Counterpoint, Interfolio

Tone: The intonation, pitch, and modulation of a composition expressing the meaning, feeling, or attitude of the music.

A/N: Co-authored by Willow-wode

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Frodo pressed his back to the door, let his head fall back and closed his eyes.  It was a mere span of seconds before a series of muffled noises followed the short silence; Frodo opened his eyes only to roll them as a dull thud reverberated through the wood against his right shoulder-blade

"I hope that was your head," he muttered.  "And I hope it hurt!"

"Buggerbuggerbuggerbugger!"

Despite being muffled through the door, this also was quite clear for all that.

"My sentiments exactly," Frodo said through his teeth then heaved himself away from the door and started down the tunnel towards the kitchen, accompanied by more dull thuds and muttered profanities, then:

"Frodo!"

Again, clear and strong.  Frodo kept walking, realised his fists were so tightly clenched that he could feel his nails digging into his palms, forcibly relaxed them and quickened his pace as a steady pounding on the door began.

"Frodo, I'm sorry—!"

And closed his ears to the rest.  If only his brain could be rendered likewise…

 'You left this at mine.'

Sorry?—he was sorry, all right.  The sorry, sodding pillock was lucky Frodo hadn't throttled him after that little comment.

'You left this at mine.'

And delivered so… so certain, like it was all some kind of jolly, and after… however many months it had been, and who was Frodo trying to fool, he knew exactly how long it had been, and ugh, when would he grow up and stop letting Merry get to him like this?

He was nearly-blinded by anger, so it was pure chance that he didn't sail headlong into his cousins—Freddy smirking and Folco trying not to—who had apparently abandoned the kitchen in favour of the hallway and what might have been a good show, had Frodo not nipped in the bud whatever scene Merry had planned.

"Have we company, then?"

Frodo gave Fatty a bit of a glare, snarled a short, "No," then winced as the bell jangled, shrill and grating.  Instead of answering what was sure to be another redundant query from Folco's opening mouth, Frodo angled himself around his cousins and strode on through to the kitchen, trying to remember what he'd been doing before… before.  The baking, that was it.  Carrot cake because Folco was helping and Folco liked carrot cake.  He arrived at the counter, peered blankly into the tawny mash of ingredients in the wooden mixing bowl, and… and bugger all, now he couldn't remember where he'd left off.

And not only his palms but his jaw was hurting from being clenched every bit as tightly as his fists.

"Huh," said Fatty as he re-entered the kitchen, wedged himself back into the chair from which he'd been watching Frodo and Folco do the baking.  "Sounds like we have company."  He turned to Folco.  "Doesn't it sound as though we've company, dear Folco?"

"That is rather the sound company makes," Folco replied as another bout of doorbell-ringing ensued from the front step.  He propped himself against the sideboard and peered over at Frodo.  "Though I should point out that company only sounds exactly like that when said company has not yet been invited in so that he may become proper company."

"Ah, very clever distinction, Folco, good show," Fatty agreed.

Frodo ignored it, still staring at the mixing bowl.  "Where's Sam?" he asked, pointedly trying to discern whether or not the batter looked brown enough, because he couldn't remember if he'd already added the molasses.

"He excused himself quite politely only a moment ago," Folco told him, his voice cool and annoyingly amused.  "He thought we had company, too."

Frodo took a deep breath, let it hiss out between his clenched teeth.

Counted to ten. 

And then to twenty.

The thing was… well, the thing was—

"Dear Cousin," Freddy said, more softly this time, and his voice kind, "are you really going to stand there and pretend that you've not been waiting for him to show up all this time?"

—the thing was that he hated that bloody bell!

No, the thing is that Fatty, damn his eyes, is right, and for a few mortifying seconds you were actually glad he was here, glad that he'd come, because you still miss him, complete knobhead that you are, and for those few seconds you'd thought maybe… maybe…

Frodo shoved at the mixing-bowl, perhaps a little too violently because only the fact that Folco saw it and whipped a hand out to steady it prevented it from crashing to the floor.  And it was funny because Frodo was almost disappointed that it hadn't; perhaps it would give him something else on which to focus his attention, rather than the steady stream of shouting and pounding and bloody ringing coming from the front door.

Not to mention his own traitorous thoughts.

He growled, stalked back out of the kitchen and down the tunnel to the front door.  Took several deep breaths, counted to ten again, then firmed his jaw, threw open the door. 

It might have been amusing, if Frodo hadn't been so all-fired furious—the surprise on Merry's face, caught in mid-kick and -pound, and then the wind-milling of his arms as he tried to keep his balance before he finally latched onto the frame of the door and stayed on his feet.

"Frodo, oh, thank you!" Merry said.  "I'm sorry, honestly, I don't know what—"

"Just shut it and get inside," Frodo snapped.  "I've neighbours, you know."  He waited until Merry darted warily inside, then slammed the door again, muttered, "It wasn't even locked," and stomped back towards the kitchen.

Folco had abandoned the chore of propping up the sideboard and had taken a seat at the table to Fatty's left.  Both of them sat with their hands folded on the table in front of them, backs straight and with matching, really quite irritating smirks on their faces.  Frodo shot them each a dark glare then resumed his position in front of the mixing-bowl and turned the glare on it instead.  Because he still couldn't remember where he'd left off.

"Frodo, please," Merry's voice rose from the hallway and he came skidding into the kitchen, breathless.  "I'm sorry, you have to believe me, I didn't—"  Stopped.  Said, "Oh," as he caught a look at the two at the table.  "You've company."

It was quite satisfying, watching him deflate.

Did you really expect me to be shut away, all lonely and pining like some pallid twit from a smarmy romance?  Frodo felt his teeth gritting once more.  Not likely, lad.

Freddy turned to Folco.  "You see?  I knew we had company!"

"Well done you," Folco replied with a nod and they both turned to Merry.

"Frodo said we didn't," Fatty told him.

"But you can't pull the wool over our Fatty's eyes," Folco added. 

"No indeed," Freddy agreed and turned back to Folco.  "'Twas the knocking that gave him away, you know."

Frodo took hold of the edge of the counter, with some effort prevented himself from leaning over and giving his head a good pounding against it.

"Oh, I don't agree," Folco replied.  "I'm quite sure it was the bell."

"Ah, but a good wind can ring a bell, old son."

"And that same wind could knock a branch against a door."

Frodo's chin dropped to his chest.  "Lads," he warned, unsure whether he wanted to shriek with anger or with sudden laughter.

"But there's no wind tonight, dearest Folco."

"Then it couldn't have rung the bell, could it?  So it was the bell as gave him away."

"But we're both forgetting the shouting, aren't we?"

"Ah!  The shouting, quite right, Fatty, I don't know why—"

"Lads!"

Frodo lifted his head, shot a murderous scowl to the two at the table, no longer tempted to laugh, and was in fact annoyed beyond sense that they both grinned back at him.

"I…"  Merry stammered silent, tried again.  "Frodo, could we…  I, um…" 

Frodo made himself look over at Merry, vainly tried to tell himself he wasn't at all pleased that Merry's face was flushed red and that he looked uncomfortable and quite miserable.  Told himself that Folco and Fatty separately were sometimes enough to send a person over the edge if you didn't know everything that came out their mouths was more or less harmless drivel; together, though, they were more than most sane people could take.  Tried to remind himself that for all of Merry's usual show at cocky confidence, at times he wasn't the most secure person in the world, and having the piss taken out of him by these two when he was already obviously on edge was probably not the best of circumstances, and—

It wasn't working.

Damn it, how did Frodo always manage to find himself in these positions?  Here he'd been, minding his own business, in his own kitchen, entertaining his company, not sparing even so much as half a thought to broad, brown Buckland lads, in fact not thinking about anything more pressing than the fact that his store of molasses was running low—ah, he had put in the molasses, he remembered now—and now he was caught between stepping in to tame Freddy and Folco or standing back and watching them tear into Merry… and was only a little dismayed that the latter was the one that was more appealing at the moment.

Merry cleared his throat, set his shoulders, cast a glance to the table and nodded.  "Folco.  Fatty."  Then he turned his gaze slowly back to Frodo and the look in his eyes—asking? accusing?—whatever it was, Frodo wasn't about to meet or answer it; he turned back to the mixing bowl, took up the discarded wooden spoon.

Unfortunately, Merry's voice followed him.  "I'm sorry.  I didn't know you had…"  A pause, then, with a waver that nipped at Frodo's composure and suggested that Merry's wasn't what it seemed, either, "Well, you've company and…"  It seemed Merry couldn't finish a sentence; Frodo chanced another look at him, cursed himself immediately, because Merry looked stricken and near to undone, and Frodo's anger lost a little bit of its footing.

Which, fortunately, made him more irritated.

"I'll… I'll go," Merry finally said.

And Frodo felt… 

He couldn’t tell.  It was either disappointment or relief.  Either way, it shot a ripple of humiliation through him.

Merry peered at him for another moment, hope and resignation equal in his gaze.  He opened his mouth as if to say more then only closed it, shook his head a little, slumped his shoulders and began to turn.

"Nonsense!" Freddy cried, a little over-loud, and it rang blunt through Frodo's ears.  "You've only just got here, Merry-lad, you can't be real company unless you stay for a bit."  He turned to Folco.  "Come, Cousin, we've been company long enough.  It's Merry's turn."

Frodo thought he should say something, but he couldn't seem to make his mouth work.  He only watched as Freddy dragged Folco to his feet by his elbow, Folco grinning and nodding as he gained his balance.

"Quite right, old son," he agreed.  "We'll be company again later, though, yes?  I've not packed."

"I should think that would depend on our Merry," Fatty replied, turned a sharp little smile on Merry that didn't quite look friendly.  He peered over at Frodo and the smile softened.  "Hang a tie on the knob if we should find other arrangements for the evening, won't you?"

And again, Frodo couldn't tell if he was relieved or gratified when Merry winced.

"Though," said Freddy, his voice suddenly soft and deep, as he leaned a little closer; Frodo frowned, pushed back a bit, but he was against the cupboard and had nowhere to go, "I can't say I relish the thought of sleeping someplace other than here tonight." 

Then he leaned in farther, slipped Frodo's glasses from the top of his head and laid them to the countertop, and… it took Frodo a moment to register the fact that Fatty—Fredegar Bolger, sometimes-annoying but always-entertaining guest, friend for more years than Frodo's muddled mind could currently guess at, and so enamoured and obsessed with everything in skirts that he'd never, as far as Frodo knew or could tell, even given a lad a second glance—Fatty was kissing him.  Fatty.  Fatty was kissing Frodo.  On the mouth.  And was that… was that a bit of tongue?

And before Frodo could even gain the sense to form a question, it was over, Fatty pulling back with a smart-arse little smirk, and Frodo still standing there, struck stupid and blinking back as if his brain had just decided to take a bit of a holiday and gone off without the rest of him.

"My, my," said Folco and he whistled a little.

"Take good care of him, Merry-lad," Fatty said, still smirking at Frodo, then he turned the smirk on Merry.  And it wasn't Frodo's imagination: Fatty's smirk deepened to a grin, even got a little evil.  "Or I shall do it for you."

Oh.  Bugger.  Now Frodo got it.

He risked a look at Merry, saw his cheeks high with colour, his jaw clenched tight and murder in the glare he was drilling through Fatty's forehead.

Freddy reached out, gave Frodo's shoulder a squeeze, tossed his head.  "Come along, Folco," he said, his tone light and airy.  "I'm afraid where we bed down tonight depends entirely upon the famous Brandybuck Charisma now.  Or perhaps I should say infamous."  He turned pointedly to Merry again, winked, which only made Merry's jaw clench tighter and his nostrils flare.  "It remains to be seen if it can beat Bolger Charm."

"I'm not sleeping in the shed," Folco protested as Freddy pushed him out of the kitchen.  "Those goats don't like to share."

"I shouldn't worry, dear Folco, I don't think our Merry will be staying long," Freddy assured him; there was a pause and some shuffling; Frodo guessed they'd stopped to collect their jackets.  "But on the off-chance that he manages to pull some sense out his arse, I'm sure The Bush can accommodate us.  What say you to some darts and drafts, eh?"

"You always beat me at darts," Folco protested.

"That's because I am the King of Darts," Fatty told him, "and you are but a knave.  The trick is to aim for the middle, you know."

"As long as there's beer," Folco allowed, "and as long as you're buying."

The door opened, closed, and the burrow was plunged into silence.  A very awkward, uncomfortable silence.  A hugely awkward and uncomfortable silence, and it couldn't have even been thirty seconds yet, but bloody damn, why had Frodo just stood there like a dolt and let them leave like that?  And when Merry had said, 'I should go,' why hadn't Frodo nodded, told him, 'Yes, you should,' and had done with it?

And to top matters off, the look on Merry's face right now was reminiscent of far too many times before, and it was just one more to the tally urging him to show Merry the door.  Frodo might have never had more than a stray thought towards Fatty—and hadn't that little bit of show proven Fatty more comprehending of what would prod Merry into… into whatever Fatty was trying to prod him into, and Frodo still not sure if he approved or condemned, even if Fatty had meant well—but it only brought to the fore more problems.

Anyway, what right did Merry have to look like that?  Why should Frodo have to explain anything to him?  He had the right to kiss anyone he bloody-well pleased in his own kitchen, and Merry just needed to grow the fuck up and stop puffing up like… like he owned Frodo, and while there had been a time—a short time—when Frodo would have willingly ceded a portion of his mind and heart to Merry, that time had bloody-well passed and a good thing, too, since Merry had made it perfectly clear he had all the delicacy of a bull amongst crockery when it came to the proprietary options of any serious relationship.

He should tell him to go, right now, right this minute.  Shove him out the door, tell him he'd write him when he was ready, tell him he was too busy for this, and when Merry did a little more growing up, perhaps they could be friends again.  Tell him not to write him or show up at his door again because it was more than obvious at this moment that even thinking about him hurt in ways Frodo thought he'd put away, and having the fact that he hadn't put them away shoved in his face now hurt even worse, and why didn't Merry just get that, that, that look off his face, that bloody desolate look of… betrayal, that was what it was.  And how dare he feel betrayed—or even give himself the rights to feeling betrayed—after… after everything?  Frodo was the one who'd been humiliated; Frodo was the one who'd had his nose rubbed in that humiliation, and… just...  just…

Nothing had changed… look at him.  Not the least bit penitent, only cow-eyed and indignant, just like a little lad who'd had his favourite toy—his favourite possession—taken away without warning…

'You left this at mine,' right up there with 'quick dirty fuck,' and it was Frodo's own sodding fault for letting even the tiniest bit of hope flare in his chest when he'd opened his front door mere minutes ago.

He rolled his shoulders back, one at a time, took in a short, sharp breath, disconcerted for moments by the varied words that fought for utterance.  Instead—

"Tea?" he found himself asking.

And somehow the inanity of that—ingrained manners were good for something, he supposed—loosened the knot in his chest and allowed him to breathe, to move.  Frodo pushed away from the counter, sidled past Merry and to the stove.

"Uh…" said Merry.  And that was all.

Frodo slipped his hand into a mitt, lifted the kettle and shook it a little; plenty of hot water left.  "I'm having a cup," he told Merry, relieved and pleased that his voice was so steady.  "It's no bother."

"Uh…" Merry said again, then: "Right."  And again, that was all.

It was good to have something to do with his hands, somewhere to direct his gaze.  Frodo sank into the routine of it all, the mundane habit of it soothing to his jangling nerves.

"Did you ride?" Frodo asked, forcing a casual tone to his voice.

If he'd ridden, he'd likely be a little sore from all day in the saddle; if he'd walked, he'd likely be a little sore from at least two days on the road.  Either way, he'd need a bath, and he was probably hungry, and no, no, no, he was not a guest and he was absolutely not sleeping here tonight, and there was no good reason why Frodo should be playing Concerned Host.

Except for the fact that he couldn't seem to help himself and it was as good a mask to don as any until he figured out what in bloody blue blazes he was supposed to do in the meantime.

Merry only nodded at first then he cleared his throat, answered, "I, um… yes."  A moment of quiet while Frodo fumbled the mitt off his hand and took down the tea-tin from the shelf above the stove, then: "I brought Hildy."

"Mm," Frodo replied, made himself busy with spooning the tea into the teapot and pouring the water from the kettle.  Slipped by Merry again, made himself busier with digging through the jumble of baking ingredients on the counter to find the honey-pot.  Turned back—

And Merry was blocking his way.

Frodo took a deep breath, You can't really be this stupid, tried not to clench his teeth, and took a step to the side.  Found his hands gripping the honey-pot with a force that near cracked his knuckles as Merry took a step, too.  Apparently, you can.

"Let me by, please," Frodo said calmly. 

Merry sighed, held his hands out.  "Frodo, please, can't we just—"

"Let me by!"

A healthy dose of satisfaction curled through Frodo as Merry flinched, blanched a little, but that satisfaction was still mixed in with anger and hurt.  Out of all of them, Frodo chose the satisfaction, and he let it fill his chest as Merry stepped back, bowed his head and swept his hand in front of him.

"I'm sorry," Merry said quietly, and to his surprise Frodo found himself almost believing the contrition in his tone.

He slumped a little himself then, nodded the slightest bit as he stepped past Merry and to the cold-pantry.  "Cream?" he asked as he pulled the small ewer from the shelf, even though he knew very well that Merry didn't take cream in his tea—just a half-teaspoon of sugar and a splash of cold water.

The slight shift and dip in Merry's posture as he shook his head was probably why Frodo had asked, and he felt a fierce, betraying stab of self-loathing—he'd thought himself beyond trying to get his own back, yet here he was, trying to hurt, to poke, to make this worse than it had to be, and it merely proved that he wasn't as invulnerable to all this as he'd like, putting a shivery, small crack to the underside of the mask he was so carefully donning.

"Yes, right," Frodo said, somewhat softer, and he was both annoyed and proud of himself for it.  "Black with a little sugar.  I remember."

Merry didn't answer, only stared at the floor, and there was such a… a defeat in his posture, one Frodo had never quite seen before.  Again, the stab of self-loathing, the proof that he wasn't as inured to any of this as he'd like, but he refused this time to let it displace further the mask of cordiality.  Placing the cream carefully on the table, he retrieved the teapot and sugarbowl and did the same.  He angled past Merry once more for cups and saucers, brought them to the table and pulled out a chair.

"Merry, why don't you—"

"I'm sorry."

The desperation in it did things to Frodo's heart that he didn't want to acknowledge.  He closed his eyes, bowed his head.  He wasn't ready for this.  He didn't know if he'd ever be ready for this, but he should have been ready for it because he should have expected it, shouldn't he?

He'd meant for Merry to have the chair, but Frodo sank himself down into it instead.  And sighed again.

"I'm so bloody sorry, Frodo, you can't know what… I mean, I've been…" 

Merry didn't lift his gaze, only kept staring at the floor, and now he shook his head, shoved his hands into his pockets.  His hair hung down, tangled and windswept from his ride, and the collar of his coat was pulled up to his chin, so Frodo couldn't see his face; it was just as well because his shoulders were still hunched and his voice was shaking, so Frodo thought it was probably best that he couldn't see Merry's expression. 

"I was so sure, all this time and all the way here and right up until I got to the porch, and then… and then I wasn't sure anymore and now, I…"  Finally, Merry lifted his head, peered over at Frodo, his expression one of complete misery, eyes red-rimmed and moist, and the way the lamplight caught them—smeared the deep-blue of his coat into their depths, turned them into pools of indigo grief that made Frodo suck in a heavy breath and want to believe.  "Frodo," Merry said slowly, softly, "do you love me?"

It caught him off-guard, made the sucked-in breath huff out of him as if from a blow.  Frodo blinked, stared for a moment, blank and probably somewhat dim-witted, then he shook his head a little and slanted his gaze to the table, occupied his hands with stirring his tea.  Sat level and calm as a soft bit of rage landed low in his belly, fuelled itself with hurt, and flamed into a solid coal of too many emotions to count.

How dare Merry ask him that question, and how dare he look… well, look like that when he did it.  It was unfair, all of it—unfair that he'd been so thoroughly made a fool, that he'd dragged Merry into his own ridiculous dreams and wishes when he knew better, unfair that Merry was too young and too stupid to know exactly how deeply he'd plunged the knife, and beyond unfair that he would bring it all with him now under the pretence of… of… of Frodo didn't even know what, did he?—and that was unfair, too! 

Frodo had to take three deep breaths this time before he tried to speak, because if he wasn't very careful, it all might emerge as shouts and snarls and maybe even blows if he didn't keep control.  He cleared his throat. 

"Of course I love you," he said steadily.  "You're my cousin and I hope my friend, and if we—"

"That isn't what I meant," Merry cut in, his voice still quiet but suddenly edged.  "And I'm pretty sure you know it." 

That edge did it.  Frodo kept staring at the table.  He pulled in yet another deep breath, blew it out slowly, tried to tame the heavy thudding of his heart.

Fine, then.  Gloves off, and really?  About time.

"Merry," he said slowly, carefully.  "You've no right to show up here after what… after all this time and demand anything from me, least of all an answer to that question."

"No right," Merry said quietly, chuffed a small, bitter laugh.  "That seems to be it right there, dunnit?  It seems I haven’t a right to much of anything when it comes to you, have I?"  Merry still didn't move, set rigid against the sideboard, hands still shoved in his pockets, but Frodo could see that they were fisted now.  "Have you missed me?  At all?  Did any of it mean anything to you, or was it all just a bit of built-in slap-and-tickle?  Was I just someone convenient, so you wouldn't have to go looking about for another to keep you warm when you'd come to Buckland?"

It took a moment for all of it to sink in, because the sheer brass nearly swamped him.  Merry Brandybuck of the 'quick, dirty fuck' was accusing Frodo of using him?  Walking in here, uninvited, assuming rights he didn't deserve and then pouting like a spoiled little brat when they were refused him.

And that was the worst part, wasn't it?  Because Frodo had been all-too willing to hand those rights over to Merry like some sad little wretch begging for his good graces, and then Merry had thrown them right back into his face not twelve hours later, showed him exactly how stupid and pathetic he'd been, and then hurled accusations when Frodo had finally, finally understood his mistake.

And now here Merry was, trying to start the whole mess over again, trying to take Frodo right back to that stable, get him back down to his knees and begging for it, and how dare he, how dare he!

Frodo made himself let go of his spoon before he bent it in half, forced himself to lay it slowly on the table then take a measured, calm sip of his tea…

And then he hauled back and sent the teacup sailing at Merry's head. 

Merry ducked to the side with a startled, "Hoy!" as the cup hit the hutch and shattered behind him.  It was like watching himself in a dream: Merry knew that most of the tea landed in his hair, almost felt the burn of it as it trickled down over his scalp, but not quite; he knew pieces of the cup bounced off the hutch and pattered over the top of his head and then down his shoulder, even heard several chinks as they sprayed over the countertop and floor.  By the time he realised what had just happened, another assault on reality was barrelling towards him.

Chair crashing to the floor behind him, in two solid steps Frodo had closed the space between them; he reached out, took hold of Merry's lapels and yanked him nigh off his feet, propelling him towards the front door. 

"I hope you didn't bother to un-tack your pony," he snarled.  "Because cousin or no, you will not spend tonight under my roof!"

Merry's shoulder rammed into the doorframe and he yipped, stumbled, made an instinctive grab and snatch at Frodo's arms.  His head was still spinning, yet nevertheless he felt a belated and stunned wonder as the fury in Frodo's eyes ramped itself up another several notches.

"Leave off!" Frodo growled, tried to jerk himself out of Merry's grip, but he still had hold of Merry's coat, so Merry had no choice but to come along with him.

"You leave off first!" Merry told him, mostly because nothing of any actual intelligence rose to his tongue, what with his mind buzzing and snapping at him almost as viciously as Frodo was.  It was as though that awful morning after Harvest was repeating itself, right down to that look of rage and frustration in Frodo's eyes, and it was only a matter of time before… 

Sodding bullying pillock, you are just like—

Merry froze, blinked.  Took several deep breaths, never looking away from that furious gaze.

And did something that every instinct screamed for, even as his heart pled otherwise.

Let go.

Lifted his hands and held them up, fingers splayed.

Said, "I'm sorry."

It took a few moments, but the rage slowly seeped out of Frodo's gaze, turned to something like confusion.  Or maybe it was suspicion, Merry couldn't tell for sure.  Frodo frowned, pulled back the smallest bit.  Shook his head.

"I think…" he said, paused and took a long, slow breath.  "I think you'd better go."

So, instincts be damned.  This really was it.  Merry had cocked it up before he'd even had a chance to say any of the ten-thousand things he'd come to say.  And he didn't even know how.

He dipped his head, closed his eyes against the searing burn behind them.  "I can't," he breathed, voice wobbly and thin.

"And I can't do this, Merry," Frodo told him, just as softly.  "Perhaps in time things will look different and we can—"

"No," Merry cut in, partly because it wasn't what he'd meant; partly because he couldn't bear to hear what Frodo might say next, "I mean, I can't."  And he shifted a pointed glance to where Frodo's hands still gripped the lapels of his coat.

Frodo blinked, said, "Oh," then pulled back, pried his fingers from their grasp and stepped back.  "Sorry."

Merry meant to say that it was all right, no need to apologise, things like that happened, and he should know, shouldn't he, and that he was sorry—for forcing things the way he'd done that morning, for letting his anger get the better of him, for staying away for so long—that it was all his fault and please, couldn't they just start over?  Try again?  He'd be better this time: he'd watch his mouth, he'd listen, he'd keep his temper, he'd pretend not to be jealous, he'd stop acting like a tweenager, he'd give Frodo anything he wanted, anything he'd take, just please, couldn't they just kiss and make up?

All of those things pushed at Merry's tongue, but all he ended up saying was, "Please don't make me go."

The voice mortified him—he might as well have been down on his knees and begging, the way it came out as a wobbly plea.  He immediately clamped his lips together hard and lowered his gaze to the polished oak of the hallway floor, his face burning hot with humiliation and his ears on fire.  He could feel Frodo looking at him, couldn't bear to imagine the expression he was probably wearing—something filled with pity, no doubt, and disgust and a rueful wonder that he'd ever got himself mixed up with Merry in the first place—so he didn't lift his head to confirm his suspicions.  His eyes were still burning, had been since he'd stumbled into the kitchen, and he blinked furiously, because if he had nothing else when Frodo denied him for good and all, he would be able to leave here telling himself that at least he hadn't wept in front of him.

"Merry," Frodo finally said, quiet and absolute, "why have you come here?"

And on this, at least, Merry had learned his lesson.  He took a deep breath, said with more honesty than he thought perhaps he'd said anything else to Frodo: "Because I love you and I couldn't stand to be without you anymore."

There.  He'd said it.  More than two years he'd been biting it back, and now he'd said it out loud, and…

And the silence—surely it had been about them all this time, only now it hung, clung, so heavy Merry almost felt it as a weight in his chest.  He closed his eyes tight, gritted his teeth, and still it stretched, the burrow so still that he could hear the clock ticking on the mantel all the way in Frodo's study.  Then:

"You… love me," Frodo said slowly, sighed, then pushed out a soft little, "Huh."

It was sceptical; Merry could almost imagine Frodo's eyes rolling as he'd said it.  Merry's ears burned hotter and his throat closed up.

"You don't even know what that is," Frodo furthered in a tone that was dull and leaden.

Merry's head jerked up at that one, and his eyes narrowed.  Didn't know what love was.  Didn't know what love was!  He'd been bloody dying of it for the past few months, hadn't he?  How dare Frodo tell him what he felt and didn't feel; what he knew and didn't know.  Had he been living in Merry's head the past dreadful months?  Had he felt the hollow hurt in his chest, the constant ache at loving so hard that he couldn't even think straight sometimes?

No, he hadn't, had he, because he'd been sporting about with anyone that would bend over for him, and apparently, one of those willing to bend would be Master Fredegar Bolger, wouldn't it?  Bloody traitor, sitting there listening to Merry's worries with that same stupid smirk on his face, probably even then calculating what a perfect opportunity it would be to get into Frodo's trousers, and then rubbing Merry's nose in it with Frodo only too happy to oblige to that end.

"I know exactly what it is," Merry said; he kept his tone level, but he couldn't keep the fury from seeping into its edges.  "And it isn't just a quick tumble with anyone that'll have you."  Merry couldn't tell if he was pleased or devastated when Frodo's eyes narrowed.  "It's not being able to breathe because you can't be with someone.  It's thinking you just might die if they turn you away.  It's an ache so deep in your bones that you can't—"

"That isn't love, Merry!"  Frustration was bright and clear in Frodo's voice.  "That's some… some romantic obsession straight from a faerie tale!"  He shook his head again, scrubbed almost angrily at his face with both hands then ran those hands through his hair.  "And it's what comes from having too much drivel on the shelves of the Hall's library and not enough stories about things that are real!  You can't possibly think—"

"Don't you say that I don't love you!" Merry shouted at him; he hadn't meant for it to be so loud, but not only did Frodo apparently not believe him, but he didn't even believe Merry had the sense to know what his own feelings were.  "You say it as though you even know what you're talking about, when it's you who doesn't know how to be loved, so don't you tell me that what's been nearly choking me for these last two years isn't real!  You don't know what's in my heart, you can't read my mind, you don't know what—!"

"Yet you're so certain," Frodo said, so level and quiet that it broke through Merry's ire, "that you know."

I know enough to be here, don't I?  he wanted to say, but Frodo's expression went through so many changes—starting with anger and ending with confusion and none in the middle comprehensible whatsoever—that something within Merry nagged so, you don't know it all, do you? before he told it to shut up.

Frodo looked for moments as if he was going to speak; finally he simply shook his head and lifted his eyes—sombre now and a little bit tired—to Merry's, said, "Merry, why have you come here?  What do you want from me?"

And how was Merry supposed to answer that?  Everything and nothing and only what you want to give me, and none of it would come out because there was a part of Merry that was absolutely bloody furious with Frodo for asking, for having to ask, and there was another part that loved him even more for it because he did have to ask, because he really didn't know, honestly couldn't fathom that there might be someone in the world who wanted nothing more from him than to be allowed to love him.

It was too much.  He didn't know how to answer in a way that Frodo would hear, so he answered with the only thing that Frodo would accept from him without wanting to know the whys and wherefores: he took the two steps across the hallway, stood himself in front of Frodo, rested his hands gently to Frodo's shoulders, and leaned in.

Frodo's hand shot up, laid itself hard to Merry's chest, pushed him back.

"Exactly what is it that you think you're doing?"  His voice was as hard as his grip and when Merry peered into his eyes, that rage was creeping back again.

"I…"  Merry took a deep breath, kept his hands from tightening on Frodo's shoulders.  "The only thing you'll let me do," he answered.  "And if it's all you'll give me, I'll—"

"I haven't given you anything," Frodo said through his teeth.  "But perhaps you'd like to prove yourself the Good Brandybuck and take what's not been given you, eh?"  His eyes hardened, went dark and cold.  "Again."

Merry snatched his hands back as though Frodo had just bitten him—again, now that he thought about it—narrowed his eyes.  "And what is that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing," Frodo answered, the anger so close that Merry could almost see it as a solid entity in front of him.  "Except that you almost had me for a few minutes there, but I suppose I can't blame you because I'm the fool.  But really—you're quite good at this.  Love and apologies, and you with that sad look of contrition on your face.  Two more minutes and I might have fallen for it.  No, really—that's how bloody good you are at this, because I knew and I'd learnt my lesson and still, I almost fell for it again.  I suppose I should just thank the stars that you're too young and stupid to know when to keep your trousers buttoned, but I expect your timing will improve with practise."

Merry supposed that the only thing keeping his own rage under the surface was the complete confusion.  "What…?"  He shook his head.  "No, that isn't…"  And he reached out.  "Frodo, I don't know what you're—"

Frodo snarled a little, smacked Merry's hand away and shoved him back.  "Touch me again and you'll lose that hand!"

Always with the hands, can't keep them to your-bloody-self, can you?

Allrightallrightallright, mistake, that was a mistake, one of hundreds of them, apparently, and Frodo was right, he couldn't seem to keep his hands to himself, so he spread them palms-up in front of him, backed off a step.

"I'm sorry, I wasn't—"

"Stop saying that!" Frodo snapped, a sharp snarl through his teeth.  "You're not sorry, you don't know how to be sorry, so just don't—"  Frodo stopped, covered his face with his hands, took several deep breaths.  "I am not doing this again," he said, dropped his hands and turned away.  "I believe you know where I keep the door.  Go.  Now."  And started down the tunnel towards the bedsmials.

Merry's brain wasn't working, else he never would have done it, but he panicked, reached out, "Frodo, please don't—" caught himself before he'd actually latched on but it was too late; only a glancing touch to Frodo's elbow, but it was enough: Frodo pivoted on his heel, clamped tight onto Merry's arms.  Merry found himself shoved hard up against the wall, Frodo's thigh pressed between his legs, into his groin, to pin him there.  Merry didn't grab at him, not even for balance, kept his hands up and spread palms-out in surrender.

"I'm sorry, Frodo, I didn't mean—"

"It's all you ever mean!"

"That isn't true!  I'm trying, but…" 

It was all he could do not to take hold of Frodo, give back the same force that was being used against him.  Merry had never backed down from a fight in his life, it hadn't ever even occurred to him, and why could Frodo not see what it was taking for him to just stand here and take this?  And worse, he couldn't help but notice now that he was hard as stone, adrenaline and reflex ramping through him, turning fight-or-flight into primal male reaction, and now Frodo knew it.

Frodo snapped his hips, slamming himself into Merry, and Merry let loose a small gasp, gritted his teeth.

"This is what you want, isn't it?" Frodo asked.  "It's why you came."  All of it snarled between clenched teeth, Frodo's hands bunched and knotted in Merry's coat; he shoved harder, knocking Merry's shoulders and back into the wall with such brutal force that Merry loosed a shocked little grunt.  "Come on, then," Frodo grated.  "Just give us a quick dirty fuck and you can be on your way.  I'm afraid I've a dearth of stables, though, so we'll have to make do with the floor."

"Damn it, Frodo, stop it!  This isn't what—"

"Isn't it?"  His thigh pressed harder into Merry's groin and Merry gasped again; he was in real pain now, yet still his arms remained extended, though his hands had fisted.  "I can feel it," Frodo grated through an enraged sneer.  "Did you think I'm daft?  Tell me you don't want it, tell me it isn't what you always want, tell me—"

"Yes, I always want it!" Merry snarled back, every bit of what he'd been trying desperately to hold back now seething to a dark froth in his brain, spilling out his mouth.  "I am male and between the ages of twelve and ninety—of course I always want it!  I want it at six in the morning when I'm having breakfast and I want it at nine when I'm inventorying the barns and I want it at suppertime when I'm listening to my mother prattle about her aunts in Digby and I want it when I'm knee-deep in cow dung and wondering how long it'll be this time until you start to miss me a little bit and say 'yes' to whatever invitation I've extended and you've deigned to accept!  I want it all the time and stars save us all, but I happen to want it with you, but I suppose that's the unforgivable part here, isn't it?  Because you're not so far past your twenties that you don't want it all the time, too!  It's never taken more than a glance and a warm breath to trip you into bed, so don't even try this bloody little pretence at righteous indignation with me, when I know it has nothing whatever to do with the fact that I want it but that I want it with you!"  And now Merry jerked his own thigh up, pushed his hip into heat just as hard and solid as his own.  "Now, why don't you try and tell me that you don't want it!  Tell me you don't want it with me!"

Frodo honestly hadn't known that it was possible to be this angry, to have this much rage in his chest, seething and curling and twining itself with frustration, and still that monstrous lump of hurt that he kept trying not to understand, but he did, and all that understanding did was snake the anger deeper, escalate it into fury so hot it actually burned.  And it was Merry, always Merry, who pulled these things from him, cornered him and forced him into places he otherwise wouldn't have known existed, and sometimes it was a brilliant new discovery, but sometimes it was dark and ugly, terrifying in its visceral reality.

Forcing reaction from him, again, only this time, Frodo wasn't going to play by Merry's rules.

He gripped Merry's shoulders, jerked him away from the wall, spun him and shoved him until Merry was pushed face-first to the curved pine panels.  Merry growled a little; Frodo could actually hear his teeth grind as he stiffened his spine, but with the exception of that first surprised reflex, Merry didn't fight back.  And for some inexplicable reason, it only ramped up Frodo's anger; he pressed against Merry's back, took hold of both of his wrists and held them to the wall to each side of his shoulders.

Merry yipped a little, inarticulate protest, and he pushed back this time, tried to jerk his hands out of Frodo's grip, but Frodo tightened it, slammed himself into Merry and used all his leverage to keep him there.  Merry stilled, breath coming hard and fast, knocking against Frodo's chest.

"What I want," Frodo growled into Merry's ear, "is not always what is given me and I—"

"I don't know what—"

Frodo shoved up hard, cut off Merry's protest.  "Don't you? I thought you knew everything?"

"That's not—"

"Only you don't know everything, do you?  You know less than nothing if you come to my home speaking of rights as if they're yours to have, unearned, as if they're something you can take and twist about to suit you—only you—as if they're brands upon one of your father's livestock, as if they're fetters to tie some simpering fool to your ankles.  Rights!"  It fairly exploded out of him.  "And you, taking the easy way out—just blame your ancestors for what's been made of you, just as you've told yourself it's all right to just take what you want and wear a charming smile as you do it, because surely that's your father's blood, and your father's ever-so-fine example, and surely not your fault that the apple's not falling far from the tree, not your choice?"

"Frodo, I don't—  What does he have to do with any of this, with us?"

"He has everything to do with you and what you think you've a right to, what you think you've a right to do in order to get it.  I might have a 'quick tumble with anyone that'll have me', but I've never looked into their eyes while I did it and pretended it was something it wasn't.  I've never taken something from someone they wouldn't have given otherwise under the guise of love and understanding—!"

Too much, too much… Frodo choked back the anger that had flooded over, throttled it into silence.  Time spun out upon Merry's shaky breaths, one after another; Frodo could feel every muscle lined up against him wound tight and vibrating, Merry wanting to fight back but not letting himself, and Frodo had absolutely no idea what to make of any of it. 

"Frodo, I don't understand!"

High-pitched and thin, and Frodo understood that it wasn't anger or frustration, but fear.

He should feel bad.  He should feel bad, because this wasn't as simple as giving Merry a taste of his own medicine; Merry really didn't understand, and Frodo didn’t think he'd actually believed that before, but now he did.  But he couldn’t feel bad, couldn’t make himself feel bad, because the anger was crawling all through him, burning, making his blood simmer and his brain catch fire.  Because how could he not understand?  How could he really not know?

Frodo clenched his teeth, blinked away tears of frustration he hadn't even known had collected at the corners of his eyes.  "Then let's talk about something you do understand, shall we?"  He freed his right hand, snaked it down and slipped it around Merry's hip, took hold of the rigid bulge in his trousers.

Merry gasped, sucked in a sharp breath, and every muscle in his body went yet more tense and stiff.  A slow shudder moved through him and his hand jerked in Frodo's grip, but not forceful enough to loose himself; the other curled into a fist, knuckles pressing into the wall.

Frodo dipped his mouth slowly to Merry's ear.  "Come on, love," he murmured, trained his voice low and smooth.  "You just said you always want it."  And he ran his thumb along the length of him, traced his shape through the thick fabric of his trousers.  "Shall we have it right here?  Quick and dirty?"

Merry's hips jerked reflexively and he thumped his head to the wall.  "Frodo," he whispered, loose and shaky, and that was all.

So small and desperate and it was more than enough to kill the anger, like cutting off the head of a snapping snake, leaving only an empty skin writhing in its mindless death-throes.

Frodo closed his eyes, dipped his head and pressed it to Merry's right shoulder-blade, relaxed his grip on Merry's wrist. 

"Tell me to stop," he said.

A long, loose expulsion of air and Merry sagged against the wall.  Bowed his head.

"Stop.  Please."

And Frodo let go, backed away, slowly so he wouldn't stumble, because his head felt light, as though someone had just sucked all of his sense from him, and he couldn't think straight anymore.  He couldn't feel the floor beneath his feet, didn't even know if his heart was beating and his lungs were sucking air.  Weighed down and heavy, like trying to walk through quick-mud, as he backed himself to the other side of the tunnel, stumbled against the low hallway table and slumped into the wall.  Everything in him had suddenly dropped, sunk to the bottom of his heart and just sat there, still and cold.  It was with abstract surprise that he noted his face was wet, that he was exhausted and hollow and… extraordinarily sad. 

He watched Merry in the uncertain light, watched him turn a little, prop his shoulder to the wall, slide down it until the floor stopped him, and there he sat, hunched in Frodo's hallway, staring at his knees.  Weeping without making a sound. 

Frodo watched one teardrop after another fall from behind the thick curtain of his hair and patter down onto the leg of his trousers.  And had absolutely no idea how he felt about any of it.

How can you not understand?  You said you knew, you were sure enough that you made me believe you, and all the time you knew less than nothing.  So, who am I supposed to forgive here, you or me?  And how do I even begin, when you still don't understand?

A product of his father, yes, but he'd seen more in Merry, more than the oak and the acorn, and he knew there was a gigantic heart beneath all of that muscle, and a sharp mind, knew that Merry was the person he was despite Saradoc, knew that he was more his mother's son than his father's, so how could he not understand this?

Only...

Frodo sank down to the floor himself, propped his arms on his knees and thumped his head back to the wall.  Stared at the ceiling and tried to understand how something that had made him so happy at one time—and Merry made him happy, he remembered being happy—had somehow come to this.  How what he wanted most in the world could have come with this kind of price attached to it.

"I didn't…"  No more than a whisper, hoarse and choked, and Merry tore a breath into his chest, shook his head.  "You said… I mean, you're the one who… I told you to… 'Tell me to stop,' I said it twice, and I thought you wanted… thought you…"

Frodo closed his eyes tight, tried to keep from sobbing out loud.  "Merry, you—"

"I never would have… would have… taken—"  He said the word as though it tasted bad, spat it out so he wouldn't have to taste it twice.  "I thought you wanted—"

"I wanted what I thought it was, Merry," Frodo told him, and the weariness and defeat in his own tone made him sadder still.  "You don't listen.  You hear what you want to hear and nothing else.  I said yes that night because I thought it was something that it wasn't, and when I realised that next morning that it wasn't what I thought it was, I told you to stop."  He shook his head, scrubbed at his eyes then dropped his hands.  "You don't listen, and I can't make you hear me if you won't listen."

Merry was silent for a long time, staring at Frodo with eyes that were sad and angry all at once, and limned with tears.  And then he sighed out a wobbly breath, turned himself to face Frodo, mirroring Frodo's own pose, knees propped up and arms resting atop them.

"And how can I listen to you," he said slowly, "if you never tell me anything?"

Frodo opened his mouth and…

And nothing would come out of it.

Merry watched him for a moment, that sadness edging into incomprehension with every second Frodo struggled for a response and didn't find one.  "You don't know, do you?" he asked, and it was almost as though he was as surprised as Frodo was.  "You really don't know."  He shook his head slowly, leaned back and peered at the ceiling, puffed something dry and humourless, before looking back at Frodo again.  "And yet I'm supposed to know what you thought it was, aren't I, and stars save me if I guess wrong, and d'you know why I have to guess at what you want, what you feel, what you don't want?"  He leaned forward a little, tilted his head.  "It's because you.  Don't.  Tell.  Me.  Anything.  Except for when I somehow make you angry because I'm doing something you never told me you don't like, and I've no idea I should stop doing it until you near swipe my head off for doing something I had no idea bothered you in the first place."

"Tell me what is going on!"

"Don't you have a few dozen lasses to get back to?"

Frodo shook his head, opened his mouth again… 

And still couldn't speak.

"Love?"

"What's that got to do with anything?"

"Every time we have an argument," Merry said, his voice still a little shaky, but gaining strength and timbre with every word he spoke, "I find out something new that you don't like about me—"

"So, deny it.  Tell me what this is really about, then."

"It isn't about anything, all right?"

"—something I've maybe done all my life and you've been silently 'putting up with' for who-knows-how-long, and there you are, angry with me over it, even though you never even told me it bothered you in the first place!"

"And what is that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing."

"But somehow, I'm supposed to know these things, I'm supposed to read your mind, but when I do read your mind and get something right, that irritates you just as much, maybe more, and then I'm even more—"

"All right!" 

"No, it isn't all right!  I looked at you that night and I saw what you wanted, I saw what you were asking, so I gave it.  And why?  Because I love you and when you love someone, you want to give them things—"

"No, you want to give them the things they want, not what you want them to have, not what—"

"It was what you wanted, and don't even try and tell me otherwise, because it's only ever what you'll take from me.  If I can't keep my trousers buttoned, it's because that's all you ever want from me, it's all you'll let me give!  I can't open my mouth and tell you the things I want to tell you, I can't give you that because you'll only push me away if I do, and I sure as damn can't wait to hear those things from you, can I?  Your tongue might fall out your head if you dared admit that I was ever more to you than the occasional tumble with a few laughs thrown in for good measure. 

"And now I find out that this is what you've been thinking of me all this time?"  Merry's teeth clenched tight, the anger winning over the anguish, burning bright in his eyes.  "You asked it of me, you demanded it of me, and because I was happy to give it, somehow that makes me some… some sort of… deviant?  You change your mind and somehow I become this ghastly person who took something from you that you didn't want to give me?"

"Merry, you're not understanding—"

"No, I'm not understanding any of this.  I don't understand how you can look right at me and say that you didn't want what happened that night.  How you can make of me what you're making of me and pretend that if I'd refused you, if I'd turned around and walked out of that stable, you wouldn't have fallen apart shortly thereafter—  No, wait, that's wrong."  Merry's voice had turned sharper, had lost its edge of lingering uncertainty.  "You would have closed yourself up, crawled inside yourself, and either walked away or pushed me away even harder.  And no, I don't know why because you wouldn't tell me, you still won't tell me.  But I knew what you needed me to know, and you can vilify me with whatever names you want to give me in that unfathomable head of yours, but we both know the truth of that night, so at least do me the courtesy of not voicing out loud whatever tales you need to tell yourself to convince yourself that you're the one who's right here!"

"Only you would think it has to be about what's right or wrong!  Only you would narrow it all down to sex and forget or ignore entirely everything that came after.  Even now, you still can't listen to me, and you wonder why I can't tell you anything?  It's hard enough to voice things, to find words for them, and even if I could find the words, you refuse to hear them!  You think you see so much, but I've eyes, too, and the things I saw the next morning were more than enough to—"

"Oh, yes, that next morning—of course.  The one where you decided you hated me before I'd even walked through the door, and did everything you could to prove it until I couldn't stand to listen anymore.  How could I not hear the things you said to me—the things you're still saying to me?"

"I don't know, do I, but you manage it somehow.  'I know, I knew'—you know everything, don't you, except for the bit where you know nothing!  I have never hated you, Merry, though oh, sometimes I wished I could—it would make all of this so much easier—but believe me, the fact that you do know nothing is the only thing that has kept me from it, because if I thought you did know, forgiveness would be out of the question entirely."

"And that's it, right there.  You can't forgive me for knowing that you wanted to know you were loved; you can't forgive me for seeing you unsure and wanting."

"That isn't—"

"You can't forgive me for the fact that you let yourself trust me, for being there when you let your walls down for a moment."

"No," Frodo snarled.  "I can't.  Not when all that trust got me was a quick, dirty fuck in a stable."

Merry sat back, eyed him with a flat stare.  "And that's all it was to you."

"No, Merry."  Frodo pushed both fists into his eye-sockets until green and yellow spots spangled and popped through his vision.  "It's all it was to you."  Dropped his hands and blinked until his eyes cleared.  "And if blame is so important to you, I suppose I'll concede on that point.  I expected too much and I suppose I should have known better."  His eyelids were heavy, like someone had lain stones atop them, so he let them close, tilted his head back.  "There.  You're absolved.  None of it is your fault and you can go back home with a clear conscience knowing that you were entirely right and that I'm simply too ridiculous and unfathomable to be worth the bother of trying to listen and understand."  A long, heavy breath through a chest tight and burning.  "You're right and I'm wrong," he furthered, abstractly surprised that his voice was steady and clear.  "Now will you please just go?"

He almost did.  He almost got up and left right there, because how was he supposed to fight this?  How was he supposed to fight for this, and how had it got to be this in the first place?  How could Frodo look at him and see the person who had him so twisted up in knots that he'd thrown up walls, entrenched himself behind them until he couldn't even hear Merry's voice anymore?

And yet, he was missing something, something important, something Frodo was saying and yet not saying, and it kept him rooted to the floor, unwilling or unable to do as Frodo asked—demanded—until it was dug up and exposed, understood… fixed.  He'd made this mistake that morning—interpreted things wrong, walked away before he understood, closed his mind even as he opened his mouth—and if what Frodo was saying was true, if all of this somehow centred on that morning and not the night before, then Merry had missed altogether something that sounded awfully damned important.  The driving need to know what it was, try somehow to make it right—he'd hurt Frodo, actually hurt him, and how could he not have known that?—abruptly seemed far more important than any resentment or wounded pride.

So, Merry put away the anger that was flaring through his blood, making his heart burn and ache and his brain simmer about the edges; pushed it from his eyes and his face, unclenched his teeth and unballed his fists, then peered steadily across to Frodo.

"All right," he said calmly, "it isn't about that night.  I don't understand how it could not be, with you thinking of me what you seem to think of me, but you say it isn't and so I'll believe you."  He paused, stared at Frodo's face—expressionless with eyes still closed.  "But for me, it was all about that night.  I'd waited for that night, or something like it, and it had nothing whatever to do with what we did, but with what you showed me, what you allowed me to see.  And I did see, Frodo—for one tiny space of time, you wanted to belong with someone, you wanted to belong with me, you wanted to be a part of something—of us—and I gave it to you.  I didn't know why and it didn't matter, because it was what you wanted and that was enough.

"And now I'm being punished because it was what I wanted, too, and I don't understand."  That last was a little high and shaky, so Merry took a deep breath, forced calm into his voice.  "You keep saying it was about what happened the next day, that somehow, because I was happy about what happened between us, it proved to you that… I don't even know what it proved to you, Frodo, please—tell me what I missed."

Long silence from Frodo, no reaction but a twist of black eyebrows and a minute shake of his head.  Merry only kept staring at him, waiting, wanting to stalk the two steps across the hallway and shake some answers out of him; he kept himself still, only watched, until Frodo finally opened his eyes, peered up at the ceiling for another long moment and then over to Merry.

"Do you know," he said quietly, "that's the first time you've actually asked."

He didn't know why, exactly, but something inside Merry loosened a notch, made it easier to breathe.  For whatever reason, somewhere along the line his instincts had kicked in, had beat back all of the 'round-and-'round analysis and conjecture and assumption, and brought them, all at once, to some sort of plateau, where real answers seemed possible and making amends not entirely out of the question, and all of it so abruptly that he almost felt dizzy with the vertigo; he could almost swear the floor shifted beneath him.  It wasn't over yet, not by a longshot… but now he could hope that they weren't either.

"I've hit upon the magic words, have I?" he answered softly, was surprised to find the corner of his mouth lifting in something close to a smirk… was further surprised—no, shocked—to see a hint of the same from Frodo.  "Do I win an answer, then?"

Frodo's expression changed so quickly that Merry couldn't be sure he'd even seen the ghost of a smile at his mouth three seconds ago.  Frodo looked away, shook his head slowly.

"I don't know if I know how to answer, I don't know if I… it's not something I can explain, put into words, it's…"  He paused, sighed, firmed his jaw as though readying for another skirmish.  "It was like…"  His voice dipped down, fell to a weary murmur, and his shoulders slumped when he bowed his head.  "It was as though you'd… won."

Merry's eyebrows drew together, twisted.  "Won what?"

Frodo only shook his head slowly, lifted his shoulders slightly in a tired shrug, said, softly, "I don't know."

Except Merry thought maybe Frodo did.  And Frodo read that, somehow, shook his head, looked down and said, slowly, woodenly, "And if I did, I've no words.  Nor should I have to, if you know as much as you claim to."

Words, damn him and his words, too many and never enough.  But it was ever true and more than most that for Frodo words could be daggers, a glance could be an arrow through the chest and silence could be a ringing death sentence…

But only if the one who used this arsenal against you held his weapon in one hand and your heart in the other.

Merry had never considered that he might, for once, be the one holding the knife.

Or that perhaps this struggle, this pushing away, this desperate fight to keep or even re-establish distance between them—all of it a last-ditch effort by Frodo to wrest that knife back into his own hands again, keep himself safe, and it was somehow now Merry's to prove that he would gut himself before ever turning that blade upon Frodo.  And he had no idea in the world how to do it. 

Start with the truth whispered through his mind and Merry was more than a little surprised to realise that the voice sounded remarkably like his own.

He nodded slowly, kept his eyes steady on Frodo's.  "Perhaps I did," he said, then shook his head, ran a hand through his hair.  "You can't know… Frodo, I don't think you can understand what it meant to me, nor how shattering it was for me to think it wasn't what I'd thought it was… or that you'd pretend it wasn't."  A slight clench of Frodo's jaw; Merry didn't wait to see if he'd made Frodo angry with that one.  "But if I thought I'd 'won' anything," he went on, "it was your trust and your love, and would you really expect me to be unhappy about that?  Would you want me to be?  I have been stepping so carefully for so long, waiting, letting you decide how much and how little, and maybe my 'careful' is closer to clumsy stumbling, but I don't think I've done anything so bleeding hard in my life and I…"  He paused, squeezed his eyes shut until they stopped burning, opened them, said, "I thought I had proven something to you, proven that I loved you and that it was safe for you to love me, that I wouldn't ever betray any of it, and then…"  His teeth clenched tight and the burning was back behind his eyes again, searing a swath beneath his brow.  "And then you took it all back, pushed me away, and what was I supposed to feel then?  Was I meant to be happy about that?"

He kept peering at Frodo, waiting for an answer; Frodo peered back for a long moment before twitching his gaze away, turning it to the floor.  And then he only shrugged.

Not a huge leap forward, perhaps, but it wasn't an angry retort or rebuke and that was something; progress, however small, and Merry latched onto it, leaned forward.

"Frodo, I really am sorry.  I've been wrong about… well, apparently a lot of things, and I still don't even know what half of them were, but it was never… I mean, you do get scared sometimes, and you push me away when you do—"

"You're wrong, it's not about fear, not like you mean, you still don't—"

"No, wait, let me finish, let me say this before I…  I'm not good at this, I'm not good with words the way you are, and what I mean is hardly ever what comes out my mouth, but I know this, I really do know it—whatever it was, or is, that makes you pull away, it was gone that night, you stopped pushing me away, and I thought it meant…"  The words tripped him up, thickened his voice, and he swallowed against the lump in his throat.  "And then the next morning, there you were, pushing me away again, and I only got so angry because it hurt so much, and I don't even remember most of what I said, but I'm sorry if I was cruel or careless, I'm sorry that I didn't understand, but if you would only tell me what—"

"Let me push!"  It was strange, because it seemed for a moment that Frodo hadn't realised he'd spoken; he only stared at Merry, an odd mix of surprise and confusion and chagrin flitting over his face.  Then he blinked, dipped his head, rubbed at his brow.  "Let me push," he said more quietly and to the floor.  "Let me… let me breathe."

And Merry sat back, close to boneless, because it wasn't a demand that he leave and it wasn't an accusation and it wasn't a denial; it was, in fact, the most encouraging thing that had come from Frodo since Merry had got here.  Still, he needed to be clear about this, he needed to understand it, because he'd thought he'd understood it before, but he'd had it all wrong, and now he needed to get it right, needed Frodo to know he had it right.  So, he nodded slowly, peered steadily at Frodo, took a deep breath so his voice wouldn't shake.

"And what exactly," he asked slowly, carefully, "does that mean?"

Frodo could only stare for a moment, blink, tilt his head.  It confused him, threw him off-balance, because though he really couldn't say he'd been expecting anything in particular—especially considering those things that had spilt from his mouth without the benefit of foreknowledge—still, he hadn't expected this.  A question—not a demand, not an assumption, not an indictment—and now that it had been asked, Frodo didn't quite know what to do with it.  Answers generally followed questions, and now Merry sat across from him, waiting for exactly that, but Frodo found himself at a loss as to precisely how to do it.  And not at all sure that he even should.

It was done, wasn't it?  Had been done for months now, and wasn't all of this vitriol and accusation simply the death-throes he'd known all along had to be coming?  What good would it do to lay out plainly exactly what he'd wanted and needed now, when it was too late?  He'd already been put through the wringer of humiliation; why open his mouth and volunteer for it again?

"And how can I listen to you, if you never tell me anything?"

All right, and yes, fine, there was that.

But the funniest thing about it—or perhaps the saddest, he didn't know, but it was at least the most ironic—was that he'd been berating Merry mere moments ago for not listening, not hearing him, and now Merry sat silent across from him, everything about him a promise that he would listen.

And there was this, as well: he did want to push, he had to, and it wasn't what Merry thought it was, he wasn't afraid; he just didn't know how to be any other way.  Didn't want to be any other way, had learned to traverse the map of selfhood by ways both painful and effortless.  Alone, solitary—words he knew were used quite often by others to describe him, but he'd only recently come to understand that they were words he used himself, as well.  And Merry was right about something else, too: Frodo would have crawled inside himself that night, had Merry not stepped in and given him what he'd been asking for, and—he might as well admit it—what he'd needed.  He would have retreated, pulled away, pushed away, because sometimes solitude was the only thing that would do, the only way he could reach truce with another, or general circumstances, or even himself.

What Merry kept not understanding—and Frodo didn't suppose he could lay too much blame, since he'd only seemed to come to understand it in plain terms himself just this minute—was that it wasn't a failing or some kind of character flaw; it wasn't something that needed to be fixed.  And even if it was, he didn't want to fix it or have someone fix it for him.  This was who he was.

And what he wanted—what he'd been wanting, without even really knowing it until he was forced to ponder and define it—was for someone to know it… for Merry to know it. 

Accept it.

Love it.

Love him… without trying to 'fix' something that was so fundamentally a part of him.  And not just this particular part of him, but all of him, all of what made him who he was.

And now that he understood, now that all of the back-and-forth and emotional acrobatics were defined and forming a coherent chain from his heart to his head, Frodo had a choice: he could tell Merry it was too late, that they'd made a good go and it simply hadn't worked, that after enough time had passed, perhaps they could give at least the friendship another chance…

Or he could venture one last gamble, risk the hurt and humiliation all over again, let himself believe in Merry when there was no good reason to do so and too many not to, hand over that same trust that had bitten him on the arse at Harvest…

Now, despite telling himself that the former was the wiser choice, the only choice, Frodo found himself leaning forward a little, his body tense, because despite the fear in the pit of his belly that every bit of himself he revealed—every small bit of his Self he allowed Merry to see, scrutinise and judge—despite knowing that the smallest flinch from Merry had the potential to break him, that tiny spark of hope that he'd thought gone only a few moments ago wanted to roll those dice again.

And without giving his head the opportunity to shield his heart, Frodo took the gamble.

"Do you know why I came here to live with Bilbo?"  His voice was soft but firm, and he peered levelly at Merry, refusing to allow the flip-flopping of his gut to stopper the words.  "You told me once that you knew it wasn't because of the wine."

Merry stared a moment longer, eyes narrowing slightly, before he shook his head, breathed out a grim little snort.  When Frodo shot him a wary frown, Merry shrugged, said, "I've lived my whole life without ever hearing that question once and now I've had it posed to me twice in as many days."

Frodo's frown deepened.  "Who—"

"I've heard my mum's answer," Merry cut in with a negligent wave of his hand.  "But I'd like to hear yours, if you'll tell me."

Frodo found his mouth dropping open.  "You've talked to your mum about… about this?"

"Well, who else was I going to talk about it with?" Merry wanted to know, his tone and his countenance both veering into defensive.   "Should I have spoken to my father?"  He said it with a curl to his lip and a glint of something too close to hatred in his eyes.  He dropped his gaze again.  "I've only so many…"  A pause and a heavy shrug.  "Well, you're the only friend I could talk to about something like this and that wasn't likely, was it?"

There was too much in those few sentences for Frodo to focus on any one thing or give any of the emotions it brought his full attention.  There was mortification that Esmeralda would have intimate information about what passed between them and a horrified curiosity over exactly what information she did have; there was an empathy for Merry's very obvious contempt of his father and a familiar abstract wonder that he'd managed to somehow avoid most of Saradoc's more repugnant faults and turn others into strengths.

But what his mind caught and snagged on was the idea that Merry thought he had no one to turn to besides Frodo himself.  And again, he had no idea how to feel about it. 

"What about…?"  Frodo paused, thought carefully.  "Well, there's Berilac.  And what about Madoc?  And Doderic's always been—"

"Doderic's always been an ass and you know it, and Maddy hasn't got a brain in his head, he's got juggling squirrels doing cartwheels.  The day I trust any one of them with something like… well, something private, is the day pigs will fly out my arse."

"Berliac—"

"Berilac doesn't—"  Merry sputtered, clenched his teeth.  "You know, I'd really rather not discuss this, all right?  I'm sorry if you're cross that I spoke to Mum, but I didn't tell her any… well, I didn't go into detail, and she caught me at a—"  Merry stopped, head still bowed and eyes averted, but Frodo could see the twitching of his jaw.  "It was a bad time, all right?"

And then he stopped, breath coming faster and heavier than before, and now Frodo could see that his face was flushing.

This was just… odd.  Not only who Merry was talking to, but what he'd just said.  Frodo had always thought of Merry as someone who couldn't be alone even did he take up residence in a cave; he attracted people to him like iron filings to a magnet, and Harvest was but one example Frodo could think of off the top of his head.  It hadn't ever occurred to him that there wasn't anyone among all those people that Merry could count as a friend, someone to offer advice or even just lend an ear, should he need it.  And he wondered why it should surprise him so; after all, hadn't Merry learned almost everything he knew on his own and out of necessity?  It shouldn't be this surprising that he'd be on his own for things such as these, as well.

Nor, Frodo realised with a bit of a thump in his chest, should it be surprising that he sometimes got things wrong. 

Perhaps Merry understood more than Frodo thought.  At least when it came to solitude.

"We've got a bit away from the subject, haven't we?" Merry asked.  "You were going to tell me why you left Buckland."

His tone was a little impatient but quite a lot unnerved; Frodo was tempted to pursue this newest revelation, remembered how he disliked being cornered himself—and wasn't that how this whole thing had started in the first place?—and so, after a small pause to collect himself, let it drop.

"So I was," he said. 

And here was another something odd, because it had seemed like an easy thing a few moments ago when it had entered his head, but somehow, getting the words to come out was another ordeal entirely.

Frodo sat up, dragged the apron over his head and threw it to the side.  The movement sent tingles spidering across the small of his back and on down through his arse and thighs, and wasn't it strange how he only now seemed to notice that they'd wound up on the floor of the hallway of all places?  Glory, why couldn't they have ended up in the parlour, or at least someplace with a rug to cushion arse-bones?  Then again, things with Merry never did seem to go according to plan, did they?  No matter how vague and ephemeral that plan might be.

A long sigh and Frodo shook his head, planted his elbows to his knees, leaned forward.

"There is a difference," he said, measuring his words and tone carefully, "between loving someone, being available to them should they need you, and… and stifling them, smothering them, trying to beat out of them everything that makes them who they are."  He paused for a moment, things he hadn't thought about in a very long time rising within him and wobbling his voice.  A quick shake of his head and Frodo swallowed.  "Bilbo understood that difference, and I never once had to explain it to him.  I don't know how he knew… or maybe he didn't know at all, maybe it was simply one of those odd accidents of fate and it just seemed like he did, you never could tell with Bilbo.  But even so, he accepted me for who I was and not who he thought I could be if he moulded and shaped me just right.  He didn't try to force the things he thought I needed on me, and he didn't just hand them to me, even if he knew what they were—he let me find them, let me come to him if I couldn't, and I was never made to feel as though I were betraying him if I didn't come to him.  He never—"

"But—!"

Merry choked back whatever he'd been about to say; Frodo could almost see him physically throttling it in his throat as he struggled to keep it there.  Frodo was almost… touched.  From anyone else, it would seem a small thing, perhaps even a hollow gesture, but from Merry…

"What?" Frodo asked him, tipped a small, patient nod.  "Go on."

Merry struggled for another moment, clearly unsure of the wisdom in accepting the invitation, then, "But he left you!" burst from him like a small explosion.

Frodo sat back a little, lowered his eyes and nodded.  "He did."  His voice was a little more quiet than he liked, so he cleared his throat.  "And you're probably the only person in the world who knows how it… well."  He didn't look up, didn't really want to see what Merry might make of that last.  Instead, he only shrugged, went on, "And I won't deny that it hurt me.  But if I love him, I have to accept that it was what he needed, don't I?"  Now he did look up at Merry, and hoped his expression was at least neutral enough to negate the small tremor in his voice.  "And anyway, accidental or not, it was what I needed, too.  It was the only way I was going to become who I should be."

Merry only stared at him, a dark frown twisting his brow and clouding his eyes.  Frodo didn't think Merry would ever understand his relationship with Bilbo, didn't think he could understand it, because Merry was loyal to a fault and had tunnel-vision when someone he loved was hurt, and he carried grudges like they were badges of honour.  He would never understand why Frodo didn't hate Bilbo for leaving, because when Merry loved someone, when something really meant something to him, he was not the sort to let go, short of being pried off with—

Frodo froze, slumped back a little more, blinking.

Hundreds of acquaintances, maybe, dozens of chums with whom to crawl the pubs, but only a very few he considered friends, only a very few to whom he was willing to pledge that fierce loyalty—asked for or not—only a very few to whom he was willing to really hold, and when he did hold on, he held on tight, maybe too tight… 

Frodo had been seeing it for a long time, without really giving much thought to exactly what he was seeing, and when he did think about it, he'd turned away from it because it reminded him too much of Saradoc, and he hadn't wanted to see that.  Now, he thought perhaps Merry wasn't the only one guilty of assumptions and conjecture, because even though the actions were sometimes so similar as to make Frodo cringe and want to run the other way—and why wouldn't they be, what other examples had Merry had in his life?—the motivations were worlds apart; Frodo had been so busy not looking that he'd never seen the difference.

Frodo blinked some more.

Huh.

Was it possible—even a little bit—that the stranglehold against which Frodo had been instinctively bucking all this time was actually evidence in support of what Merry had been claiming since he'd stumbled through the door?  Had actions given the truth to the words and not the lie Frodo had been assuming?

And if so… was that really what he wanted?

Some part of you has always wanted it, at least to a degree, and you well know it.  Why else do you think Bilbo leaving took you down as it did?  Why else do you think Merry hangs on to his resentment, if he hadn't seen it first in your own angry tears?  Bilbo let you go—Aunt Gilly, Aunt Esme, Uncle Rory, so damned many—they all let you go, and for all your 'words of wisdom' and all your acceptance, it hurt, and didn't some part of you want to know what it felt like for someone to just once hold on?

Your problem is and always has been that you only want the parts of it you can take without feeling like you're giving up your Self, and you're afraid to admit it because you think it's selfish, and maybe it is, but…

All right, so he wanted it, at least a little bit of it, but could he take it all?  Or was it possible to have that little bit, take only what he could from the abundance of what Merry said he wanted to give, even if some part of him flinched at the inequity?

Still, was there inequity at all?  There was a difference between selfishness and self-preservation, and did he really think Merry would begrudge him the latter if he understood what it meant?

For the first time since… since ever, Frodo thought maybe not.  Maybe that possibility, that promise that had taken his sense that Yule hadn't been an illusion; maybe they'd both been so afraid to cock it up, so afraid to say what they wanted out loud, that they'd coerced each other into pretending that it was…  less than it was.  Maybe the steadfast refusal to define it had skewed it into something neither one of them had meant or even understood.  Maybe it was… different—more? better?—than either one of them had guessed then, and did he even have the right to throw it all away before he even knew what it really was, and all because he was afraid to define it out loud or even in his own head?  Because, if he could only make Merry see…

Frodo sucked in a long, deep breath, closed his eyes, because this was oh, so much more terrifying than it had been only a moment ago.  When he drew the courage to peer up, Merry's head was bowed again; somehow, something about the slouched posture of him made it a little easier for Frodo to open his mouth.

"You say you love me," he said slowly, surprised at how clear his voice sounded in the dim-gold stretch of the tunnel.  "And perhaps you do, in your way."  And why was it suddenly so much easier to believe that than it had been only five seconds ago?  A pause and Frodo swallowed thickly before going on, "I can't abide another—any other—using that word as a weapon against me, Merry.  And especially someone who hasn't a clue what it means.  Words have their own power and in the wrong hands, that power is too easily abused."  Merry's head snapped up, his eyes dark with something close to anger, but he surprised Frodo by staying silent.  "I won't be told what it's supposed to mean," he continued, "and I won't be told how I'm supposed to be—who I'm supposed to be—simply because that word has been bandied.  Saying it only means you know how to speak, sometimes it means you know how to manipulate, but it never means you know what it is or how you're supposed to use it.  It's all the words you say around it, the things you do when you're not depending upon it to get you out of trouble or into bed—that's what gives it meaning.  You can't say you love someone in one breath and then describe how you want to change them in the next."

Merry looked like he wanted to answer to that one, even opened his mouth.  Then he only closed it, looked down thoughtfully for a moment before returning his gaze to Frodo.

Still, it confused him, this calm in Merry, this silent consideration… this apparent determination to listen.  It made that annoying bit of hope flare a little, burn a bit hotter beneath Frodo's breastbone.

He cleared his throat, went on, "Perhaps I'm only just now understanding what my own definition of it is, but I learned a long time ago what it isn't, and it isn't about having or owning, and it isn't about forcing another into a mould of what you think they should be.  You can't lay hands on it and force it into the shapes you want to make of it."

A heavy pause, then: "You're talking about my father somehow, I think," Merry ventured, that grey gaze levelled right at Frodo and so penetrating that Frodo had to keep himself from shifting uncomfortably beneath it.  "It keeps coming back to that, doesn't it?  For both of us."  Another pause.  "Do you really think I'm that much like him?

He didn't know how to answer that one anymore.  Thirty minutes ago he might have said yes, absolutely, and he would have believed it, too.  Over the last few months he'd gone from turning away from any similarities to seeing almost nothing but, and now… now, he honestly wasn't sure which was real.

"I'm talking about a lot of things," Frodo answered, flicked his glance away then quickly back again; this was something he should say to Merry's face.  "But mostly, I'm talking about those to whom I am and am not willing to give that power.  And I'm unwilling to hand something like that to anyone who would turn it back on me and bludgeon me with it… or to someone who doesn't understand how that's even possible."

It was so very much like what his mother had said to him that Merry had a surreal moment of being in two places at once.  Only when Frodo said it, there could be no doubting its integrity, there could be no denying its truth.  He wasn't guessing at someone else's heart; he was speaking his own. 

And it was with some measure of shame that Merry understood how his desperate and self-indulgent attempts to hold on could have looked to someone who wasn't seeing them through his own distorted point of view; how the demands and accusations made out of fear could have been seen as attempts to mould and twist and change, when in fact they'd been a frantic effort to keep what he had.  And when he dared to look inward, chanced to look at himself, and then place that image next to that of his father, the similarity was almost like a punch to the chest.  He nearly flinched.

All right, maybe I'm a little bit like him, but you're wrong when you say it's an excuse; it's not an excuse, it's a problem and problems I can fix.  I might look like him and sometimes I might even act like him, but I don't have to be him, I refuse to be him, and if you'll just let me, I'll show you just how little of him is in me…

Merry nodded slowly, kept his eyes steady on Frodo's.  "You're right," he said, the admission coming so easily and naturally that he almost choked on the undeniable veracity of it.  He blinked instead, dipped his head and stared at the floor.  "I despise nearly everything about him, but I suppose you can only deny oaks and acorns until the tree actually falls on top of you."  He hadn't meant for it to sound so morose, but there it was, with the truculent bent of the child he was trying so hard not to be.  He shook his head, lifted his eyes back to Frodo's.  "But I'm not like him in the ways that matter," he went on, more conviction now than petulance.  "And I'm unlike him in more ways than I am, so that has to count for something, doesn't it?"

He kept peering at Frodo, waiting for an answer; Frodo peered back for a long moment before twitching something that might have been not-quite-a-smile or simply a purse of his lips.  And then he shrugged concession.

"This may be very hard for you to believe," Merry went on, kept his tone smooth and low, "but I'm not trying to fit you into anything, I'm not… glory, Frodo, I wouldn't want to change you, you're—"  His voice was rising, so he stopped, took a deep breath.  "I mean, that's the whole point, innit?  I want to be with you, who you are, and yes, some things about you nearly drive me mad and make me want to throttle you—there, I've admitted it—but they also make me want to fling you to the nearest horizontal surface and shag your brains out.  And perhaps things I've said or done have made you think that I want to change some of those things—I don't know how to convince you that I don't, but…"  He paused, pushed out a heavy sigh, ran a hand through his hair in frustration.  "I mean, look, there are plenty of things that bother you about me and that proven plain not thirty minutes ago.  Do you want to change those things about me?"

Frodo frowned, stared at Merry, eyes narrowing a little; he almost shook his head, stopped, and his frown deepened.  Merry's stomach dropped a little; it seemed a good question when he'd voiced it, but now he wasn't sure he wanted to hear the answer.

"Frodo?"  He didn't like the way his voice shook on the syllables, didn't like the way it suddenly felt as though his heart was thumping a sick, erratic rhythm in his gut rather than his chest.  And now he was sure he didn't want to hear the answer, because if it was 'yes' then that was it, wasn't it?  It was all over and all of the turmoil of the past hour—the past months—was all for nothing.  And yet he had to hear it, because if he left here without knowing the answer to this one question, he'd never know if he was leaving the love of his life or the most profound misinterpretation in the history of Middle-earth.  So he swallowed, clenched his teeth, forced, "Do you?"

Frodo only kept staring for another moment then just shook his head slowly, said, "No," in a voice that was steady but a little too soft.

Merry tried not to slump in relief, covered it by leaning in a little closer.  "Then why," he wanted to know, "can you not give me that same benefit of the doubt?"  He waited for a few seconds for that one to sink in, watched Frodo's frown deepen before he tore his gaze away and pointed it towards the floor.  "You always think the worst of yourself, Frodo, and so you think other people do, too.  And maybe some do," he conceded, "maybe people like my father do, but I'm not like him, not in my heart, not in my head, and I don't see those things—I don't know that I'd see them even were they true, and even if I did, there is nothing you could ever do or say that would make me turn from you, nothing."

Merry caught himself too late, didn't realise the implications of what he'd just said until it was already out his mouth and hanging gravid in the sudden silence between them.  Web-thin tethers and tree-trunks, and what he'd just said may well have bludgeoned the former with the latter.

"Not unless…"  He dipped his head, peered at Frodo through the tangles hanging limp over his brow.  "Not unless you want me to."

He suspected it for a bluff even before he said it—suspected, but couldn't tell for sure.  He really didn't know if he could turn from Frodo, honestly couldn't say whether or not he'd do it if Frodo asked it of him.  And perhaps a bit of shame was in order, lying so blatantly and looking right at Frodo whilst he did it.  He'd been telling the truth when he'd said that if Frodo wanted something, Merry wanted to give it to him… in this one instance, regardless of whether or not Merry might want to give it, he really didn't know if he could.  Still, he'd got very good at pretending over the past few years, and if this was the one silent untruth that remained between them… well, it wasn't really a lie if Merry never had to learn the veracity of it, was it?

It was getting darker, the taper in the sconce down the hall dimming and sputtering the smallest bit, the light from the kitchen losing its brighter edges; Merry didn't know if it was because the flames were actually beginning to die, or his vision was starting to close in on itself.  Shadows cast themselves over Frodo's face, orange-gold and sooty grey glancing over a cheekbone then a closed eyelid then slicking down over mouth and chin, placing contour where it wasn't and relief in all the wrong places so that Merry couldn't read Frodo's expression.  So he only sat there, staring and waiting, his heart pounding out a thudding rhythm in his skull and behind his eyes, pushing at the backs of them with so much pressure that Merry thought if he didn't give in and let the tears come soon, his eyes might pop right out of his head.

And then Frodo shook his head, opened his eyes, but he didn't turn them to Merry's, only thumped his head back to the wall, watched the shadows fling themselves over the ceiling.

"I don't know how to answer that, Merry," he finally said, his voice quiet and a little bit shaky.  "I can't answer it, there's too much that—"  He stopped, sighed, and now, finally, he looked at Merry, and for all that his gaze was direct, there were things within it that almost made the tears come fast and hard for Merry.  And then Frodo sighed again, wearily this time.  "Rather than make promises you cannot keep, tell me why you want to stay?"

The transparency of the first was a shiver of discontent but the last made Merry's bones almost liquid in his skin, relief and a rush of hope washing through him, because it was a question and not a command, and he knew how to answer this one.  He shuffled his way across the hall until he was sitting right in front of Frodo.

"I could tell you a lot of things," he said steadily.  "I could list all of the things I know about you and tell you how I love even the ones that nearly drive me mad and make me want to put you through the nearest wall just as much as they make me want to kiss you until you can't breathe.  I could say that I know everything about you and that I want it all and can't live without it."  He paused, watched Frodo's eyes close again, and his shoulders slump, and a long breath fetch itself into his chest.  "But none of that would be entirely true," Merry went on, still watching Frodo's face, his own breath coming smoother than he thought it would, but his heart still thudding almost painfully against his breastbone.  

"I thought I knew everything about you, but I don't, do I?  But I think I do know what matters."  He reached out, tapped at Frodo's chest; Frodo's eyes sprang open and he frowned over at Merry.  "I know what's in here," Merry said.  "That's what I love.  I know who you are.  The rest I'll keep learning."  He paused, tilted his head and pushed a tiny smirk to the corner of his mouth.  "I'm told it's very easy to do, the learning—if one listens, of course."  A ghost of a smile at Frodo's mouth in answer and Merry let his own stretch out into something a little closer to real, inched a bit closer.  Frodo's eyes never left him, less wary now, but still with that touch of suspicion.  Boldly, but not without a healthy dose of nerves, Merry reached out, laid his hand atop Frodo's.  "You took a chance before and I missed it," he said.  "And I will never stop being sorry.  But still, I'm asking you to take another.  It's incredibly selfish, I know, but if you know anything about me, you know that I do have to ask and that I mean what I say—Frodo, I won't hurt you again, not if you'll show me how not to."

"Merry—"  Frodo shook his head, pulled his hand away then wove the fingers of both hands through his hair, drew his knees up again and rested his elbows atop them.  "You can't even know what you're promising and I can't know if it's something either one of us would want if you did.  I don't even know what this is anymore, you and I, I don't know—"

"You don't have to know, I do, and I've been knowing it for the both of us all this time, so don't—"  Merry's voice was climbing a few octaves again, so he paused, shook himself a little, said, "All you have to do is believe me, trust me, know that I don't want anything from you that you don't want to give me, and…just, just… bugger it!"  He stopped, tried not to let his hands fist.  "Pretend for just five seconds that it doesn't matter what I want or why, Frodo, don't over-think this one—what do you want?"

Frodo's head snapped up.  "I want to know why you—"

"Because you tell me the truth," Merry cut in forcefully.  "My father tells me with every shift of his eye that I'll never be good enough and my mother tells me with her every breath that I can do no wrong, but you…"  He sighed, shrugged a little.  "You tell me something in the middle and I look at you and know it for the truth.  I see myself—me, who I really am—in your eyes and I like that person, I want to be that person, but I can only seem to be that with you."  And then he paused, blinked at Frodo for a second or two.  "I'm sorry, I've done it again, haven't I?"  When Frodo only frowned and tilted his head, Merry, threw his hands up, rolled his eyes with a healthy dose of disgust.  "I've just gone and assumed I knew what you were thinking and answered a question I didn't even allow you to ask.  I'm sorry."

Frodo only kept peering at him for a long moment, a small, curious smile twitching at the corners of his mouth.  Then an eyebrow quirked and he shook his head.

"Actually, I suppose that was close enough to what I was going to ask."  The smile widened the smallest bit, turned surprised.  "Tally one for Brandybuck."

Every knot in Merry's chest slipped a notch, loosened.  He didn't know whether to weep in relief or laugh; he settled for allowing a smile himself, rolling his eyes again.

"Fifty-six to Baggins and one to Brandybuck," he said, his voice a little thick, but it wasn't seeming to matter much at the moment.  "You've rather a lead on me, I think."

Frodo heaved a long breath, leaned himself back into the wall, kept peering at Merry with that tired little smile.  "I expect it's a little closer than you think," he answered then shrugged.  "And anyway, you're young and there's plenty of time.  I reckon you'll catch up."

It was the oddest thing: the knots all slipped, unfurled through his chest, and with no warning whatsoever, Merry burst into strange little sobs—some of it an odd, staggering sort of laughter and some of it bone-weary regret.  His cheeks were suddenly wet with tears that he'd had no idea were even coming, and his face pulled into something between a grin and a grimace.  He dipped his head, buried his face in his hands, tried to tame the jerking hitched breaths that were wracking through him, but he couldn't stop any of it.

"Oh, love, don't."

"'m not," Merry protested stupidly, and shook his head, as if to negate the plain fact that he was.

Then Frodo's hand was on his shoulder, pulling at his coat, and Merry couldn't have resisted had he tried; he shuffled himself around and back, shored up between Frodo and the hallway table.  He wrapped his arms about Frodo's neck, tugged and twisted until he almost had Frodo in a headlock then just buried his face in Frodo's hair and held on. 

And the most amazing thing: Frodo let him.  No, that wasn't the most amazing thing; the most amazing thing was that Frodo was hugging him back, or trying to, twisted 'round and tangled as he was, saying, "Hush, love," over and over again until Merry's lungs unlocked and the queer little sobs did hush. 

"'m not," he insisted again into Frodo's nape, the absurd quavering of his voice giving the lie to the inanity, then he loosened his hold a little so that Frodo could adjust himself into a more comfortable position.  Said, "Sorry, I'm sorry," and had no idea if he was apologising for his mini-breakdown or the past two years of forcing its inevitability.

"Hush," Frodo said again.  "You've offered enough apologies to last us both for years to come, and not everything is your fault, all right?"

A smile or a grimace, Merry couldn't really tell which, they both felt the same, and he squeezed his eyes tight until the lump in his throat didn't feel so much like a broken sob.  Said, "Sor—  All right."  Then he shut his mouth, only nodded and loosened his hold a little more so that Frodo could slide over, turn a little; Merry didn’t move his arm from about Frodo’s shoulders and Frodo didn’t shrug it off, only leaned back into the wall, tipped his head back and closed his eyes, released a great deep breath, as though some great weight had just been lifted from his chest.

That sigh… it should have pleased Merry—truce, thank all that was blessed—should have prodded its twin from inside his own relief; instead a guilty twinge wound through him, wound deep and twisted.  For months now, he'd been thinking that he'd been the one wronged, that he'd been the injured party, that Frodo was too aloof and guarded to be hurt the same way Merry was, didn't hurt as deep.  He hadn't any idea he could hurt Frodo like he had, hadn't known he could load that sort of weight on his shoulders, and actually watching as it was lifted away, like he was watching a handprint fade from a slapped cheek, almost made him want to cry some more.

Instead, he dipped his head, shook it a little before turning back to Frodo.

“I really am sorry.”

Frodo frowned, opened his eyes.  "You've already said.”

“No, I think I was sorry before because…”  Merry paused, looked away.  “Because… well, for me.  I didn’t understand, I didn’t… know.  I mean, I did, but I kept bloody thinking about it, and the more I thought, the farther away from the important things I got, and none of that really matters, just…”  Finally, he turned back to Frodo, and now Frodo was looking back at him, brow quirked just a little.  “I really am sorry.  I never meant to hurt you, I didn’t think I could, not like that—“

“Merry.”

Merry choked off the rest of the babble, flushed a little.  Glory, he couldn’t seem to shut his mouth and quit while he was ahead, could he?

“So am I,” Frodo said.

And bloody damn, if that didn't put a prick to Merry's heart.

Frodo slumped in a little, his head almost-but-not-quite resting against Merry's brow, and loosed another weary sigh.  "I don't li—  I don't do well with fetters and knots—"

"I'm not—"

"Please don't promise something you can't…"  Frodo hadn't drawn away, but Merry could feel the stiffening of his spine, watched his hand fist slightly and then deliberately relax against Merry's thigh.  "You want boundaries," Frodo went on, tired but steady, "and definitions, and I want… I don't know what I want—sometimes it's exactly that and sometimes it's just the opposite, and sometimes it's something in between.  Sometimes I want to walk out my front door and know exactly where I'm going and when I'm going to get there, and sometimes I want to just keep going until I see where I end up."

Merry stiffened at that last, he couldn't help it.

"Sometimes…" Frodo went on, slowly, like voicing it all was something entirely new to him, and he wasn't quite sure how to string the words together.  "Sometimes I want to… to fly, which, I know, sounds a little… well, odd, now that I've said it, and I don't think I realised before how…"  Frodo shrugged, shifted a bit.  "…how unfair it is to expect anyone else to understand that, or countenance it, but I just can't—"

"All right, just stop."  Merry sat up, pushed Frodo back a little until he looked Merry in the eye.  "Why do you get to decide what's fair for me?" he wanted to know.  "You told me not ten minutes ago that when you love someone you should want to give them the things they want, not what you want to give them, and what's really 'fair' about any of that?  You think I want tethers and pledges, and so you're just about to sit here and tell me that you can't give me those things, so it's not fair that you should let me keep loving you.  That you love me, you really do, and you're terribly sorry, but it would be best for me if we just ended it here."

Frodo opened his mouth, closed it, looked down.  "Well, I don't know if those would have been my exact words, but…"  He peered up, sad and tired, laid a hand to Merry's arm.  "Merry, you need—"

"And there you go again."  Funny, he should be panicking and angry and ready to grab hold of Frodo and start shaking him; instead he was finding it difficult to throttle a snort.  "Listen to me," he said, voice steady and firm, and he leaned in, gripped Frodo's shoulders.  "What I need…"  He paused, thought about it, started again.  "All right, I may not know as much as I thought I did, but the one thing I know you want and need most is to feel like you have someplace to belong—someone who will give that to you—and we both know it has nothing to do with a burrow or a village.  What I need is… I want you to let me be that to you, and it has nothing to do with, with…"  He growled, noticed that despite what he was trying to say, his hands had tightened on Frodo's shoulders; he deliberately relaxed his grip.  "I don't want to… I don't know, whatever it is you think I want to do… tie you down or, or—" A manic little laugh burbled in his throat, and he angled a bit, dug into his pocket and withdrew Frodo's tie; before Frodo could even react to it, Merry took hold of Frodo's hand, pressed the tie into his palm and curled his fingers over it, then his own over Frodo's.  "There.  I don't want to be the person who tells you that you can't fly."  Both hands gripped tight about Frodo's fist.  "I want to be where you land when you're through."

A pause while Frodo simply stared, mouth slightly open and brow furrowed tight.  Slowly, his gaze travelled down to their hands, rested there for a moment before shifting back up to meet Merry's.  And then he blinked, one corner of his mouth curling ever so slightly.  "You, um…"  His eyebrows twitched and the smile wobbled wider.  "You want to be my nest?"

Merry went bland, gave Frodo a sardonic glare that was a little more amused than he'd have liked it to be.  He let got Frodo's hand, gave him a bit of a shove to his shoulder.  "Funny," he growled.

"No, really," Frodo snorted, reached up and tweaked Merry's nose, "it was kind of, um… poetic.  Or something."

"Or something," Merry muttered, rolled his eyes, and tried not to snort.  He leaned his shoulder into the wall, let his head rest to the curve, content to simply watch Frodo's amusement—even if was at Merry's expense.  A tic at the corner of his mouth was trying to stretch a grin there; Merry let it this time.  "P'raps I'll just leave the poetry to you, then, eh?"

Frodo lifted an eyebrow.  "Want to be an eyrie?"

Merry only rolled his eyes, shook his head.  "Too high up.  You kick like a bloody mule in your sleep sometimes, you know, you'd end up sending me over the edge one night."

Frodo grinned, chuckled a little; both tapered off slowly.  He was playing with the tie, winding it about his index finger then unwinding it again, then he leaned into the wall, too, smile not entirely gone, but more subdued.  Merry watched the tie wind over the ring finger this time, watched Frodo's eyes narrow a bit and the smile settle into something thoughtful and still a little bit sad. 

Merry blinked eyelids suddenly gone heavy, watched the tie wind, unwind, wind, unwind…  It was almost hypnotic, the quiet settling heavy about him, but its weight not choking or oppressive as it had been before, not full of wrath yet to be flung—only sedate and somnolent.  Now that the adrenaline and nerves had drained from him, his sleepless night and long ride seemed to hit him like a load of very soft but still rather heavy bricks.  It made him smile a little; the silence and the appeal of unravelling inside it seemed a thing suddenly… safe.

"So…" Frodo finally ventured, stared at his fingers and watched the tie unwind from the ring finger, wind about the middle.  "What am I to be to you, then?"

Merry blinked, lifted an eyebrow.  "The death of me, one day, I've no doubt."

"Oh, har."  Frodo gave him a look that was half-glare, half-smirk.  "I'm serious."

"Ah," said Merry, lifted an imperious finger.  "Now who's wanting definitions, eh?"

A sigh that could have been frustration or amusement, Merry wasn't sure which, until Frodo turned his eyes on him.  They were sombre, worried… edging on melancholy again.  "I'm serious," he repeated.

All Merry could do was close his eyes against that look; it nearly wrenched something thick and a little bit nauseating in his gut, and he didn't know if his answer was going to make it worse, so it was probably better he didn't look.  Cowardly, perhaps, but still better.  Fuck, he was tired.

Frodo was waiting—just sitting there and waiting—and it almost had a not-sound to it, thick and cloying, and stuffing up his head so that all he could hear was the uneven slip-thud of his own heart.  His eyes were closed, but somehow he could see Frodo, could see every contour of his face and every shadow behind his eyes, could see himself slumping next to him, like he wasn't even inside his own skin anymore, but floating somewhere above, watching, dreaming awake.

"I haven't the words to say what you are to me," he heard himself answer, quiet and slow, in a voice that seemed too calm and dulcet to be his.  "Breath and blood; bane and blight.  The mirrors of your eyes are a place where I can always find out who I really am, and yet I don't think your heart will ever let you see the truth of me.  You're afraid of me, somehow, and I don't know how to get past that, so I keep bashing myself into your walls until you finally let one fall, and then I'm…"  A long, smooth breath, a bit of a smile, and he sighed.  "I'm flying."  He paused, breathed a small ironic laugh and shook his head.  "And it's the damnedest thing, because I hate heights, but it's the most precious, exhilarating thing I've ever…" 

It was like he was speaking from inside a reverie, his voice slow and strange to his ears, saying things he'd given no real thought, and yet every one of them somehow exactly what he meant to say.  He frowned now, said, "You were right: all those things I said before are just stupid, squalid little tales from faerie books and they're none of them real—I can live without you.  Before I came here, I told myself that it couldn't be over between us because I was still breathing, and that was literally my proof, but…  I can live without you, I can breathe without you, I just…"  He opened his eyes, couldn't tell if they were blurred with sentiment or fatigue—probably both.  He blinked slowly, focussed on Frodo's face, tried to tell what he was thinking by his expression, but he couldn't.  He only shrugged, held out his hand, palm-up.  "I just don't want to.  And if that's more than you want to give me…"  A pause so he could swallow down the emotion clogging his throat.  "I want nothing from you that I have to ask for, nothing that you don't want to hand me without a fight.  I don't know how to say it any better than that."

He ran out of words.  It wasn't enough, wasn't nearly what was in his heart, wasn't nearly convincing enough, but it was all he had.  He closed his hand, let it drop, shut his eyes again, turned his head so that his nose was nearly pressed into the curve of the wall. 

He'd expected… he didn't really know—silence, mostly, or perhaps even a quiet, excruciatingly-polite refusal, a stuttered, regretful request that he go now, Frodo trying to let him down as easily as he could, trying to spare them both pain and embarrassment that would in itself be painfully-embarrassing.  He hadn't expected the touch to his arm; if he hadn't been so tired, he might have jumped out of his skin.  As it was, his breath stopped, clamped rigid in his chest, and he squeezed his eyes tighter.

"That…"  Frodo's fingers twitched on Merry's arm and he cleared his throat.  "You really can be quite poetic when you're not trying, you know." 

Merry opened his eyes, looked hard into Frodo's… blinked.  Thought, That's it? blinked some more and noticed he was breathing again. 

That's it?  That's all?  It's over?  It's all right?  All this time, all this fighting, and all I had to say was, 'I won't hold you too tight,' and that's just… it?

And then Frodo smiled—smirked, really—slid himself down and laid his head to Merry's thigh.  He peered up at Merry, smiled again.  "You couldn't have chosen a room with a couch or something to have this out, could you?"

It was so… normal, that it surprised a shaky snort out of Merry. 

Well, I'll be buggered.  That is it. 

Now, just shut it and don't say anything to make him change his mind.

"I rather think you chose the spot," he retorted, swiped at his face with the sleeve of his coat.  Adjusted his back against the wall.  "Think you broke my shoulder, if you want to know," he furthered then reached up, ran his fingers through the hair on the back of his head.  "And made a hash of my hair."

"Awwww"  Frodo's tone was unrepentant.  "Tea's good for your hair.  Or so I think one of the Took girls said at one time or another.  Probably Pimpernel.  She's always a little free with grooming advice for some reason.  I think she thinks I'm unkempt or something."

Merry grinned.  "Tea, perhaps, but I think I could have done without the cream and honey.  And…"  He paused as his fingers snagged on… he frowned.  Was that…?  Dragged the triangle-shaped chunk of porcelain from the sticky snags, waved it over Frodo's nose.  "And that," he said, flipped it up onto the low table against which his shoulder was propped.

Frodo sighed, looked away, said, "Merry—"

"It was only stuck in my hair," Merry told him.  "P'raps if it was stuck in my skull, I'd let you feel bad over it, but…"  Merry shrugged, rested his head back and closed his eyes.  It seemed safe now to let himself give slightly to the exhaustion.  He sighed, shook his head a little, went on, "I can't seem to feel sorry that any of this happened."  It took a moment for what he'd just said to sink in.  Safe—Ha!  His eyes popped open and he snapped his head down to look at Frodo.  "I didn't mean it like… what I meant to say—"

"I'm not sorry, either," Frodo answered, no smiles but his eyes were soft.  "I mean, I'm sorry that it took… well, this, but no, I'm not sorry that you came or that you're still here."  Then he raised his eyebrows, reached up and smacked Merry on his ear.  "And who says I feel bad?  I meant to hit you between the eyes, you're only lucky my aim was off."

Merry might have kept the grin off his face if he believed it; Frodo had pretty good aim.  Frodo met the grin with a narrow smirk then lightly punched Merry's thigh for good measure, turned his head and closed his eyes.

Merry relaxed, stared at Frodo for another long moment before he shook his head, leaned back again and closed his eyes as well.  "Can I, um…"  He stumbled a little, plodded on, "Can I stay tonight?"

"Of course," Frodo told him; Merry could hear the smile in his voice.  "Stay as long as you like." 

That last was quieter and made warmth blossom in Merry's chest.

"Mum wanted me to bring you back for the Planting Festival," he told Frodo.

A bit of a sigh; Merry was sure he heard a quiet groan.  "Merry, I'm not sure—"

"But I'm thinking she'll understand your not wanting to come to Buckland."  He curled his hand over Frodo's shoulder, squeezed, then slid it over and laid it to Frodo's chest.  "If I can understand it, anyone can, I should think."

"I'm not going to start telling you you're brilliant or anything," Frodo said.  "So you can just stop fishing for compliments.  I'm not sure you deserve any yet."

Ten minutes ago, that would have held an entirely different meaning; now Merry only snorted a little, answered, "I'm sure I don't, but you won't be able to resist for long."

"Cocky," Frodo said.

Merry only shrugged, smiled.  "Part of my charm," he retorted.

"Mm," was the sceptical reply. 

They were quiet for a long moment.  Merry found it strange that he was sitting here, propped up in the hallway of all places, his shoulder jammed up against a rather knobbly table-leg with his spine crammed into the curve of the wall, and yet he had no inclination whatsoever to move.  Was, in fact, rather comfortable, even with Frodo's head resting heavily on his thigh and beginning to cut off the circulation to his leg.

"The invitations," Frodo said quietly, his voice seeping into the soft cocoon that was beginning to build around Merry.  "Or the lack thereof."  And then a pause.  "It wasn't ever that I… well, I always thought you understood that you have a standing one, and it didn't occur to me that you might be waiting for…"  A frustrated huff of breath this time.  "You don't need to be invited, all right?  I know it's difficult for you to get away sometimes, but—"

"I think it only makes sense that you should keep yourself away from Buckland," Merry said, crooked a tiny little smirk.  "We don't need you making comparisons anyway.  The less you see of my father, I think the better off we'll both be."  A pause and his smirk broadened.  "In fact, the less I see of him, the better, so that works out rather nicely, actually."

"I'll be at Tooks' for the Planting, and staying on through Ēostre," Frodo said, his tone almost-but-not-quite tentative.  "You, um… you can come along, if you like."

Though Merry now perfectly understood the refusal, disappointment still mingled with pleasure at the invitation.  He sighed a little, said, "I can't," though he was fairly sure Frodo knew that already.  There was no way in the world Merry could make time for a trip to Tuckborough during planting, no matter how much he wanted to.

But Frodo only took a deep breath, gave Merry's fingers a squeeze.  "I didn't think so," he said.  "Perhaps…"  A pause and a tense twitch of his fingers.  "Perhaps… for your birthday…"

Merry's eyes popped open and his brows rose.  He tried not to let his, "Really?" sound too eager, but he didn't think he succeeded very well.  He grinned.  "Will you bring me a really brilliant present?"

Frodo snorted.  "You want a pony?"

"Got those," Merry told him, smirking.

"I'll bring you me, and you will politely accept whether you want to or not, because you love me."

"Oh," Merry breathed, closed his eyes with a smile, "I'll want.  And I do."

Frodo sighed a bit.  "So do I," he said quietly, then puffed a small snort.  "And if we get any more twee, we'll both turn into great lumps of sugar and Freddy and Folco will use us for their morning tea."

Speaking of twee…

Merry frowned a little, said, "Frodo… the… I mean, Fatty—"

It wasn't until just that second that Merry realised how loose Frodo had gone, how relaxed; his fingers closed tight over the tie still in his hand, the ends of it crimped between knuckles turned yellow-white.  The tension that wound through his shoulders, the stiffening of his spine against Merry's thigh at Merry's latest stumbling attempt at tact told Merry that perhaps having been granted a reprieve from his own stupidity really ought to be enough for now.

And the way Frodo flicked a narrow glance at him, answered, "Ye-e-e-s?" stretching it out into an alphabet of syllables instead of only the one, each inflection carrying a weight of caution and suspicion and disappointment and too many other things that really shouldn’t have fit into that one small word—it made Merry back up a few mental steps, made him seriously consider whether his burning desire (need, compulsion, demand) to know was really worth that crawling tension in Frodo's spine and in his face.  Made him think that perhaps right now was a good time to start learning to listen to his instincts instead of his insecurities, spin those web-thin tethers, loosen his grip and shut his mouth.

Have you been shagging him? he wanted to ask.  Should I be worried about this?  Have you been shagging him?  Do you like him better than me?  Have you been shagging him?  How hard would it be to get you to forgive me this time, if I beat that smirk off his face?  And by the way, have you been shagging him? 

And he didn't just want to ask the questions—he wanted answers, by damn.

Instead, he wrenched a little smile to his face, even managed a small snort.  "D'you think he always drags Folco after him so they don't get pummelled separately?  Safety in numbers and all that?"

He waited, watched Frodo's face, watched his expression turn torturously slowly from suspicious to thoughtful to nothing at all, and then to something a little… lighter; felt his body loosen by degrees against Merry's leg, shoulders first and then a slow-flowing ripple down his spine as he sighed away the tension.  And then Frodo narrowed his eyes and a small, contemplative smile slipped to his face.

He turned his head, closed his eyes.  "Considering their idea of wit, I shouldn't wonder," he finally answered.  And then he paused, the smile curling a little bit wider, turning a little bit more real.  "Some people never learn what's really important and when to keep things best left unsaid to themselves.  Then again…"  A soft snort and an awkward little pat to Merry's knee, the loose ends of the tie flapping and brushing against the fabric of Merry's trousers.  "Then again, some do and I expect it's never too late."

Merry sank back, noticed he'd been holding his breath and let it out in a long, silent sigh. 

Web-thin tethers, he told himself, took another long breath and closed his eyes. 

All right, then.  He could do this. 

* * *

EPILOGUE

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