Counterpoint, Interfolio

Scherzo: A sprightly movement, light and humorous in nature.

A/N: This story was written for the hobbit_smut Livejournal Community ‘What Dreams May Come' Challenge.

 * * *

Pippin is chilly-warm, which he realises sounds like it doesn’t make an awful lot of sense but he’s only made up the word just this minute and it will take at least another minute of rolling it about on his tongue, testing it out, warming to the rhythm of it before he actually accepts it as a new part of his ever-growing vocabulary. Pippin is rather selective and likes to choose his new words carefully.

Chilly-warm.

Almost as good as ‘slip-drop’, which he made up just for the unique sound a runnelet of spit hanging from his bottom-lip makes when it finally breaks loose to slither to the hard, cold ground beside the well. Though, not as good as ‘rum-drum’, which describes the sound of his stomach when tea has taken a few minutes too long to arrive at table because ‘rum-drum’ is almost too perfect and he’s rather proud of that one. But Sam seemed to particularly like the ‘slip-drop’ one, so Pippin is having a difficult time deciding which of the two is his favourite. And now there’s a third and Pippin really has to think this one over.

Chilly-warm.

It does seem to fit nicely because Pippin is rather chilly, after all. It’s become quite cool just in the past hour since the sun began to drop and he’d only allowed Frodo to nag him into his mid-weight coat on his way out the door, instead of the double-knit jumper and woollen cloak Frodo’d tried wrestling him into. But one cannot possibly jump properly into leaf-piles if one is suffering the constant whoosh-drag of one’s cloak tangling about their--

Ooh… ‘whoosh-drag’. Pippin will have to try and remember that one.

Anyway, yes, he’s chilly now. He’d been nearly hot before when the leaf-jumping was going on, what with him climbing the fence (to the very top of the fence, mind, not the second-highest slat like his mum makes him do), posing atop it just long enough for Sam to get a good look and offer the appropriate, ‘There’s a nice way to do it, Master Pip, you just do your best now and see if you can’t get every one of these here leaves to go flying.’ And then Pippin would wait for Sam’s smile and nod before utilising his considerable – in his own opinion and Sam’s, too, it seemed – acrobatic skills. He’d sent the pile into chaos almost every time and every time, Sam would laugh and applaud and tell him he ‘done good’ and Pippin is pretty sure he meant it, too. Sam didn’t have that glazy-eyed look so many grownups seemed to employ on Pippin and his smile was real enough and Pippin thinks Sam really was paying attention and really was impressed and that’s more than all right with Pippin.

Glazy-eyed. Pippin tucks that one into his head and saves it for later.

Anyway, he’d got chilly too quickly after Sam had reluctantly put up his rake and wished Pippin a good eve, taking himself home to his supper, he said. Pippin had grown bored almost as quickly as he’d grown chilly and he thought supper sounded like an excellent idea, so he’d turned himself up the Hill, practised whistling on the way, though that hadn’t gone very well, seeing as how his front teeth are being terribly uncooperative and refusing to grow back quickly enough to accommodate him. They’d better get growing and soon, or he’ll not be able to muster up a good whistle for his dad’s pony on race day in only a few short weeks.

He could see his breath as he walked and he spent a few pleasant moments pretending he had a pipe in his hand – Merry’s carved bone one, no less – and trying at a few ‘smoke’ rings. Apparently steam doesn’t make rings; either that or Pippin simply hadn’t been doing it right, so he instead clamped his imaginary pipe between his teeth (the side of his mouth, mind, since there are no teeth in front between which to clamp a pipe, real or imaginary, though he supposes he could have imagined front teeth while he was at it but too late now).

“Why no, Mr. Deerfield,” Pippin told the imaginary hobbit just to his left, who was, by the way, quite rudely allowing the smoke from his own pipe to blow directly into Pippin’s face. Pippin coughed dramatically, waved his hand in front of his face, glared at Mr. Deerfield. “Tuckborough has never had a king before but Dad thinks it’s the perfect job for me, so he’s gone and had me declared King of the Tookland. What’s that? Yes, I am very young but everyone tells me I’m too clever for my own good all the time and Mum and Frodo both say I can do anything I set my mind to, so you needn’t worry.” He took his pipe from his mouth, blew smoke into Mr. Deerfield’s face for a change and how did he like those apples, eh? Pippin smirked.

The light from the parlour window was what had drawn his attention. Almost like a beacon, it shone warm and bright into the oncoming gloom, turning the small circle of grass at its feet yellow-gold. Pippin could almost feel it from where he’d stood and that’s when the warm part of the chilly-warm had begun.

Pippin likes looking through windows. Most people he knows are afraid of ghosts – if they believe in them in the first place – but Pippin imagines that looking through windows from the outside-in must be what being a ghost is like and it isn’t really such a terrifying thought, if you ask him… which no one does, of course, but they should because he has the answers to most things, if people would but ask him and stop shushing him when he offers them. Anyway, it’s sort of nice to think this is what being a ghost would be like because it isn’t such a sad thing. And if the worst part about being dead is that you only get to watch the people you love instead of talking to them and having them talk back and hug you and all that other stuff that a person with a body can do, well, that isn’t all so bad, is it? At least you get to look and watch them smile and laugh and maybe sometimes cry – especially right after you die, he supposes, if they really loved you – and he thinks that might make being dead worth it… provided you didn’t hurt too much before you got dead. Being run over by a pony-cart probably hurt a lot and Pippin is hard-pressed to say that the being a ghost part afterward would make that one worth it.

But going to sleep a person and waking up a ghost doesn’t seem too awfully bad. That’s what Sam’s mum had done a few months ago and he wishes he’d thought of all of this before Sam had gone down to supper. It might have made him feel better. Pippin knows that if his own mum died (Pippin forks his fingers over his lips and spits through them, which is a little silly but you just never know) he’d feel a lot better knowing that she was hovering about and watching him all the time… all right, except maybe when he is in the privy or the bath. He wonders if there is some sort of rule against ghosts watching you when you’re doing something very private. If not, Pippin is going to see about making one when he dies.

So anyway, here he is, nose pressed up against the cold glass of the parlour window, peering into gold-soft warmth and trying to breathe through the side of his mouth so that he doesn’t fog up the glass. He is just tall enough that his chin rests comfortably on the ledge where Sam keeps window-boxes in the warmer months and Pippin is glad it is Winterfilth because if it had been anywhere between Astron and Halimath, he wouldn’t be able to see over them.

The lamps are lit in the parlour (except for the one Pippin had broken on his last visit but he’s saving his pocket-money so he can buy Frodo a new one) and the fire is burning bright. Pippin almost – almost – wishes for a moment that he is inside, his toes prickle-warm against the smooth granite of the hearth and his fingers thawing against the polished baked-clay surface of his favourite mug (the one with pictures of goblins engraved on it and which Merry had laughed at and called ‘macawb’ or something like that and Pippin hadn’t spoken to him for two days and wouldn’t tell either Frodo or Merry why because it was all sorts of fun to watch Merry fret). Frodo will no doubt fill the mug with warmed brandy-laced milk and thrust it into Pippin’s hands the moment he walks through the door and Pippin’s fingers will feel like they’re burning right off his hands for a moment and the skin will feel too tight and tingly, like stuffed sausages in a skillet, and that all sounds like it should be horribly unpleasant but it’s really one of the best parts of coming in from the cold.

He can just see the corner of the great downy blanket Frodo keeps slung over the back of the over-stuffed chair by the couch. Pippin has only visited Bag End two times before this one but already it’s one of his very favourite things in the world to drag that blanket from the chair and over to the couch, curl up next to Frodo while Frodo reads to him or maybe sings him a song. Pippin tries very hard not to but he can never seem to help falling asleep when that blanket is wrapped about him. He secretly thinks that maybe Bilbo had brought it back from… wherever he used to travel to before he stopped coming back and that maybe it is enchanted, making the person who is beneath it fall asleep and dream lovely dreams because Pippin never seems to have a bad dream when he comes to visit Frodo. He’s never mentioned his theory on the blanket to Frodo, though. Frodo still gets a little sad whenever anyone talks about Bilbo and Pippin doesn’t like to make Frodo sad if he can help it.

Anyway, Pippin can imagine the warmth of that blanket, heavy on his shoulders and a cup in his hand, sitting by the fire and Frodo telling stories. He feels the chill about him now more sharply and it is almost sweet, the way it works its way aching and slow into his bones. It makes the anticipation of blanket and fire and cup all the more satisfying.

Merry is lying sprawled on the couch, his head against its arm and his feet propped on the cushions of the headrest. Pippin can’t make out what he is reading but he seems to be very interested in it; his brow is creased thoughtfully and his eyes dart swiftly back-and-forth. He chews on his lip every now and then, frowns and Pippin thinks he must be reading something scary and full of suspense. Something with a lot of blood, he reckons, because when Merry reads to Pippin, he always picks something where someone’s head gets chopped off or something just as gruesome. Pippin wouldn’t ever tell Merry so but he doesn’t like those stories much and was sorry to discover that Bilbo hadn’t taken them with him when he’d gone off. He would much rather the stories where maids get rescued from trolls and goblins by a handsome hobbit on a dashing white steed and where the only one who gets his head chopped off is the troll or the goblin. But he doesn’t know Merry well enough yet to know whether that would hurt his feelings and, though it's admittedly more fun than it should be to watch Merry fret, it's not fun at all to actually hurt someone's feelings and especially if they're only trying to be nice to you. So Pippin keeps quiet and asks Frodo to read to him instead and before Merry offers if Pippin is lucky enough and fast enough.

A slow breeze flows over him, lifts the hair at his nape and slips frigid fingers down his collar. Pippin wonders if that was a ghost-breath and thinks maybe Bilbo really is dead and he’s watching over Frodo along with Pippin. He shivers a little.

He wonders if ghosts are cold all of the time like he is now. If being a ghost is like looking through a window, does that have to mean that it is forever cold on the outside of that window? Because that would mean Pippin will have to re-think his idea that being a ghost isn’t so bad. The cold is teasing-sweet to him now, yes, but only because he knows full well that he can take but a few steps, swing the big green door open and the warmth on the inside will be his to share. He doesn’t like to think what it might be like if that promise was out of his reach and he was forced to forever stand in the cold, his nose pressed against a barrier that seems so thin, so fragile yet keeps him securely and decidedly Out.

Pippin runs his tongue over the place where two teeth ought to be and stubbornly are not. He wonders if your teeth keep growing when you die. Pansy Smallburrow had told him when his Great Aunt Thistle had died – ‘passed on’, his mother keeps saying – that a person’s hair and fingernails keep growing even after they are buried. Pippin had to wonder how in the world anyone could know that and why anyone would want to. Now he has to wonder if the same applies to teeth as well. It seems reasonable, if you’re going to believe the hair and fingernail thing. Not that Pippin plans on dying any time soon but it would be nice to know that, if he did, he wouldn’t have to be a ghost with two missing front teeth because that would just be silly.

He turns his head, forks his fingers over his mouth and spits through them again because really – you just never know.

When he turns back, Frodo has appeared in the parlour and is eyeing Merry with a small smile. Merry doesn’t seem to know Frodo is there yet because his nose is still pressed into his book and Merry always turns when Frodo enters a room, like a flower toward the sun, and Frodo does the same right back. It’s kind of sappy, actually, but Pippin has to admit it makes him grin more often than not.

Frodo has his coat on, so Pippin thinks he is probably getting a little worried and is on his way out to come find him and haul him inside for supper. It is getting a bit dark out and Frodo worries even more than Pippin’s mum and Pippin feels a little guilty for making Frodo worry.

Right now, though, Frodo doesn’t look worried – he looks… Pippin doesn’t know what that look is called but if he had to name it himself, he’d call it happy-soft. Pippin decides he needs to start carrying a piece of paper and some charcoal in his pocket so he can write his new words down and not forget any of them because some of them are really good ones.

Frodo leans in the doorway, his head resting to the frame and his eyes thoughtful, his smile small and absent, soft and fond. Pippin doesn’t really know why Frodo is watching Merry like that because Merry certainly isn’t doing anything exciting but Frodo seems to like looking and Pippin has to admit that he likes watching Frodo look. It makes him feel warm inside and the heat within knocks up against the cold without and that’s why Pippin had found it necessary to come up with chilly-warm.

Frodo’s arms are crossed over his chest and one foot is resting atop the other as he leans tall and loose in the doorway and Pippin decides he likes watching Frodo watch Merry. He likes watching Merry look, too, when Frodo doesn’t know he’s looking because his eyes look almost like Frodo’s do now, all soft and almost sleepy and you just know nice thoughts are going through his head when he looks like that and that he is feeling chilly-warm like Pippin is now.

If Pippin went and died tonight, this right here is what he’d come back to watch as often as he could. Sure, yes, he’d watch his mum and dad, too, and his sisters, he supposes, but they’re more boring than even Merry, and Pippin has never felt chilly-warm when he looks at any of them. And he thinks he’d probably take a trip of his own and find out where Bilbo went, too (unless Bilbo really is a ghost, in which case he probably won't be too difficult to find, if Pippin is one, too), but he’d come back here as often as he could and watch Frodo watch Merry or the other way ‘round because he likes this feeling. He likes it when someone he loves is happy and he likes it when someone else he loves makes that person happy and are happy themselves besides and it all just comes back down to chilly-warm, which makes Pippin smile.

Pippin hasn’t always loved Merry. In fact, he rather disliked him at first because Merry had Frodo and didn’t like to share, Pippin could tell that right off, even though Frodo had been Pippin’s first and he had been willing to share all along. That time Frodo had taken Pippin to Buckland to visit Merry, Pippin had actually come very close to really disliking Merry. (Pippin won’t say he came close to hating Merry because Dad says ‘hate’ is a bad word but Pimpernel says she hates things all the time and Pippin only said ‘bugger’ the once and he got his mouth washed out and Pimpernel never gets hers washed out and it’s all so entirely unfair he could spit!)

Anyway…

Pippin had come to Bag End for a week before they’d left for Buckland and that was the second time he’d visited Bag End because Frodo had written to Pippin’s mum and asked if he could come stay and then go to Buckland with him. Pippin’s mum had told Pippin that Frodo needed cheering up because he was missing Bilbo (Pippin had heard his mum talking to his dad about how she was sure Bilbo was dead and wasn’t it a shame how ‘poor Frodo’ didn’t seem to want to accept reality?) and Pippin was just the one to keep him busy enough that he didn’t think about it. Of course, that was also when he’d broken the lamp in the parlour, which did keep Frodo busy for a little while and Pippin doesn't suppose it really qualified as cheering up but it didn’t make Frodo sadder anyway.

Pippin remembers taking his job very seriously and keeping Frodo as busy as he possibly could, which wasn’t very hard because Frodo always did like to say ‘yes’ to Pippin most of the time. He played just about every game Pippin asked him to, even got Sam and Sam’s friend, Jolly (which is the best name anyone could have, ever), to join them for a spitting contest because things like that were a lot more fun with more than just two people. Frodo didn’t look sad the entire time and only frowned the once (stupid lamp) and Pippin was more than pleased with himself. Until they got to Buckland.

They took a cart because Frodo said Pippin’s legs were still too short to walk all that way and Pippin probably should have been put out with that but he didn’t complain – if he complained too much, Frodo might give in and then Pippin would have to walk and he preferred the cart because he would be awfully daft not to. Anyway, the trip had been lovely and Frodo and Pippin talked the whole way there and Frodo laughed at all of the jokes Pippin had been saving up and even let Pippin drive for a little while (!!!!) and he’d looked like he was very happy. Merry had been very glad to see them both and the first day was wonderful because Pippin had two grownups paying attention to him and saying ‘yes’ to almost everything he asked and that almost never happened. Plus there were peach jam-cakes for afters.

He woke the next morning to angry words being spoken in muffled voices in the next room. Pippin could be very quiet when he wanted to be and he’d snuck down the tunnel and put his ear to the door of Merry’s room and it didn’t take but a second or two for him to twig to the fact that Frodo and Merry were in the process of having a terrific row. Pippin hardly heard anything he could make sense of but it was all very loud and he just knew it had to be Merry’s fault because it couldn’t possibly be Frodo’s and that’s when Pippin almost, almost hated Merry. Because bother all, he’d worked so hard to keep Frodo happy and now Merry was spoiling it all and they’d only just got here!

They’d almost gone back to Hobbiton straight away. Pippin went back to wait in his room and good thing, too, because the door to Merry’s slammed only a moment later and a moment after that, Frodo knocked on Pippin’s door and told him they were to have breakfast and then head back. Pippin didn’t ask any questions and Frodo offered nothing but a remarkably steady, pleasant smile and ‘pleases’ and ‘thank yous’ while Pippin helped him to re-pack his things. Pippin was immersed in re-wrapping his ponies (Granddad Banks had carved them for him even before he’d been born and he was always very careful with them) when he noticed the room had grown quite silent quite fast.

Merry stood in the doorway and Pippin rather blatantly glared at him but Merry probably didn’t even know Pippin was there because he only seemed to see Frodo and his eyes were sorry-sad that time. They stared at each other for a long time before Pippin couldn’t help it and he squirmed, sniffled and Frodo turned to him, told him he wouldn’t be but a minute then went out the door and closed it behind him. Whatever Merry said to Frodo must have worked because they’d stopped packing and stayed for the full week like they’d planned and Merry spent the whole of it being very pleasant and very funny and made it so that neither Frodo nor Pippin could be mad at him, which annoyed Pippin a little bit but he got over it quickly because Frodo ended up looking happy-soft eventually and staying that way.

Frodo moves slowly across the room, edging himself along the wall and his eyes are different now, sparkling and mischievous and his smile has turned clever. Pippin’s own smile turns to a grin, though the cold clamps right onto his sensitive gums and he has to close his mouth quick. Frodo keeps moving, keeps slithering closer to the couch and keeps right on smiling and Merry just keeps right on reading and it is all Pippin can do to keep himself from giggling and spoiling it all. Good thing for him that Frodo is quick because it is only mere seconds later that he advances on Merry, leaps over the back of the couch and lands right in Merry’s lap, grinning.

Merry’s cheeks puff out and his legs come up and Pippin can hear his shout from where he stands. He holds onto his book for all of a half a second and then he drops it, takes hold of Frodo and it has begun: they grapple, wrestle and tumble to the floor with a thud that shakes the glass in the panes Pippin peers through and shimmies beneath his feet. Pippin has to stand on tip-toe to see them now. Frodo has landed on top and is leaning down over Merry, speaking and laughing at the same time, though Pippin has no hope of hearing what is said. Merry is laughing, too and Pippin watches as he leans up, slips a hand to Frodo’s hair, takes firm hold, hauls him down and kisses him.

Now, Pippin has certainly had his hair pulled before – he has three sisters, after all – and he knows he hates it but Frodo isn’t seeming to mind it at all. He isn’t yelling and he certainly isn’t trying to get away and though Merry’s grip on Frodo’s hair looks very firm and very tight, Pippin has to assume that having his hair pulled doesn’t bother Frodo nearly as much as it bothers Pippin. In fact, it takes several long moments before Frodo pulls away and even then it doesn’t look like he really wants to.

Pippin doesn’t know if Bilbo really is dead but he hopes he isn’t because that would really make Frodo sad. But if he is, Pippin hopes that he is standing here outside the window with him and watching because then he would know that Frodo is all right and that Pippin and Merry are going to be taking good care of him.

Frodo smiles down at Merry and Merry smiles back up and Frodo says something to Merry and Pippin thinks it must have been somewhat snarky because Merry laughs right out loud and then reaches up and smacks Frodo upside his head. Frodo retaliates with another kiss of all things and Pippin loves Frodo dearly but he has to admit he is a little disappointed in that one. If one of his sisters had smacked him in the head, he’d have got her back with a trip into a mud-puddle or some paste in her combs because they don’t learn their lesson unless you get them back with something much worse than what they’ve done to you. He’ll have to have a talk with Frodo about the proper forms of revenge.

Frodo pulls away, rolls to his feet and heads for the door. Merry watches him go with that same grin on his face then calls something that sounds suspiciously like, ‘I’ll be sure and show you exactly how much fun I can be when Pippin goes to bed,’ and oh! blastblastblast he'd known, he’d known that they waited until he was asleep and then did all sorts of interesting, entertaining things. Grownups always leave children out of the fun things and that’s another thing Pippin is going to make sure he keeps an eye out for if he ever dies. He wants to see what he’s been missing whenever he goes to sleep.

Rats and spiders, it’s just entirely unfair!

“Pippin!”

Frodo’s voice comes from the direction of the front door. Pippin takes one last look, wallows for one more moment in the chilly-warm before calling out his answer.

“Coming, Frodo!”

He steps away from the window and toward the voice, the cold against his cheeks that much colder and the dark of the night that much darker, for the answer to them both is closer now than it had been when a thin barrier of clear cold glass had stood between it and him. Now Frodo has pulled away that barrier, holds out warmth and light and Pippin eagerly reaches out to take hold of them both.

Frodo’s hands are nearly hot against his cheeks and Pippin valiantly keeps himself from giggling at his fussing. After milk, bath and supper, the latter of which Frodo lets him eat from a tray in front of the fire in the parlour – the parlour! – with the great downy quilt wrapped around him (though Frodo has covered the rug around his chair with a sheet just in case), Pippin succumbs to the magic of the blanket and falls asleep, much to his chagrin, even before pudding. He wakes in his guest-bed in the deeps of night, still cocooned in the quilt, much too warm and sleepy to move, even when he hears low laughter coming from Frodo’s room and Pippin knows, he just knows that Merry is doing whatever fun grownup things he’d promised Frodo for after Pippin was asleep. He doesn’t mind missing it so much at the moment, though he’ll probably kick himself for not spying come morning when he is more awake and his brain is working better.

For now Pippin just lets his muzzy gaze wander to the window and he smiles at whoever might be out there looking in. Chilly-warm is nice but right at this moment, Pippin is very glad he is very much alive and on the inside looking out, rather than the other way ‘round.

Although, one of these days, he is going to resist the beloved/dratted blanket and stay up long enough to finally find out exactly what grownups do when children are asleep. Just see if he doesn’t.

* * *

Feedback

BACK to Counterpoint Index

BACK to Main Page