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Counterpoint, Interfolio
Requiem: dirge, hymn, or musical service for the repose of the dead.
A/N: Many thanks to Willow-wode for the meta.
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It's always so quiet and he has a vague idea that it shouldn't be, that he should be surprised or discomfited that it is, but somehow it seems like this is exactly how it's supposed to be. He can see mouths moving -- some screaming, some barking orders -- but the voices are so muffled and low as to almost have no sound at all. He wonders if the stars are singing and decides he doesn't want to know.
The flames are all around him, but they burn nothing. They touch him sometimes but the touch is painless. Flickers of red and gold ricochet from shield to sword to spear-tip and yet he can't tell from where they come, only that they're all around him and he can feel the heat, knows it's only a matter of time before the burning comes, but it seems far away, at least for now. Changeable.
And if it can be changed, Merry can change it.
The wine is smooth here and rather mellow, Merry muses as he makes his slow way down the long hallway; it can be quite deceptive in its potency. It slips over the tongue as nectar, sweet and velvety, and if you aren't careful, you can be halfway through your fourth glass before its effects slide through your senses and you'd be stumbling about, laughing at green oliphaunts before you'd even realised you were three-quarters of the way towards pissed.
He's never had a head for wine and so he is careful with it in this haven: never more than half a glass. Not so much because it turns him stupid but more because he needs to be sharp now. He would have thought that the days for wariness had passed but it seems now he is more alert than he's ever been -- watching, though trying to appear as though he isn't.
The strangest thing is that the ruse doesn't seem entirely necessary, though he keeps it up nonetheless; he's been fooled by seeming-inattention before and can't afford the slip-up now. Sleep has been illusive just lately, though he's been kipping during the day more than is normal for him, but that's all right. Better he nod off once or twice in the afternoons than sleep through those times in the thick of night when Frodo needs him.
Frodo had three glasses of wine, went to bed early as is his wont these days. He's hiding, Merry knows, building his walls, and Merry had reason for faith before, reason to believe that they could put everything behind them, take themselves home and forget. It's who they are, what they are: Frodo builds his ramparts, retreats behind them, because that's what Frodo does, what he's always done. And Merry gives him time, gives him space, then pulls those bastions down slowly, brick by brick, puts himself in their place, makes of himself a shelter that Frodo sometimes refuses and other times doesn't even know he takes. Merry applies his small, earthbound magic and makes things better -- it's who and what he is.
But Frodo is just as indefinable as he's always been and it seems to Merry as though he's spent the past two decades learning who and what Frodo is, and now he wonders if he'll have to start all over again. Frodo had needed his walls on his journey, had learnt to buttress and bolster them beyond any strength Merry had once known how to deconstruct, and he'd learnt to do without the sort of shelter Merry could offer, the sort of magic Merry could wield. And Merry has come to understand that perhaps that careful dance of unmaking is potentially more devastating than locking the little bit of hope they'd managed to save within that fortress of denial; perhaps deconstructing that stronghold would be akin to deconstructing Frodo himself and even Merry isn't that selfish.
So Merry had set himself to re-learning the definition of shelter, understands now that a bulwark is only as strong as its weakest stanchion. He's always had faith, he's always believed and been willingly blinded by both; so it hadn't occurred to him that hope itself and the small magic that makes it possible are only sticks and glue to brick and mortar. And it wasn't until he'd watched the scree of hope pummel the shaky supports they'd built, watched Frodo turn to Bilbo and find only an old hobbit, that Merry began to understand that hope is yet more chancy than sticks and glue -- it's an ephemeral thing and fickle. Well… he's known that for a while, actually, but admitting these things to himself is relatively new. And he's not sure if he still believes in magic.
He walks slowly, as though his feet slog through ankle-deep mud, but the whole world is moving slowly, so he supposes there's no hurry anyway.
A flicker of black out the corner of his eye, a flash of bloody moonlight on steel, and Merry turns slowly, watches, fascinated, as he is skewered, watches his body jerk and hunch as the spear is wrenched, hears dark laughter as he slips into the water, but it's muted, does not spike cold down his spine as he knows it should. Standing amidst carnage, he watches as he hands himself to Fate, watches himself die, but it's him and it isn't him; he straddles worlds, dying in one while he lives in another and he knows it isn't really himself he sees, knows it's a man who faced his daemon and lost, but he's won, Merry has won, and this…
A pale reflection of someone else's memory; an illusion and nothing more.
He lays a hand to the door, rests his head to its smooth wood.
Turn to me, talk to me, I can help you, I swear it.
Perhaps, perhaps not, but the saying of it, the thinking of it can help turn it all to belief, and Merry supposes that way of thinking -- that faith -- is just another old habit dying hard, but its rhythm still beats within his own heart, soothes away despair with its constant thrum. And Merry supposes he does believe after all; at least when he needs to.
The room is dark when Merry enters, moonlight teasing at shadows. Frodo is curled beneath the quilts in restive sleep and Merry pauses a moment to stare. He hasn't quite been able to put his finger on the difference -- there are so many, after all -- but it is less noticeable when Frodo sleeps and so Merry knows it's something in the eyes. He is still beautiful, though, if not yet more so, and Merry stubbornly refuses to believe it has anything whatever to do with Colours and Songs and things far too high for earthbound creatures such as they.
Frodo's gaze is too far-flung and ancient when he thinks Merry's not looking. But Merry has grown in more ways than the physical. Older, perhaps a little wiser, and youth snapped away, though the relics of it are still there if he really looks. Passion and heat burnt away too long ago but they leave their mark and remembrance and those never fade, even if he'd rather it be so. And wisdom sleeps within knowledge, but Merry doesn't think he wants either; sometimes he'd rather just wrap himself in belief and magic and close his eyes to the rest.
Merry shivers a little, but he thinks it's probably more a reaction to circumstance just lately than it is to the temperature of the room; it's still late-summer outside these borders, but in Rivendell it always seems to be autumn and that seems somehow fitting to him, since he thinks the mood reflects the season in some ways and not just now. He remembers thinking the sunlight thinner here that first time he'd crossed into this land, a wearied lover, his hope struggling through bitter resolve. It's thinner still now and it makes him a little sad because he wonders if he somehow understood that 'fading' all along. A more polite word for 'dying' is what Merry's always assumed and he had thought Glorfindel grave and cold when he'd first met him but he supposes that had a lot to do with the circumstances of that meeting; he isn't grave nor was he ever cold but now there is a melancholy beneath his warm voice and smile that Merry is sure was not there before. Merry thinks he knows why and Glorfindel knows that Merry knows and there are glances exchanged between them that need no words.
Another bit of a shiver and though Merry knows the chill is more in his head than in the air, still, he undresses quickly, quietly, and slips between the sheets, folds himself about Frodo's back with tender, careful movements. Frodo shifts a little, draws away the slightest bit, but Merry twines his arm about Frodo's ribs, whispers to him, "I've got you," and Frodo stills again, leans back into Merry's chest and Merry smiles a little.
He peers up at the sky, skips his gaze over the stars and lets it rest on the Moon. It smiles at him, fat and red and perhaps a little bit spiteful.
"The Harbingers all walk beneath my light." Its voice is neither harsh nor smooth, neither kind nor cruel, and one dark eye winks knowingly. "You shall see, whether you wish it or no, even if it's only in dream."
Merry shudders, pulls his gaze away. "I won't," he says. "And I don't dream."
He tips his head on the pillow, dips his nose to Frodo's hair. Silky and smelling of the sweet soaps they use here in the baths and too many times has Merry stilled his hand from toying with the new strands of silver. Now he lets his fingers skim in at the temple, glide gently until silver and sable slide between them as sleek and graceful as a waterfall. It's like looking at stars against the ink of night, or traces of winter on a raven's wing. Frodo sleeps on, steady breaths rolling beneath Merry's arm, swaying gentle against his chest.
Frodo doesn't like it when Merry calls attention to his changes, even those so small as a bit of grey long past-due; it pulls him away, gives him an excuse for retreat and Merry can't afford more distance. And so Merry keeps these things for himself, cherishes them all in secret, for they signify the survival of the one he loves best and all of it deserves knowledge and remembrance, even if the one who bears them refuses… denies.
But that's all right, because I've enough faith for us both. What we've made can't be unmade, and I'll know, I'll know it for the both of us. I still believe, you see. Isn't that funny?
His fingers find Frodo's hand, and though he rarely dares to do so when Frodo is awake and aware, Merry lets his fingertips skim over soft-scarred skin. Still pink, Merry knows, and soft, unfinished, and Frodo always seems so surprised that it never pains him. And somehow, this wound, to Merry at least, is less noisome than that which Frodo bears on his shoulder, but he thinks maybe that's because this one at least was inflicted by mortal hands, no matter how twisted and warped that mortal was; the skin is warm and pink, not cold and white. He flexes his own hand, still feels a twinge of chill fizzing beneath his skin from wrist to elbow. And not for the first time does the thought occur to Merry that perhaps those wounds inflicted by an eternal being are meant to last eternally.
He clenches his teeth.
He does not look upon the body beside the water, does not peer into dead grey eyes, for he knows he'll see the stars there, and so he only closes his eyes, bows his head.
He peers down at himself, almost afraid to look, pats at his breastbone, but he is whole. A faint tingle in his chest, a hint of sorrow in his heart and that's all. He is an observer here and no more, and he knows that even did he reach for his sword, shriek his battle-cry, make his stand, it would all be so much smoke amidst flame. Useless.
Frodo isn't well, or at least not as well as he pretends to be. Merry knows it, feels it, and it seems absurd to him that they are in the presence of supposedly the greatest healer on Middle-earth and yet Frodo refuses to entertain seeking Elrond out to tend his ills, would consider it a betrayal if Merry did so on his behalf. Merry is once again relegated to Spy, clandestine observer/covert steward to Frodo's headaches and weariness and dark dreams; watching Frodo thrash and sweat through his own perdition makes Merry grateful that he himself doesn't dream, or at least not that he remembers. Still, Frodo seems to think Merry sees only a little of it and Merry doesn't know whether to be pleased that his own façade is an apparent success or angry that Frodo would build his own, sink inside whatever sickness is gnawing away at him.
Frodo had never seemed fragile to Merry before. Always before there had been a strength nearly vibrating through him, like a note through a tuning-fork, and it's there still but more raw than it was, more… reckless, maybe, though that's not it, either. Everything about Frodo now is considered and reserved and Merry shouldn't be surprised, after all he's been through; it would only make sense that the more untamed aspects would be quenched and put to rest. Frodo's Adventure, after all, is done now.
Still, there's something wild and maybe even desperate running through Frodo, Merry can feel it just beneath his skin, and he can never tell from one moment to the next if that something will push him away with a sombre word and an almost physical distance, or cleave to him with both word and action, sweated skin crushing against him and a raspy, 'There, yes, now,' rumbled low into Merry's throat. And over it all, a brittleness that Merry can't quite define, but it's as though there is a core of iron with a shell of sugared-glass and he is never sure whether to bash himself against that core or back away from the glass for fear of it shattering. And so Merry tries to expect nothing and everything, accept the distance as easily as the intimacy, take what Frodo needs to give and give what Frodo needs to take.
Merry thinks it's perhaps the first time in all their lives together that he is acting completely without self-interest and he supposes he should feel proud for this bit of growth and change; instead he only feels uneasy with a murky sense of panic teasing at the edges of his mind and it takes everything in him to stand away when he must, when all he wants is to take hold and not let go -- keep, restrain, protect, but not let go, never let go. And yet he might, if he thought Frodo needed him to, and there's a change as well and one he'd never have believed, but he thinks he would if it was best. But Frodo's changed, too, and he needs Merry now, as he hasn't done before, and Merry doesn't need any Faerie Sight to know it -- it bleeds from Frodo's skin, screams from his fingers when they sink into Merry's hips and clutch hard enough to bruise.
He's seen the changes, of course, but he doesn't think he's acknowledged them before now. A mercurial difference, some might say, but critical really, if he thinks about it. The eye can skim so easily over things it would rather not see, the mind following instinctively in the heart's wake of blind denial, and it isn't so much that he hadn't wanted to see those changes, but that he hadn't wanted to acknowledge what they meant. Or maybe what they meant to him, to them, or…
He supposes it doesn't matter after all. Change or loss and he supposes that the only real difference between the two sometimes is semantics. And who but Frodo can know how much has really changed or what was lost when he was forced to his knees at the edge of forever?
He walks on, leaves the dead and dying to the darkness and steps into blunt daylight, and he can't tell if the light is yellow or grey, doesn't know if it's dawn or dusk, though he supposes it doesn't matter much. When all is said and done, it all fades to Black anyway, doesn't it, so he doesn't think there is such a thing as a good day to die, not when what waits is eternal night, and he knows that dark night, doesn't he? And he knows what lives there, the dry, musty smell of decay oozing from the creaking joints of long, bony fingers.
Cold be hand and heart and bone…
He reminds himself that it holds no power here, not over him, casts his glance about. The stench of fear is almost like a fist in his belly and he wonders if he himself reeks of it.
It isn't Merry's to know, only to fix. Though, sometimes, he wants to shake Frodo, make him talk, make him tell, because how is Merry to fix it if he doesn't know exactly what's gone wrong? How is he to soothe away the night terrors if he has no way to imagine their horror? How is he to choose between change and loss if he doesn't know what it is they stand to lose?
Still, even did he want the choice now, it's no longer his, if it ever was, yet he's grateful still, for there could have been so many other losses. Things change, always, and he's never been one much for changing easily along with them, but he knows he would prefer change to loss. And so he is determined that these he will accept with a steady smile and add the wisdom of it all to whatever knowledge he's managed to take and keep along his way. Because he loves and that's really the most important thing, isn't it? And when a person loves, he gives what he can to the one he loves and expects back only what they can return; no more and no less or it's not really love at all, is it?
He presses a kiss to Frodo's shoulder, runs his hand, slow and soft, down Frodo's breastbone. His fingers skim the chain about Frodo's throat, snarl where it loops through the clasp that holds the star, and it's odd but both chain and star always feel a little cool to Merry, even when warmed against Frodo's skin. It gives Merry strange little shudders and more than once he's wanted to slip it over Frodo's head and toss it aside… perhaps even snap the chain and heave it all away from his touch and from his sight, and he can't understand it, but he doesn't really try to. What he wants doesn't matter, not really, for he has everything he really wants, doesn't he, and the lingering dread of it being stolen away is likely more habit than anything else, and like everything else, it will fade in time. And if the star takes dream and memory from Frodo, allows even a little peace in the night, Merry will stay those ridiculous shudders and hold to it just as tightly as Frodo sometimes does.
He closes his eyes, breathes deeply, firms his hold perhaps a little too much, for Frodo breathes a small groan and shifts, turns himself over, reaching for the other piece to the puzzle their bodies lock into out of long habit. Merry can't help the small smile and he rolls over, too, presses his back to Frodo's chest and sighs again when Frodo's arm winds about him. It never matters in which position they fall asleep; they always eventually end up in this one.
The jewel is like cold fire against his shoulder-blade but he ignores it, chooses instead to feel the steady breaths teasing at the hairs on his nape, the even thrum of Frodo's heart knocking against his backbone. He weaves his fingers through Frodo's own, does not think about how they don't quite fit together as they once had, how his own new height places Frodo's mouth at the top of Merry's spine, rather than the crown of his head as it used to be; how his new breadth means that Frodo's hand rests at Merry's breastbone, rather than curling under his ribs.
He watches as though from miles away as he rears up, sword clenched tight in a sweated fist, recognises the feral snarl on his face as he draws back, strikes. And time moves yet more slowly as he watches himself crumple to the ground, hears weeping and he thinks it's Éowyn, but it might be Merry himself and it might be Pippin and it might be someone else entirely. Almost turns his eyes to the King, but he thinks sometimes it's Théoden and sometimes he expects it to be Arveleg and Merry never wants to see, never wants to look and he always resists at first, but then…
But then he always does.
And always it's Frodo, just standing there, staring at him with dying stars in his deep-shot eyes, and Merry can never quite bring himself to face what's behind them.
"What do you see?" Frodo asks him and flames crack and pop all around him.
And Merry turns away then because he won't see, it isn't fair, it isn't fair!
It's different and so all things must be, Merry has learned, and there is no surprise here because he'd known all along, known since he'd collected his little band of Conspirators when he began to understand that the stars in Frodo's eyes were singing him goodbye. Known since before that, really, known since… since forever. Different -- even when things seem the same, they're different, just slower to show themselves so is all.
The love is different, too, yet still the same and that's what spins Merry's mind and heart about sometimes, makes him dizzy and confused, and it's sometimes all he can do to keep his smiles soft instead of hectic, his grip loving and steady instead of desperate. He is desperate, though, but quietly so, Frodo's own desperation leaching into Merry's skin and blossoming through him, clutching at his heart sometimes as hard and frantic as Frodo's fingers clutch to his skin. And that's probably when Merry feels it the most -- when Frodo wakes from those dreams that haunt him each and every night, when he drives himself against Merry as though battering them from his awareness, smashing his way through love and tenderness until dream and fear and uncertainty are throttled with the physical.
There is a connection between them, always has been, and though it's not exactly strongest when the lights are doused and their bodies move together, one pulling cries from the other and sweat slicking salt over fire-gilt skin, it's perhaps more tangible then and Merry has fancied more than once that he could almost see the web-thin tether stretched between them. But whether that is in truth a real physical manifestation of what they share or, more likely, Merry's own self-induced romantic illusion, it is nonetheless something real and shared between them when their bodies meet and their gazes lock, one to the other.
Frodo hardly ever opens his eyes anymore, not in the deeps of night when he gasps from dreams with a different sort of fire behind them. Different but somehow the same and Merry thinks that's what maddens him the most, though he doesn't understand that either. And sometimes Merry's almost glad that Frodo's gaze is shuttered away from him, but most times he coaxes Frodo to look, look at him, and it frightens Merry a little but he keeps hoping that one of these times, there will be no 'goodbye' beneath the love in those eyes, their light bright and brittle and clouded with a scrim of despair. And maybe that 'goodbye' is really there or maybe Merry is just so used to seeing it that for him it will be there forever, but he needs to look anyway, and he needs to make Frodo look back, see him, because if Frodo sees him, maybe…
Maybe.
He knows it for a White Wolf the moment he sees it, breasting the slope above, bringing night with it. Thinks perhaps it is the ghost of all of those who crossed the frozen sheet of the Brandywine all those years ago; perhaps it seeks vengeance upon Gorbadoc's descendent. Though he somehow knows that this Harbinger has not come for him.
Merry doesn't fear the flames; they can burn him, consume him, he knows, but they won't, not yet. He doesn't fear the arrows whining past his head and just outside his conscious thought, does not fear the battle raging all around him. None of it can touch him.
This, though…
For the first time, Merry is afraid.
He hardens his grasp on Frodo's hand, feels that hand twitch a bit in his palm and Frodo moans a little. Dreaming again, Merry knows, and he wishes he could take it all away, but he's here and he thinks that's something anyway, and he intends to stay here and hold on -- tight enough to keep but not enough to suffocate -- and anyway, it's really all he can do, isn't it?
His gaze drifts to the window, settles on the night sky and its backbone of stars. He wonders if those stars still sing to Frodo and it's almost funny, because here he's been thinking he's grown so much, changed and for the better, yet still he is almost envious of the eternal hold they have over the one he loves so well. They burn deep in Frodo's eyes, look out from inside his soul, own a part of him that Merry can only sometimes touch and that only a glancing trace of contact. He'd heard them screaming once, mourned their deaths, yet still they pay no more heed to him than the Sea to the smallest grain of sand. Yet the hold they have over Frodo they guard jealously and Merry tries not to fear the things he doesn't understand, but that noble goal is of little use when the night is pitch and poisonous and the one he loves drowns in dreams he won't speak of, the burden of which should have shifted to different shoulders with the descent of gold into molten rock.
He's done what you wanted of him and now he's through, do you hear? Don't sing to him anymore, don't…
Don't take him away from me.
The stars want their Hero, just as they wanted Eärendil, took him and kept him, and Merry pushes himself back into Frodo's embrace, strengthens his grip again until Frodo shifts, breathes a deep sigh and tightens his arm about him.
So, what if they do? Merry has stood against stronger forces than his own mortal self before and more -- he's won. What he holds to is yet more precious than the Silmaril even now set on Eärendil's brow; let them try and take it from him.
Frodo never wanted to be a Hero anyway.
It bares long white teeth, razor-sharp and deadly, saliva running in rivulets from its slavering maw as it growls deep in its chest. It almost grins at him and Merry knows that this grin is mocking, daring him to test it, and Merry stands his ground. This can take him, rend him apart with a flash of teeth, tear out his throat before he even has the chance to scream his last breath. And Merry somehow knows that the sound that will rumble up from between its snapping jaws, as long fangs sink through sinew and cartilage, will sound like laughter.
He is afraid, but he won't run; Frodo stands here, grieved and expectant and empty-handed, weaponless, and Merry draws his sword now, plants himself beside Frodo.
"I stand with you to the end," he chokes.
And Frodo smiles a little, sad and kind. "Ah, but which end?" he asks Merry.
Heroes aren't supposed to be tortured by dreams, are they? A hero isn't supposed to have sunken eyes and ashen cheeks and laugh like there's glass in his throat. Heroes aren't supposed to be thin and brittle, yet hard enough to strike you down with a glance that reeks of stars and comes at you from worlds away, yet still doesn't touch you, doesn't see you.
A Hero is supposed to live Happily Ever After, not sweat and twist in the night and relive things he shouldn't have had to live even once. A Hero should have the right to scribble 'The End' to his own story when he wants to, and not when Someone Else decides it's over.
It enrages Merry and moreso because he's never sure if he's enraged that it's happened and to Frodo, or because Frodo would rather stagger through those dark dreams alone, won't talk to Merry, won't even fight with him, no matter how Merry pushes, though Merry will admit that he's been afraid of pushing as he'd used to. And he knows he should be above this by now but he can't help it.
Almost like a story, all of it, the past terrible months, and how many times has he heard one or another of them say that? Almost as though they are all trying to explain to themselves why none of them seem to feel real anymore. And it is like a story, he supposes, only not as clean, not as black-and-white.
Stories don't talk about how Death can sometimes take its own sweet time on a battlefield, how those who get an arrow through the eye or a spear through the heart are the lucky ones. They don't tell you that a person can live for hours with a belly-wound, guts steaming and slithering slick through his fingers; how it's cold and quiet, even with the heat sweltering through your livery and the crash and roar of steel-on-steel; how you can hear the wet, burbling whispers of 'Mum,' and 'Save me, someone help me,' even better than you can hear the cry of the horn or the order to charge. How the stink of death is cloying-sweet and coppery and too close to the stench of the slaughterhouse… how you curse yourself when men are dying all around you because all you can think of is Winternights and the bleating of the lambs as they line up, stupid and trusting, to have their throats cut.
And the stories never talk about how, when you stand face-to-face with Death itself, your life doesn't flash before your eyes and you don't spend your final thoughts regretting past transgressions or wishing your loved ones well. You spend your last moments lurching through fiery hatred, lunging for your enemy's heart with your very last bit of strength and cursing Fate as your murderer; you spend your dying breath spitting out loathing for those who still live.
Or at least Merry had.
It wears a star, sometimes bound to its brow but most times suspended from its neck, resting against the thick fur at its breast. It burns bright and white and always it blinds Merry, like looking at the sun upon new snow.
He always looks away then, turns and trains his eyes to Frodo's, and Frodo always smiles at him, runs cold fingertips over Merry's cheekbone, and Frodo's hand shakes, his breathing stutters and becomes thin.
"It's coming," Frodo whispers.
And Merry clenches his teeth, takes Frodo's cold hand in one of his own, firms his grip on his sword with the other. "Let it come," he snarls, turns blazing eyes upon the hunter.
He supposes he can't be overly-cross with Frodo, not that he really is, but Merry has his own dreams that he keeps to himself, doesn't he, though that's mostly because he can't ever seem to remember them when he wakes. And Frodo asks him about them sometimes, though that's admittedly rare, asks him about what happened after they were parted, asks him about that great battle and Merry's own last attempt to take Fate by the throat and throttle it to his own will and want. But Merry doesn't think Frodo really wants to know, doesn't think Frodo should have to know, and so Merry doesn't tell, keeps his many failures and his one small victory to himself and soothes Frodo from his own dreams with the press of a hand and long kisses that steal their breath from them so that they can't speak anyway. Lets Frodo thrash against his body until he's too exhausted to think or dream and then they both rest in each other's embrace, dreamless if they're lucky.
And it's almost shameful to Merry because part of him wants it exactly how it is now; he treasures those times when they sink one into the other, so close to how they've always been, and those are the times when he can believe what he tells Frodo, it's all right, it will be all right, I will make it all right, when he can believe that a few more weeks and a few more miles will bring them home and to who they used to be, what they used to be. That it's not lost, nothing is lost, Frodo only needs time and love and Merry will give those to him as well, will give him anything, if only he’ll just…
Stay, please, stay with me. Close your teeth on your goodbyes, turn your eyes against the stars, and turn them to me. Only just… stay.
He can't move now, limbs paralysed as though he's been buried in quickmud, enspelled; he stands frozen beside Frodo, one hand still clenched with Frodo's own, one uselessly gripping his sword as the Wolf approaches, padding swiftly over the carnage, glittering black eyes fixed to Frodo's.
'Don't look at it!' Merry wants to shout, wants to firm his hold, wants to wake up! The beast is huge, powerful, almost as tall as Merry himself. He can't move, can't speak, can only watch as it turns its black gaze on Merry, slinks nearer until he feels its breath, hot on his skin, watches its long, red tongue loll from its mouth, still stretched in that deadly grin.
"You know me," it says to him and Merry recognises the stench on its breath.
He closes his eyes tight, snarls, "No!"
Stay, stay, and Merry has been singing it all his life and he would have thought that the song would be done now; Frodo had tried to say his goodbye and Merry hadn't let him, had gone on his Adventure and is on his Back Again. So, why then, does Merry still feel himself watching? Why can he not secure himself within the knowledge that it's done and over and all they need now is to find their way to a place where they can pretend their changes away?
All his life, he has loved Frodo, needed him like earth needs rain, and all his life, he has waited for that one time when Frodo would need him back -- prepared himself for it, anticipated it, carefully built his own little world around it. Certainly Frodo needed him in small ways before -- for a laugh or an understanding ear and sometimes even a shoulder to rest his head upon… for love when he'd admit he wanted it, which hasn't always been the way of things. Sometimes for a good argument or even a down and dirty fight, and they'd actually even come close to blows once or twice, but somewhere they'd both always known that there was more to it than whatever it was they were arguing-- fighting about; somewhere they'd known that it was necessary and Merry doesn't think either of them pondered why or how, but they'd both known that Merry was the only one who could or would give it.
But Frodo had never needed him like this before, had never needed so deeply, and Merry's not even sure Frodo knows that he needs, but Merry can feel it coming from his skin like smoke, rolling out from his pores and winding about them both. Frodo needs him, needs him. It's what Merry has always wanted. And now that it's happened, Merry thought he would have felt some sort of vindication or pride or even perhaps a bit of possessive joy that he can finally, finally, give back to Frodo what Merry has been taking for years.
Instead he only feels terrified.
It leans closer, its cold black eyes never leaving Merry's, then it dips in, nuzzles at his throat, soft and gentle as a lover.
Merry shudders, thinks, 'This is it, it will tear out my throat and then it will have Frodo and save me, I can't move to stop it!'
"You know me," it tells him again, hot breath just below Merry's ear.
And Merry wants to lift his hand, sink his sword into its throat, watch as scarlet blooms over white, listen as it gurgles a last howl. Instead he finds himself nodding and now the tears come, fast and hot, blinding him, choking him. 'Don't!' he wants to scream. 'Don't take this from me!' and if he can kill this grinning creature, it won't be real, it won't be true. If he can deny it, it will burn in the flame, reduced to smoke and ash, and he can grind it under his heel, take Frodo from this place and he'll fix it, he'll fix it all.
He swallows, thinks, 'No, no, no! I don't know you, I don't know what you want and you can't have it, it's mine!'
"Yes," he whispers.
A small gasp into his backbone and Frodo's hand trembles in Merry's own.
Let me take it from you; I would suffer ten thousand nights of reliving the same death over and over again, if it will give you just one night of peace!
Merry closes his eyes, presses Frodo's hand to his chest, strokes softly at his fingertips. "It's all right," he whispers and it's reflex now, more than assurance, because Merry has no idea if it's all right, not really.
Don't let me fail this, don't let me fail him.
He hadn't understood before, hadn't ever even considered failure, for he'd never failed at anything, ever. And now he understands all too well.
Everything he's set his hand to, he has turned to his own will, and when he couldn't make those changes precisely with his own hand, he'd changed the circumstances that would allow him exactly that. Merry gets what he wants, he always has, has always succeeded in what he's set his hands to, and so he hadn't been prepared to face the fact that sometimes he just… couldn't. Sometimes Fate had other plans for Merry and those he loves, and no amount of pissing in its face got him what he wanted; brute strength was useless and rage only gave him a headache.
Merry shivers a little and Frodo's arm tightens about him, and Merry wonders exactly who is soothing whom.
A last nuzzle to his throat and it draws back with a soft lap to Merry's cheek, a long gaze that looks somehow sympathetic now, rather than predatory. Merry tears his eyes away from that black gaze, turns them to Frodo, and Frodo smiles at him again, and it's ah, so sad and full of bewildered defeat, and his eyes leak stars as they follow the advance of the beast.
Merry watches as it pads around to stand beside Frodo, places a possessive nuzzle to his temple. And then it simply sits itself at Frodo's side, sentinel, eyes Merry with that pitying gaze, the star at its throat pulsing out white light until it envelopes them both.
Soft garbled mutters that he can't quite hear into his nape and thick silence until a finger traces lightly down his shoulder-blade, a hand sliding over his hip. Merry groans a little, relaxes into the only relief he knows anymore, breathes a small sigh and he smiles.
"Touch me," Frodo whispers into Merry's spine and the coarse plea of it drills itself right into Merry's heart. "I want… want your hands on me."
One command Merry will heed without argument or hesitation.
Stay, he wants to say, but instead he turns over, slides his fingers through silver-spun sable, and speaks it, long and slow, with a kiss. Because belief can be magic if he believes hard enough.
Merry can't speak, can only shake his head, whisper again, "No," and squeeze Frodo's hand tighter until he can almost feel the thin bones grinding together, and his skin burns where the light of the star touches it.
Frodo's breaths have become thinner still, long and laboured, and his hand shakes. He tries to tug away and Merry only grips harder, chokes, "Don't."
That sad smile again and Frodo draws his hand from Merry's, whispers, "It's better so." He locks his gaze to Merry's as he slowly withdraws his touch, sinks his fingers into thick, white fur. "I'm sorry," he says and he turns to the beast, away from Merry, and buries his face in its neck.
The Wolf peers up at Merry, blinks lazily and rests its head on Frodo's shoulder.
"Mine," it tells him.
Sometimes he coaxes Frodo to open his eyes and this night, Merry needs it, chokes down the fear and speaks the words: "Look at me, love. Look at me."
Waits, breath locked in his chest, burning.
Stay with me, don't go away from me, don't let it have you and I don't even know what 'it' is but don't let it have you, just stay, please, please stay with me. Open your eyes, look at me, see me!
And Frodo does.
Merry sees that wild light backlighting Frodo's gaze, sees fear and goodbye, and he wills it all away with touches that are at once tender and rough. Somewhere in that murky sense of consciousness that his waking mind denies, Merry knows if he closes his own eyes, he'll see flame and glittering black regard that eyes him with the surety of the Harbinger and the sympathy of a lover, and a four-fingered hand sunk deep into snow-white fur.
And so Merry doesn't close his eyes, keeps them open, drives them both thoughtless and panting into bliss that smells of copper flame. Wields a magic he almost believes, pretends it doesn't sing with the half-timbre voices of dying stars and taste of bittersweet denial.
It's always so quiet and he has a vague idea that it shouldn't be, that he should be surprised or discomfited that it is, but somehow it seems like this is exactly how it's supposed to be. He can see its mouth moving -- whispering soft and deadly into Frodo's ear -- but the rough growl of its voice is so muffled and low as to almost have no sound at all. Merry wonders if Frodo even remembers that he's here, wonders if any of those tears leaking from Frodo's eyes are for him, and decides he doesn't want to know.
The flames are all around him, and they lick at his skin, singe his nostrils and make his eyes tear. Flickers like liquid ruby dance and leap over the star at the beast's throat and it flares back brilliant white. Merry has to look away, his eyes dazzled and burning and his skin blistering and cracking with the heat of the fire -- red-gold flame and white, pulsing blaze both. He wants to weep and scream and batter the earth with his fists, rage at the stars, but he can't bloody move!
And in all of the battles Merry has fought -- be it ghost or god, spectre or blood-and-bone -- only now does he understand the true meaning of powerless.
Frodo lets the beast take him, and Merry lets the fire burn him. It can't be changed, Merry can't change it. And it's no longer painless.
And so Merry turns to the only weapon he has left: he closes his eyes, turns away. He refuses; he denies.
Waits for a touch that will draw him from dream, salvation slipped tactile to his skin from a four-fingered hand. Tells himself he doesn't dream. Tells himself he still believes in magic.
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