Title:Dares

Author:AngieT

Thanks to Maura for the Beta.

Very silly – young hobbits get themselves into trouble. Featuring Merry, Pippin and Frodo.

"You wouldn't dare!"

"Yes I would!"

"Oh no you wouldn't!"

"Watch me!" Pip scrambled to his feet.

"She'll skin you alive!"

"She'll have to catch me first!" and Pip was off, running down the hillside and leaving Merry and Frodo sitting on the fallen tree trunk.

"Do you think he will?" Merry turned to Frodo.

"Yes, I think he will," Frodo looked worried. "You know he can't resist a dare. I think it comes of being the youngest."

"Should we go after him?"

"I think we'd better."

Merry looked like he would rather scrub out the privies.

"You know what really worries me?" said Frodo.

"No what?"

"When he gets back he's going to want his turn."

"I did it!" Crowing in delight Pippin flopped down on the lush grass a full ten paces ahead of his cousins and pulling off the floral bonnet he still wore.

"That was dreadful," moaned Merry. "Did you see the look on her face?"

"Briefly," Frodo fell down by Pippin's side. "Shouldn't we have grown out of this by now?"

Still bouncing Pippin laughed. "Now it's my turn."

Merry groaned.

"Fair do's," reminded Frodo. "He did his dare and so can now dare us."

"Right," Pippin rubbed his hands together. "And today is the perfect day. Aunty Antirrhinum is having an outdoor tea party for all the scariest Aunts in the Great Smials. She's been driving Cook crazy all morning checking the scones are ready and the cakes are light and the sandwiches all have their crusts cut off. All us tweens have been warned to keep away from the orchard on pain of a sound thrashing. Aunty Lupin is coming over specially and she thinks children should be seen and not heard and hopefully not seen either."

Frodo and Merry said nothing. Pleased with his captive audience Pippin went on.

"I think they want some livening up, and as you two are no longer tweens…. I want you to flash through their tea party and steal as many scones as you can."

"And by 'flash'," Frodo put his head into his hands. "You don't mean to just run very fast."

"No," Pippin was delighted. "I want you as naked as the day you were born."

"A day I am already regretting," moaned Merry. "Pippin, you are going to get us killed."

Pippin sat back in smug satisfaction. "If I had to dress up in Aunty Wisteria's blue sprigged dress and bonnet off the washing line and knock on her own back door, mind, and sell her a pot of gooseberry jam – which was actually pond scum – then you two have to gatecrash Aunty Antirrhinum's party in the nude."

"Can't you just kill us now and get it over with?" Merry asked. "It would be quicker and less painful."

Pippin grinned, crossed his hands over his chest, and said not another word.

"We're going to die," said Frodo as he pulled off his shirt and let it fall over the tree stump. "You know that don't you? Bilbo will be very put out at having to find another heir, though Lobelia will be utterly delighted."

"Think of my parents," said Merry. "I was meant to be the future Master of Buckland." He unsnapped his braces and let his breeches fall before kicking them to lie with the rest of his clothing. "If I survive this I will be sold as pot boy to the Prancing Pony in Bree."

"Don't worry Merry," said Frodo. "Your chances of survival are slim."

The two looked at each other for courage – which they could not find – before stripping themselves of their undergarments.

"Let's get this over with," said Frodo. "Sooner done sooner we can die."

"…and so I told Gammer Winterbottom that the best cure for warts was to take a potato and in the light of the first new moon after rain….WHAT THE?"

'What the' bolted out from under the cover of the privet bush and crashed unceremoniously into the middle of the Aunty tea party. Aunty Lobelia had the faint impression of two madly dashing, pale pink forms that launched themselves upon the tea things. Petunia shrieked and waved her parasol at their attackers.

Grubby hands made grabs for plates as scones were snatched up.

"Help!" screamed Wisteria under the impression they were under attack.

"You horrible creatures!" Antirrhinum took a swipe at one of the forms but he ducked under the swing, missed his footing, and sprawled head first into the tea table, upsetting it and several Aunts onto the grass. For one awful moment Aunty Orangeblossom found herself looking up into the furiously blushing and agonised face of what looked to be Frodo Baggins before he scrabbled to one side and was gone.

"You little brats!" raged Antirrhinum. "When I catch you…."

But the chances of catching the two miscreants were fading fast. The two boys, hands full of squashed scones, racing as fast as they could go, and clearly in naught but their skins, were over the privet hedge and out of sight before anyone could fully understand what had happened.

"We are going to be murdered!" Merry panted.

"Keep running!" gasped Frodo.

They gained the orchard and staggered to a halt by the tree stump where they had left their clothes. They might have left them there – but they were there no longer.

"What?"

"PIPPIN!" yelled Merry.

"He didn't!"

"Of course he did!"

"How do you know?"

"It's what I would have done."

"I am going to skin you alive!" Merry yelled at the unresponding trees.

"Not if I get to him first you won't," vowed Frodo. "Come on."

"Where are we going?"

"I don't know, I just know we have to hide."

Dressed in a couple of horse blankets liberated from the occupants of the lower paddock Frodo and Merry sat miserably around a small camp fire.

"We didn't think this through did we?" Merry said. "We can never show our faces at the Great Smials again."

"Nor any other portions of our anatomy," reminded Frodo. "I cannot believe we did that. What got into us?"

"It's Pippin," said Merry. "He has these ideas and the next thing you know you think you are eighteen again…"

Frodo sank his face into his hands and in the gathering gloom Merry saw his shoulders shaking. Feeling bad Merry went and put his arm around his elder cousin. "At least we'll have each other."

Frodo exploded, and Merry realised he was not sobbing but laughing. Merry looked puzzled. Had the whole experience driven Frodo out of his mind? He was rather sensitive and appearing nude before all those Aunts had been rather harrowing.

"Did you see their faces?" Frodo gasped. "Did you see them?"

Merry's face broke into a grin. "It did have its funny side. That parasol…" He chuckled and then joined Frodo in gales of laughter. "That's one tea party which will; never be forgotten."

"Here," said Frodo reaching out a hand. "Have a scone."

Merry started for a moment at the mangled remains of the scone and then rolled over onto his side, clutching his stomach and laughed until the tears ran down his face.

Eventually, gasping for breath, the two lads lay on their back looking up at the stars as they appeared. "I don't think some of those Aunts had ever seen a naked male hobbit before."

"Or in Aunty Lupin's case, never will again," chuckled Merry.

Driven back by hunger and cold Merry and Frodo made their way back into the Great Smials in the hopes of sneaking into the guest quarters, grabbing their things and making themselves scarce until the furore died down – say in a decade or two.

"Hello you two," greeted Pippin loudly and cheerfully. "We quite wondered where you had got to Merry and you too Frodo!"

"Not so loud…"

"There they are!"

Still wearing the pony blankets Frodo and Merry stood in the Master's study and looked at their feet hoping the ground could be persuaded to open up and swallow them. They had already sat through a tirade on Suitable Behaviour for Gentlehobbits; Acting their Ages and Not their Hat Sizes; and Respect Due to Maiden Aunts. Frodo was rather regretting he was too old to be turned over a knee and thrashed – it would have been preferable to, less painful than and over more quickly than this.

Of one thing they were both sure. They would be avenged upon Pippin for this.

The end