through last years dead leaves.
"I liked your cousins, Frodo." Sam said, after they had passed the leaves and conversation was possible.
"They're impetuous. I think they would prick their fingers and swear themselves blood brothers to you, Sam." He wasn't watching where he was going, he was checking the horizon in the direction the travelers had taken. "They took a shine."
Sam ducked his head and hummed quietly to himself.
"They really did, I'm not just being flatterful." Frodo spoke softly, when he came back to earth.
"Ah, but they thought it funny I didn't join you in the water…"
"Don't mind that in the least! They will go on. But do you not want to know how to swim? I could teach you myself, the stream is very shallow there and not over your head." Frodo crept his hand along the stone wall as they walked, as though to keep his balance on the flat path.
"Why, no, though thank you for the offer, I haven't the courage for such a thing." Sam could not bear to look over at Frodo for fear that there would be disappointment written on his friend's face. "You shall go to see them very often, now that you are older, I think."
"Why, it is the nicest thing in the world to walk from one end of the Shire to the other." Frodo paused for a moment, unable to keep from staring at the sky again.
"Yes, but what of me left here in Hobbiton?"
"Why Sam, I would need company for such a journey, and you would be the best sort."
"Really?" Sam wasn't at all sure.
"Indeed I could not bear the thought of you left here alone. You're the very nice hobbit to take along on a journey, packed in with apples and a nice raisin cake." Frodo grinned.
"Thank you. I-I like the thought of that very much. I. Very much. I like you, very much."
"I like you too, Master Gamgee." Frodo resorted to the title as a last dash for lightness.
Samwise hung his head, hiding his silly grin. "Thank you, Master Frodo." Something changed him, and a difference crept into his matter. "You have strange cousins. I mean, queer. No offense meant."
"None taken, they are birds of a different color."
"Stripy."
"Stripy?"
"Yes, I say stripy. Like… jays. Like bluejays. Stripy and flashy."
"They were only showing off because you'd never met them, they're just regular as ponies once you get to know them. Green as grass. Not stripy at all!"
"Well, Pippin seemed stripy."
Frodo had to stop and think this over, how should he make an argument against the color of Pippin's character? He /was/ a bit stripy, but not at all as bad as Sam's tone made it sound. "No, not stripy, he's just a spring finch, never shutting up, never sitting still, when he's not flying he's hopping up and down."
"And being slippery…"
"What?"
"I said-well, it… it's rude of me to say."
"Say it anyway, I'm getting impatient with you."
"Now let's not have that I don't mean to be awful." Sam really seemed upset now. "But he was slippery as an eel about you."
"You saw a bit in the bathroom, didn't you?"
"Well, when Merry had gone through Mister Bilbo told me to check on you-"
"So you did. And you saw us-"
Sam was turning red. Again. "Kissing." He flashes hotly, a jealous hobbit.
Frodo laughs, touching Sam's clenched hands. "So? He's my cousin, I don't see him often. And as you said, he is a bit stripy." He winked, and somehow this was more reassuring then any of his words.
Sam relaxed and stopped biting his lips. "Really?" It was the last question though, because he reached out and tapped Frodo on the shoulder. "Right."
"Your gate!" Frodo bowed and opened it for Sam, who grinned and got as flustered as a bird in the rain.
"Thank you." Sam started to mumble and walk away at the same time but Frodo caught the back of his vest in the ball of his fist, "Wait a minute." Sam spun around and for a moment they met each other's gaze, and strangely that is enough to make them stop and wait. "What?" Sam asked finally, because the light was leeching out of the sky and they couldn't stand like that forever. Could they?
"Don't forget. You're coming with me."