(KAI) Because I love Pippin. And because Sam and Frodo should be.
Veil
"Listen very carefully," he was pressing his forehead to mine, as though he could will his thoughts into me, "No matter how alone you may feel, I will always be there to take care of you."
"You're only saying that," I must not want him to let go, for as much as I'm gripping his hands where they rest on my shoulders.
"Exactly as you're saying you feel alone."
His voice is all I can hear, and I can feel the confusion draw over me like a veil, "Merry?"
And he's holding me. All the way to his chest, and the smell of gardening is on him like earth and being alive.
"You hush," and he sounds almost angry but he won't let me up, "Don't get drunk on me and say such things."
"I'm sorry-"
"Don't be."
And the veil is just that much harder to pierce.
"Merry..." So much time has passed, here outside my door, cracked and letting the light through.
"Pippin, don't talk."
"I miss Sam, and Frodo, and I miss Legolas and Aragorn, and I miss Gimli, and- and Gandalf, and I miss Faramir-"
"What did I tell you, you fool?" He's rattling me a bit and still won't let me go.
"But... don't you miss them, too?" I'm going to die, just grasping his worn overcoat and shivering like it were colder than it is.
"Every day, you great drunken fool," he says it into my hair, and I feel the hot air he's breathed against me. "I think about them every day, especially since Sam left."
"I miss him..."
"So you've said," and he's disentangling me, and maybe it really is that cold. "Up to bed with you."
The stairs are three and four times too many, and I think I'm crying or still very drunk because they oughtn't be so blurry and at least Merry is holding me still, because how else would I be managing?
"Now why-" he grumbles when I've slipped again (or maybe I've tripped or fallen down altogether). "Now why did you go and get so fuddled?"
It's no celebration night, after all. Just today, like yesterday, and yesterday before that, and heavens, tomorrow, too.
"I'm sorry, Merry- I can-" and I would say more, but the world is tilting to the left and that's no good, but Merry catches me to him, and his heartbeat hits me so hard.
"Fool," he says it so hopelessly.
"Dammit," I'm gripping onto him as hard as I can, my nails are biting through his clothes and digging back into my palms. "Dammit," this time because I know I'm crying now, there's no other reason for it. Hot, wet tears, fogging everything up, and making shake me like a big, dumb child.
"Don't... not again," his voice is part of the veil, falling away even as we hold on to one another. Those are his hands across my back, squeezing too tight, and maybe keeping me together and maybe keeping him together as the world sinks upward. But we're on the floor, and the world has resolved itself, though not so well, because Merry is crying on my shoulder and that's not how the world is supposed to be.
And the world isn't supposed to hurt our loved ones and take them away and make it so hard just to keep waking up in the mornings. And the mornings are so beautiful, so rich and clean and it's just not how the world is supposed to be- not after everything we've been through and some of these words aren't mine, but they're tumbling out of Merry and they feel like mine.
"Merry, Merry," I'm touching his hair, and his shoulders and wherever I can get to pressed so close to him, "Merry, don't cry... It's... It's not so bad, I'm sorry..."
"Shush," he weeps into me, clutching, almost desperate, and that veil is maybe not so thick. Even if I'm confused, or don't understand, it seems clear to him. "I'm sorry you miss them, Pippin, I miss them, too."
"Do you think they're okay?"
And I mostly mean Frodo and I mostly mean Sam, because they were in our life before the rest and I love them all, but Sam left, he left and he's not coming back.
"I think they're just beautiful, surely," he whispers around a sob that sounds like every day we've kept this thing inside our bellies and our throats.
"Me, too," and I'm resting my head on his shoulder as he cries into mine, great heaving wretchedness that we are, and soon enough he's struggling, even though it's me, it's me, that should be so weakened. It's always been me, and it's him who's going to run away if I don't- if I don't-
"H-Help me to bed," I rub my eyes even as he's half-rising, holding on to me around the middle and picking us up, "it'll be all right... right?"
He stands with me on the landing, moonglow on his splotchy face and wheat colored hair all mangled from where I've put my hands, but he doesn't say anything, even as I'm hugging him around the neck, veil and all.
"Everything will be all right..." I'm saying it to myself because he can't. I'm saying it to him because Sam and Frodo can't. I'm saying it to us because I have to, because the jigsaw is all broke up from when we left and now that we're back I can't put it together again.
Hesitantly, as though he is remembering something, he says by my ear, tense in my arms but relaxing maybe just a little bit, "Yes. Yes, Pip."
His arm is around my waist and we're walking, maybe stumbling, to my room; to the rumpled bed where I've lain so many nights, just trapped beneath heavy comforters and unable to sleep. There's fire and death, and misery behind my eyes, and I wonder if that desolation in his brown eyes is the same, if it's changed him inside, too.
I know he must have meant to tuck me in, to hug me, to leave, but I'm grabbing his lapels and I'm shaking the coat off of him, "Just stay," and he's not fighting me.
"Pippin..."
But he's not fighting me, he's not.
"Just stay, please, just stay."
A spark seems to hit him in the eyes, "Heavens, Peregrin Took, I'm not leaving- I'm not going anywhere. I can't... not like Sam.. not when I've got to..."
I'm kicking the blankets around, even though it's cold and I'll want them against the despair that welling up in my best friend in the entire world who pierces veils far better than I ever could; and I'm crying for him, for me, for us, for them.
"Don't, Merry, I'm sorry for saying that, I didn't mean to upset you... Here, just lay with me, all right?" And he doesn't fight me, though he might have, once.
He pulls the covers over us, because he's still practical, or because he really does think he still has to take care of me, though the idea doesn't hurt my feelings at all, but leaves me kind of fuzzy and nervous. He fluffs the pillow and we're laying with our legs all tangled up, maybe so neither of us can get away, and for the first time in so long I'm sleepy, I'm not just exhausted, I could sleep.
It's enough to make me sniffle like a child. "I missed you, so much, Merry..."
And he doesn't stop me getting closer, and I have to be closer, because all the warmth in the world is coming from Merry and that seems like a corner of the veil even though I'm not so drunk about it anymore. And I'm so tired I could die in his arms, and I'm bleary, I'm scratched-up inside, I'm hoarse, and-
"You're beautiful," he seems almost to be laughing, but there are tears that I can feel when he presses his cheek to mine. "You great big fool."
"I didn't mean to upset you... I just missed you so much," I can't help my heartbeat when it flutters inside like a butterfly, because his nose is so close to mine I can smell his breath, all herbed and earthy.
"Did you think... Did you really think I was leaving?"
My voice warbles, "No..."
"No?"
"You were so busy..."
"I... I was trying so hard to live, Pippin; why didn't you come talk to me?"
It hurts too much to bear, so much my heart is skipping and weeping and I can't be close enough to him and I can't get far enough away and my face is all hot, "I thought you'd forgotten me, I don't know..."
"Not after everything. And not when I've got to take care of you. Sam left to take care of Frodo, right?"
I nod; I must be nodding, because his heartbeat seems that much closer.
"I didn't mean to hurt you, Pip," his voice is echoing in my head, so warm I can't help it. I'm yawning and I'm grasping him as close as he'll go to me.
"Just stay," I'm whispering and he's leaning in close, "Just stay and I won't be alone."
"All right," he says and he squeezes me, and it's because he knows, he knows everything, and he feels it the same way I do, because it's a hurt that's between us like fire and water and never forgetting.
And his lips catch mine somewhere in the middle, where it's okay, and Sam and Frodo are okay, and Aragorn, and Legolas, and Gimli, and Gandalf. And Boromir-and-Faramir because I miss them terribly, too, more than anyone else.
But I'm not really alone. They're all gone away but Merry is here, and he's kissing me like sunshine and richness and cleansing and never forgetting.
"I love you, I love you."
"I love you, too," on and on and on into the veil, settled around us, never to be torn apart.