A/N: Plot bunny spawned by my cousins doing things they shouldn't while in the bathroom. Pippin is three (and a half), Merry is eleven and Frodo is twenty-three, excuse my maths if that's wrong but it's thereabouts.
Enjoy!
In the Bathroom
Merry was meant to be looking after Pippin. He wasn't. Merry was reading. He thought Pippin could entertain himself and didn't need watching. He was only right on one count.
Pippin was perfectly fine entertaining himself. It was his form of entertainment that was the problem. He was in the bathroom, a perfectly fine place for a three-and-a-half-year-old to be but he had decided that Frodo's favourite bath oil would look better on the floor than in the bottle. Also, after discovering that soap had quite a detestable flavour, he had deemed it proper to try to break the bars of soap into small pieces. He hadn't quite succeeded but there were certainly a number of deep holes.
This was how Merry, after becoming slightly suspicious due to the lack of noise, found him.
"Pippin!" cried Merry, astounded what one hobbit could achieve in what he'd though had been a short amount of time.
"Merry!" replied Pippin, glad to have some company at last.
"What have you been doing?" Merry stepped closer for a better look, though he wasn't sure he wanted one.
"Making cake!" said Pippin like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Soap didn't taste nice so I put nice smelly stuff on it and made it taste gooder and I thought..." Pippin's speech deteriorated through speed into a kind of gobbledy gook that only he, and occasionally his mother could understand.
"Stop!" said Merry as Pippin started to mix up the oil and the soap with his hands, "Pippin! Don't!"
"But I want 'o make cake!" a frown soon made its way on to Pippin's face.
"Well, you can't make cake! Get up!" Pippin stood up, but he was not being careful, "Watch out!" but Merry was too late, Pippin had already knocked over the bottle and most of what was left of Frodo's bath oil decanted onto the floor. Merry rushed to pick it up and succeeded in saving the last half-inch at the bottom of the bottle. "Where's the cork?" Pippin looked up at Merry with a thoughtful look on his face. "Pippin? Where's the cork?" Merry asked again. Pippin's face brightened when he remembered where it had rolled, he pointed under a chest of drawers.
Merry couldn't lie down and find it because the mess on the floor was in the way so he had to tidy that up first. He put the bottle down on the bottom shelf, whose idea was it to keep it there within the reach of a certain three-and-a-half-year-old's hands?
What could he clean this mess up with? He couldn't go and ask for a cloth, that would raise suspicions, but where else could he get one? He quickly picked Pippin up, before he had a chance to walk through the mess and spread is everywhere. Whose idea had it been to stop Pippin wearing nappies? One of those would have been perfect!
"Pippin! Keep your sticky little mitts off me!" Pippin giggled and tried to wipe his hands all over Merry's lovely white shirt. Merry held him out at arm's length but he couldn't keep that up for long, how could something so small be so heavy? "I'm going to put you down now, don't walk through your... cake. All right?" Pippin nodded and Merry put him down.
Pippin, eager to help, began to scrabble under the chest of drawers to get the cork while Merry still pondered what he was going to do about the big oily puddle in the middle of the floor. While Merry was having no success, Pippin did and emerged triumphant from under the chest holding the slightly dusty cork aloft.
"Thank you Pippin," said Merry gratefully and he took the cork and pushed it firmly into the neck of the bottle.
"Atishoo!" sneezed Pippin.
"No Pippin, don't wipe it on your sleeve, come here," Merry pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped Pippin's nose for him. Just as he was putting the handkerchief back in his pocket, he realised what he was holding in his hands. A cloth! Just what he needed. Thank goodness his mum had made sure he'd taken one that morning. If he was lucky, he may have one left over from yesterday in his trouser pocket. He was lucky.
First thing he did was wipe Pippin's hands before he got everything sticky, then, giving one handkerchief to Pippin, they began to clean the mess up.
At long last it was nearly gone. Merry wiped off the bars of soap and put them in their proper place, hoping no one would notice the holes, at least not until the two of them were long gone. He turned back towards Pippin to find his oily handkerchief being handed back to him, what was he supposed to do with that? He took the cloth and wrapped it up in the handkerchief he'd been using. He couldn't put them back in his pockets or they'd make his trousers all oily, he couldn't put them in with the laundry because someone would notice. His eyes lighted on the bin. He dropped the two cloths in the bin and covered them up as best he could.
Merry stood back and surveyed his work, the bathroom was almost the same as it was when he'd left Pippin in it earlier.
"Merry! Pippin!" called Eglantine from the hallway, "We're going for a walk now, hurry up!" Merry looked at Pippin, who was sitting calmly in the middle of the room humming sweetly to himself.
"Come on you little horror!"
After a long time spent getting Pippin ready, the hobbits stepped out of Bag End. The first thing that struck Frodo was the cold.
"You carry on, I just need to go get my coat," said Frodo and he turned and went back in. Merry hoped Frodo's coat wasn't in the bathroom. Unfortunately for Merry, it was.
Frodo opened the bathroom door, walked in and was immediately hit by the smell of bath oil, more to the point, his bath oil. Naturally, his first instinct was to check the bottle.
He found it nearly empty, there wasn't even enough left for one bath and it was a new bottle! Following his nose, Frodo pinpointed where the smell was originating from because it certainly wasn't coming from the bottle. It was the bin.
Frodo peered inside the bin, nothing he could see so far, but after moving the top layer of rubbish he found two, oily and rather exquisitely perfumed handkerchiefs. He pulled one out and there, embroidered in the corner was 'MB'. Meriadoc Brandybuck.
Frodo grabbed his coat and rushed out to catch up with the others.
They'd been walking for a little while now and Pippin was, finally, starting to get tired.
"I thought he'd never slow down," said Merry to Frodo.
"Yes, it's been rather a hectic day hasn't it? When I get back I think I might have a nice long bath," Merry stiffened, he couldn't let Frodo have a bath, not while they were still there.
"A bath? Why would you want a bath?"
"O you know, to smell nice. I've got some very nice bath oil,"
"Yes, I know,"
"Do you? Have I showed it to you already?" Merry had to think quickly,
"No no, I just noticed it while I was in the bathroom," said Merry, knowing how lame his explanation was.
"I didn't realise you were a connoisseur of bath oils, Merry," Why wouldn't Frodo leave the topic alone? If only Merry could change the subject.
"Yes, well, it's nice to smell... nice,"
"I agree, which is why I like my bath oil well perfumed, even if it is quite expensive," Frodo smiled inwardly to himself, it was wonderful to watch Merry try to hide what he'd done.
"Expensive?"
"O yes, that's why I'm looking forward to using it, I only just got a new bottle!" Guilt was piling on top of Merry, he hadn't realised quite how much Pippin had wasted.
"Frodo,"
"Yes?"
"Pippin got hold of your bottle and poured it all away," said Merry very quietly,
"Pippin got hold of it? Weren't you watching him?"
"Yes!" replied Merry quickly,
"Really?" said Frodo in a disbelieving manner.
"Well, no,"
"Well, then, I expect to be repaid," said Frodo briskly, he'd picked up a very business-like manner from Bilbo.
"Repaid? I haven't got any money and Pippin was the one who did it!"
"I'm sure I can think of something and you were the one who was supposed to stop Pippin doing these things,"
"You can think of something?" asked Merry worriedly, ignoring the point that Frodo had made about Pippin because it was quite correct, "What can you think of?"
"O we'll see," said Frodo with a small smirk and he sped up to talk to Eglantine and leave Merry to think on what could possibly be waiting for him.
There was just one question going around Merry's head: Why hadn't he stayed in the bathroom with Pippin?
FIN