By: Dana
Summary: You'd think they'd worry that there was someone about to watch.
Characters: Merry, Pippin, Folco, mention of others
Pairings: Merry/Pippin, Folco/Freddy
Rating: PG-13/R
Warnings: Slash, a mention of het, some sexual content
Author's Notes: Written for the hobbit_smut "What Dreams May Come" Challenge.
This was, well, inspired - I wrote it out in one go. I'm also kind of fond of it, which doesn't happen all that often. (And you should know, given how I all the time whine.) It's post-quest, if you wanted to know. And somewhat bittersweet, I've been told.
My beta would like to remain anonymous, but I'll be thanking her anyhow. She's the best.
Nominated for the 2005 Golden Mushroom Awards.

Disclaimer: The author makes no claim to owning the rights of anything to do with J.R.R. Tolkien or New Line Cinema. Any and all characters and situations that have been borrowed are for the author's personal use only, and for the entertainment of others.

You'd think they'd worry that there was someone about to watch - the bedroom window is thrown open, and all about seems brisk and cool, and the light that slants in, pale, spills at their feet. But they're just as they always have been, even if they've changed - and they've made a mess of each other and are laughing, giddy in their afterglow where they lie entangled with each other, on their bed. And there's not a worry about (at least, not one that can be seen or heard), that someone might happen upon them happening upon each other, if by chance they travelled off the lane - but they are tired, certainly, and not thinking of all else.

Not that they know I'm about, or that I'm looking (I gave up on discreet, oh, not that that would matter). No one ever knows I'm about. And no, if you think I'd come off the lane, I've not. I'm not such a sneak, that I'd peek in through opened windows (or open them all the way, if the shutters had been left ajar).

No, I'm standing at the room hearth, instead, where the fire snaps and sparks. You heard me right - I'm standing in their room.

Now, no matter what you might think, this isn't my first visit to Crickhollow (and I don't often go walking into other hobbits' bedrooms, whatever you might assume). I remember a long-ago day, in specific, September in the air (much like it is now), my cousins all gone off or at least half-cracked - well, I wasn't sure if I'd ever see Merry and Pippin again, and Frodo had been so set on leaving and never coming back. I might not have sat about and been in on all their plans, Merry and Pippin and Freddy, too, but I still knew - Freddy, at least when it came to him talking with me, had little that could keep his mouth shut. And I was only joking, only kidding with him, all those times I told him I didn't want to hear.

Do you hear me, Freddy? Well, you would, if you could. I'm sorry I was always such a blind, block-headed fool. But I thought it better than being cracked, too. Ah, if I could tell you all this, I would.

Anyhow, this isn't my first visit here (nor my second, or even third), for all I never spent much time around when I was still alive - oh, I'd not mentioned that, had I? I'm quite dead now - ah, for almost three years. I don't recall it all well at all, other than that I did, in fact, die - suffice to say, I'd have been better off with Freddy, even if I'd ended up stuck in the Lockholes, too.

Well, at least I'd not be dead.

But that's hindsight for you, and I certainly am quite dead. There's no warmth, nothing else, but memories and shadows, and dust in the air. Oh, I make it all sound so sad, and so dramatic, but it's probably best that this is how it's ended - oh, I've my regrets, I've plenty, but there's no good trying to change what's gone and done. You might think - so, why their bedroom, of all others (well, it's Merry's, as they don't always share) - a ghost about, and sneaking in where he's not wanted. Well, it's cold out there (or so I imagine - well, I might not feel it, but I still do know. I don't feel much, these days, as it's more what I recall), and it's warmer here - anyhow, it's not as if I've been watching them intently - it's been nice to look about the house. If I was being watched, well, I know what you'd be thinking.

I do keep getting sidetracked - I never was so scatterbrained, when still alive. But this is not my first visit to Crickhollow - I sat with Freddy here, a life ago (and I mean that more than I should), when our cousins had rode off to who knows where, and we had been the ones left behind. Well, Freddy had, perhaps. Not having been in on it all, I couldn't exactly say that I'd been left behind - overlooked, and gratefully so, as I'd wanted no business with what came outside the Shire.

But Freddy had needed the company, and I'd stayed for the day. I might not have made company the way my good friends are currently doing - both of them are still spent, but so lost in their loving, that they are touching and kissing and it is all so very nice, and slow, and I can just imagine the heat of it, and the feel and - ah - Merry just made the most interesting sound. I wonder what Pippin did, to warrant such a thing? Whatever it was (I'm already spying on them, though they've done enough spying in their time and I think that fair enough if the turn about that comes at long last), I hardly think its right to look closer than that. Anyhow, suffice to say, Merry seems quite pleased with what Pippin's done - or, moving cloth and then Pippin's laughing, again, soft and low - what he's doing still.

Yes, I do know this place, at least a little - funny, how the little things are the ones that you remember once, when everything else is gone. We'd ale that day, and Freddy had laughed, and Frodo might have been gone, but I still hadn't wanted to listen to it - whatever it was that Freddy would have said. So that's why I'm here, even if Freddy's long and far away - I wander a good deal, these days. Sometimes, I even follow after Freddy. But I'd rather not dog him like a shadow - he's his own life to live, and I know he'll live it its fullest.

See, Freddy, you fool. I do love you, even if you never got to know.

But Ruby will look after you, just like she told me when she said she'd be the one to marry you, and not me (well, it would be my little sister who'd be the one to see, and she'd made her jokes about it, though we never did do anything more than make our own jokes, too) - ah, I'll be coming to the wedding, whenever you set yourself at rights and approve of a date. I hope you don't mind if I don't stay for much more than that. But I want what's very best for you, and I think that Ruby is.

And you'll have Ruby, and Frodo has Sam and Sam's Rose, and Merry and Pippin - (Well, from the look of it and the sound of it, too - the bed as it creaks, and the sounds that they're making on their own as they move back into motion, still in a knot all twisted on their bed - Merry and Pippin are both taking very good care.) - all have each other, too. And you'll not ever be alone, even if that was what you wanted. Ruby'd not let you, and you know that as well - she's too keen at knowing what's best for those she loves, and too often she's just right.

I can only hope that Sam is as insistent as she, and Merry and Pippin are, too - well, I've no worries that Merry and Pippin would ever go again and leave each other, but Frodo can be a tricky one, and he'll need watching. I'd not want him slipping off, like he'd tried before - and that, I'd tell you that, Freddy, if I could manage. I'd tell Pippin and Merry, too, as I think they more need to know.

... this isn't my first time here at Crickhollow. While there's still life about it, I can't say it'll be my last.