Irresistible Temptations
By Pipspebble
Rating - PG-13 maybe? You be the judge
Setting - Post Ring War, Minas Tirith
Written for - Happy Birthday, Baylor!
Thanks to - Marigold and Nickey for the quickie beta!
Note - This is all Baylor and Nickey's fault.
Warning: Could be interpreted two ways, depending on the reader's slant on the characters
Disclaimer - The reader should draw his or her own conclusions. The author pleads the 5th
"Pippin?" Merry mumbled, his arm blindly reaching for the space behind him. Finding it vacant he sat up, groaning as the faint light from the open window pierced his eyes, even the pale dawn sending blinding pain racing through his swollen head. Perhaps he had had too much to drink last night after all.
The last thing he remembered was stumbling along the corridor with his arm around his younger cousin, both giggling as they were brought to their knees time and time again by some burst of hobbit merriment or witty remark one or the other made. It took both of them working together to manage opening the door to their assigned chambers, and even more of an effort to heft and heave their drunken selves onto one of the great beds that were spaced much too far apart for them to seriously consider using more than one of them. Hobbits slept best when they were allowed to cuddle, and these particular hobbits had been apart for far too long during the last days of the War of the Ring to be separated by even that much space ever again, if they could help it.
He remembered collapsing onto the bed with Pippin curled up beside him, snuggling his pointed little chin contentedly into Merry's chest, Merry's arm around Pippin's shoulders, the other flat out on the other side of the bed, palm up, and neither of them heard the empty bottle that fell to the carpeted floor as Merry relaxed into blissful oblivion.
His dreams that night, whether through fault of food or drink, were tormenting in the extreme. He woke with the feeling that they bore some element of prophecy, and thus it was with some misgivings that he registered the fact that he was alone, and of Pippin there was no sign.
He stumbled out of bed and gathered his clothes from the floor where he had dropped them the night before. Pippin's, he noted, were missing, so he gathered that his cousin was already out and about. He lifted his head as his nose detected the smell of freshly baked bread and immediately deduced the whereabouts of his missing companion.
A short time later, having dressed and splashed water on his flushed face, brushed his teeth and combed his curls, Merry left the chambers and followed his nose to the site of the wondrous aromas.
The baking rooms at Minas Tirith were huge, as was everything associated with it. The Big People ate big meals, and all of the food was cooked in big pans and even bigger ovens. Pippin had been fascinated with watching Gondor's royal cooks as they worked their magic in preparing food for their King and his court. Often Pip would wheedle them into giving him a taste, and just the day before yesterday he had been introduced to chocolate, something never before seen in the Shire.
This night would mark the one-week anniversary of the King and Queen's wedding, and the royal cooks were sure to outdo themselves with their culinary wonders. Merry knew for a fact that they had been baking non-stop through the night, preparing for the feast. The smells emanating from the baking rooms told him that the sweetcakes were the order of business this day and he had a sneaking suspicion that his errant cousin might be in the vicinity of this temptation, doubtless too strong for him to resist, if Merry knew Pippin, and he did.
"Pippin?" he called as he entered the baking rooms, miraculously empty, until he remembered the early hour and caught sight of the sole attendant snoozing in the corner, her hot pads across her lap, her nose twitching as if in unconscious minding of her creations in their ovens. Merry stole silently further into the room, surreptitiously peering around the Big People furniture, standing on tiptoe to see up over the edge of the tables where Big People bowls dominated the surface. "Pippin?" he whispered, sensing that his cousin was there, somewhere. But where?
"Is that you, Merry?" a voice spoke weakly from above his head, from the counter where sat a pewter bowl larger than he and Pippin put together.
"Pippin?" Merry climbed onto the stool beside the counter and hoisted himself up to the surface, stepping over a large wooden stirring paddle and padding over to the bowl from whence came his cousin's voice once again.
"Merry, help me!" His words ended on a choking sound and Merry's heart leapt into his throat as he stood on tiptoe and peered over the side of the enormous bowl.
Pippin grinned back up at him from a pool of chocolate, thick and dark and dripping with sweetness, his eyes brilliant green amidst the dark brown batter that covered his curls, dripping onto his face, down his sharp little nose and onto his mouth, that impossibly perfect, bow-shaped mouth, wreathed and smeared from the path taken by his tongue as it made the circuit of his lips, still dotted with the residue of the sweet journey.
Jolted to the very core of his being, Merry dropped back down onto his heels so that he would be spared the stirring vision, for long enough to at least catch his breath and allow him to act as the responsible one of the pair. Chocolate-covered Pippin! How in Middle-earth was he supposed to deal with that? And in his condition!
"Merry!" came the whispered plea again. "Merry, don't leave me here! I can't get out! The sides are too slippery, and so am I!"
Sighing, Merry closed his eyes and took a deep breath, forcing himself to take control of the situation. Whatever that was. He was quite confused about exactly how things stood between them as it was. And how in the name of the Valar had Pippin managed to fall into a bowl of chocolate so deep that he could not pull himself out of it?
Merry stuck his head over the rim of the bowl again and there Pippin was still, grinning like the cat that caught the rabbit. From the size of the bowl and the amount of batter it contained, this was surely the fixings for a cake of significant size, worthy of marking the one week anniversary of the wedding of their King and Queen. And now Pippin had managed to ruin it.
He apparently suffered not one whit of guilt or embarrassment over his condition, indeed seemed quite pleased with himself. Except for the fact that he was trapped, he appeared quite content with his lot, covered from the top of his curly head to the last hair on his curly little toes, and from the way he was patting his tummy and the dreamy expression in his eyes quite sated with the chocolate into which he had managed to fall, apparently head first.
"However did you manage it, cousin?" Merry asked, although he was not altogether sure he wanted to know the dirty details, and whether he was envious or sympathetic.
Pippin merely assumed his most innocent expression and turned wide green eyes up at him. "All I wanted was a taste, Merry, I didn't mean to fall in! I was just going to get a finger full and be off before Cook woke up and found me. Please help me out of here, Merry, she will skin me alive if she catches me here!"
There was no way he was going to get his cousin out of that bowl and out the door without leaving evidence of the culprit in chocolate covered footprints, and not just any footprints, but what were clearly hobbit footprints at that. Merry scouted the area for a cloth of some kind to catch the messy prints and thankfully found several close by that were easy enough for him to drag to the site of Pippin's mishap and position beneath the lip of the bowl.
Leaning over as far as he could without losing his own footing, Merry extended his hand to his cousin. "Come on!" he urged and Pippin scrambled to the side of the bowl and reached with a slippery hand. Locking his fingers tightly around that hand, Merry pulled and Pippin slowly slid over the edge of the bowl, landing on the cloth with a soft splat and a giggle of glee.
"Thanks, Merry!" he said, reaching to hug him but Merry quickly backed away, holding another cloth before him and pushing it into Pippin's dripping hands. There was no amount of mithril in the Mines of Moria that could persuade him to allow a chocolate covered Pippin to embrace him. Not here. Not now. There were some limitations even to Merry's endurance.
He was, after all, only a hobbit, and a lonely one at that, missing the comfort of a sweet hobbit lass at night, pressed all too often into nocturnal embrace with his favorite cousin, his best friend, the one he loved most in the whole world, yet on an entirely different level from the way he felt about Estella back home in the Shire.
Pippin was different. Pippin was, well, his Pippin, and had been from the moment Merry held his newborn cousin in his arms. From the very first meeting of their eyes, it was understood that they belonged to each other. Merry had looked into those eyes that would hold him captive the remainder of his life and from that moment on he was clay in Pippin's hands.
Here he was now, holding himself at arm's length so as not to make an even bigger mess than they were already going to have to clean up, and Pippin was looking at him with those eyes again, those wicked green eyes dancing with mischief, and Merry had not the heart to scold him.
"Here," he said instead, bending to wrap Pippin's feet one by one in the cloth and wipe them as clean as a lick and a spit could accomplish, for he knew that they should beat a hasty retreat before Cook awoke and caught them. That accomplished, he straightened and looked back up at his cousin, who was grinning at him beneath a chocolate mustache. Merry shook his head. "What am I going to do with you, Pippin?"
The grin widened. "Well, I suppose if I had made it to the oven and been fully baked you could have eaten me for pudding. As it is, you'll just have to settle for a taste." And before Merry could say another word Pippin had stuck a chocolate covered finger into his cousin's mouth.
Merry thought that he had died and gone to Over-heaven. Never in his life had he tasted anything so incredibly delicious, so rich and creamy and so very, very sweet. Pippin's face was inches from Merry's and so full of delight at his surprise that he fairly glowed.
The shock of his emotions hit Merry like a lance through the heart. This was Pippin! His Pippin! He could not let things get out of control here or their lives would never be the same. He could not bear to lose him, and the surprising nature of some of the thoughts that he was having was frightening enough for Merry to push them forcefully away. Rejection was something that he knew he could not bear, so better to maintain their relationship as it was, as it had always been, loving and supportive and always there for each other, no matter what.
But Chocolate Covered Pippin was not playing fair. Merry seized the chocolate wrist and extracted the finger from his mouth, smacking his lips as he savored the lingering flavors, forcing himself to put on his merry Merry face and make light of the incident.
"Back, you!" he ordered, keeping his tone playful, but wearing the mock scowl he knew Pippin recognized from years of following his elder cousin's commands. "Back to our chambers, quick, before she wakes up!"
Turning, they scampered down and to the floor, Merry looking over his shoulder to ascertain that they had left no footprints, Pippin keeping a lookout from the front.
As they disappeared through the door, the old Cook stirred in her chair, opening her eyes and smiling a toothless smile. She stood and walked over to the mess on the counter, calmly wiped the surface clean and took the huge pewter bowl to the outside door, emptying its contents and rinsing it clean with a pitcher of water.
Gathering her ingredients, she set about making another batch of chocolate cake batter, but this time she would keep a sharp eye out for intruders.
To be continued for Marigold's birthday on June 27th!
By Pipspebble
Rating - PG-13 maybe? You be the judge
Setting - Post Ring War, Minas Tirith
Written for - Happy Birthday, Baylor!
Thanks to - Marigold and Nickey for the quickie beta!
Note - This is all Baylor and Nickey's fault.
Warning: Could be interpreted two ways, depending on the reader's slant on the characters
Disclaimer - The reader should draw his or her own conclusions. The author pleads the 5th
"Pippin?" Merry mumbled, his arm blindly reaching for the space behind him. Finding it vacant he sat up, groaning as the faint light from the open window pierced his eyes, even the pale dawn sending blinding pain racing through his swollen head. Perhaps he had had too much to drink last night after all.
The last thing he remembered was stumbling along the corridor with his arm around his younger cousin, both giggling as they were brought to their knees time and time again by some burst of hobbit merriment or witty remark one or the other made. It took both of them working together to manage opening the door to their assigned chambers, and even more of an effort to heft and heave their drunken selves onto one of the great beds that were spaced much too far apart for them to seriously consider using more than one of them. Hobbits slept best when they were allowed to cuddle, and these particular hobbits had been apart for far too long during the last days of the War of the Ring to be separated by even that much space ever again, if they could help it.
He remembered collapsing onto the bed with Pippin curled up beside him, snuggling his pointed little chin contentedly into Merry's chest, Merry's arm around Pippin's shoulders, the other flat out on the other side of the bed, palm up, and neither of them heard the empty bottle that fell to the carpeted floor as Merry relaxed into blissful oblivion.
His dreams that night, whether through fault of food or drink, were tormenting in the extreme. He woke with the feeling that they bore some element of prophecy, and thus it was with some misgivings that he registered the fact that he was alone, and of Pippin there was no sign.
He stumbled out of bed and gathered his clothes from the floor where he had dropped them the night before. Pippin's, he noted, were missing, so he gathered that his cousin was already out and about. He lifted his head as his nose detected the smell of freshly baked bread and immediately deduced the whereabouts of his missing companion.
A short time later, having dressed and splashed water on his flushed face, brushed his teeth and combed his curls, Merry left the chambers and followed his nose to the site of the wondrous aromas.
The baking rooms at Minas Tirith were huge, as was everything associated with it. The Big People ate big meals, and all of the food was cooked in big pans and even bigger ovens. Pippin had been fascinated with watching Gondor's royal cooks as they worked their magic in preparing food for their King and his court. Often Pip would wheedle them into giving him a taste, and just the day before yesterday he had been introduced to chocolate, something never before seen in the Shire.
This night would mark the one-week anniversary of the King and Queen's wedding, and the royal cooks were sure to outdo themselves with their culinary wonders. Merry knew for a fact that they had been baking non-stop through the night, preparing for the feast. The smells emanating from the baking rooms told him that the sweetcakes were the order of business this day and he had a sneaking suspicion that his errant cousin might be in the vicinity of this temptation, doubtless too strong for him to resist, if Merry knew Pippin, and he did.
"Pippin?" he called as he entered the baking rooms, miraculously empty, until he remembered the early hour and caught sight of the sole attendant snoozing in the corner, her hot pads across her lap, her nose twitching as if in unconscious minding of her creations in their ovens. Merry stole silently further into the room, surreptitiously peering around the Big People furniture, standing on tiptoe to see up over the edge of the tables where Big People bowls dominated the surface. "Pippin?" he whispered, sensing that his cousin was there, somewhere. But where?
"Is that you, Merry?" a voice spoke weakly from above his head, from the counter where sat a pewter bowl larger than he and Pippin put together.
"Pippin?" Merry climbed onto the stool beside the counter and hoisted himself up to the surface, stepping over a large wooden stirring paddle and padding over to the bowl from whence came his cousin's voice once again.
"Merry, help me!" His words ended on a choking sound and Merry's heart leapt into his throat as he stood on tiptoe and peered over the side of the enormous bowl.
Pippin grinned back up at him from a pool of chocolate, thick and dark and dripping with sweetness, his eyes brilliant green amidst the dark brown batter that covered his curls, dripping onto his face, down his sharp little nose and onto his mouth, that impossibly perfect, bow-shaped mouth, wreathed and smeared from the path taken by his tongue as it made the circuit of his lips, still dotted with the residue of the sweet journey.
Jolted to the very core of his being, Merry dropped back down onto his heels so that he would be spared the stirring vision, for long enough to at least catch his breath and allow him to act as the responsible one of the pair. Chocolate-covered Pippin! How in Middle-earth was he supposed to deal with that? And in his condition!
"Merry!" came the whispered plea again. "Merry, don't leave me here! I can't get out! The sides are too slippery, and so am I!"
Sighing, Merry closed his eyes and took a deep breath, forcing himself to take control of the situation. Whatever that was. He was quite confused about exactly how things stood between them as it was. And how in the name of the Valar had Pippin managed to fall into a bowl of chocolate so deep that he could not pull himself out of it?
Merry stuck his head over the rim of the bowl again and there Pippin was still, grinning like the cat that caught the rabbit. From the size of the bowl and the amount of batter it contained, this was surely the fixings for a cake of significant size, worthy of marking the one week anniversary of the wedding of their King and Queen. And now Pippin had managed to ruin it.
He apparently suffered not one whit of guilt or embarrassment over his condition, indeed seemed quite pleased with himself. Except for the fact that he was trapped, he appeared quite content with his lot, covered from the top of his curly head to the last hair on his curly little toes, and from the way he was patting his tummy and the dreamy expression in his eyes quite sated with the chocolate into which he had managed to fall, apparently head first.
"However did you manage it, cousin?" Merry asked, although he was not altogether sure he wanted to know the dirty details, and whether he was envious or sympathetic.
Pippin merely assumed his most innocent expression and turned wide green eyes up at him. "All I wanted was a taste, Merry, I didn't mean to fall in! I was just going to get a finger full and be off before Cook woke up and found me. Please help me out of here, Merry, she will skin me alive if she catches me here!"
There was no way he was going to get his cousin out of that bowl and out the door without leaving evidence of the culprit in chocolate covered footprints, and not just any footprints, but what were clearly hobbit footprints at that. Merry scouted the area for a cloth of some kind to catch the messy prints and thankfully found several close by that were easy enough for him to drag to the site of Pippin's mishap and position beneath the lip of the bowl.
Leaning over as far as he could without losing his own footing, Merry extended his hand to his cousin. "Come on!" he urged and Pippin scrambled to the side of the bowl and reached with a slippery hand. Locking his fingers tightly around that hand, Merry pulled and Pippin slowly slid over the edge of the bowl, landing on the cloth with a soft splat and a giggle of glee.
"Thanks, Merry!" he said, reaching to hug him but Merry quickly backed away, holding another cloth before him and pushing it into Pippin's dripping hands. There was no amount of mithril in the Mines of Moria that could persuade him to allow a chocolate covered Pippin to embrace him. Not here. Not now. There were some limitations even to Merry's endurance.
He was, after all, only a hobbit, and a lonely one at that, missing the comfort of a sweet hobbit lass at night, pressed all too often into nocturnal embrace with his favorite cousin, his best friend, the one he loved most in the whole world, yet on an entirely different level from the way he felt about Estella back home in the Shire.
Pippin was different. Pippin was, well, his Pippin, and had been from the moment Merry held his newborn cousin in his arms. From the very first meeting of their eyes, it was understood that they belonged to each other. Merry had looked into those eyes that would hold him captive the remainder of his life and from that moment on he was clay in Pippin's hands.
Here he was now, holding himself at arm's length so as not to make an even bigger mess than they were already going to have to clean up, and Pippin was looking at him with those eyes again, those wicked green eyes dancing with mischief, and Merry had not the heart to scold him.
"Here," he said instead, bending to wrap Pippin's feet one by one in the cloth and wipe them as clean as a lick and a spit could accomplish, for he knew that they should beat a hasty retreat before Cook awoke and caught them. That accomplished, he straightened and looked back up at his cousin, who was grinning at him beneath a chocolate mustache. Merry shook his head. "What am I going to do with you, Pippin?"
The grin widened. "Well, I suppose if I had made it to the oven and been fully baked you could have eaten me for pudding. As it is, you'll just have to settle for a taste." And before Merry could say another word Pippin had stuck a chocolate covered finger into his cousin's mouth.
Merry thought that he had died and gone to Over-heaven. Never in his life had he tasted anything so incredibly delicious, so rich and creamy and so very, very sweet. Pippin's face was inches from Merry's and so full of delight at his surprise that he fairly glowed.
The shock of his emotions hit Merry like a lance through the heart. This was Pippin! His Pippin! He could not let things get out of control here or their lives would never be the same. He could not bear to lose him, and the surprising nature of some of the thoughts that he was having was frightening enough for Merry to push them forcefully away. Rejection was something that he knew he could not bear, so better to maintain their relationship as it was, as it had always been, loving and supportive and always there for each other, no matter what.
But Chocolate Covered Pippin was not playing fair. Merry seized the chocolate wrist and extracted the finger from his mouth, smacking his lips as he savored the lingering flavors, forcing himself to put on his merry Merry face and make light of the incident.
"Back, you!" he ordered, keeping his tone playful, but wearing the mock scowl he knew Pippin recognized from years of following his elder cousin's commands. "Back to our chambers, quick, before she wakes up!"
Turning, they scampered down and to the floor, Merry looking over his shoulder to ascertain that they had left no footprints, Pippin keeping a lookout from the front.
As they disappeared through the door, the old Cook stirred in her chair, opening her eyes and smiling a toothless smile. She stood and walked over to the mess on the counter, calmly wiped the surface clean and took the huge pewter bowl to the outside door, emptying its contents and rinsing it clean with a pitcher of water.
Gathering her ingredients, she set about making another batch of chocolate cake batter, but this time she would keep a sharp eye out for intruders.
To be continued for Marigold's birthday on June 27th!