By: Dana
Summary: Merry can't sleep. Neither can Pippin.
Characters: Merry, Pippin
Pairings: Merry/Pippin
Rating: R
Warnings: Slash, sexual content
Author's Notes: For Marigold's challenge #19.
I had to incorporate four elements into my story – an irate Merry, a Morgul blade, Isengard, and any Healer – not only did I write this, but I also did "All The Moon Could See".
Beta by Jen – with thanks. Nickey also took a look at this one, which I appreciated very much. Also, for this newest version (with much revision), I would like to thank Calanthe, as well.
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.

It's cold and damp and dark. Merry watches the sky, and would have counted stars, if there had only been stars out to see. "Merry, you should try and sleep," Pippin says, his voice low, coming from Merry's right. Merry turns on his side, and Pippin is a vague shadow with darker night at his back. Other than Pippin, and their breathing, the night is as empty and as still as the wide dark that stretches beneath the mountains that surround the Wizard's tower. When the lake had begun to overflow, they had been able to squeeze themselves up to the top of the arch over the old store-room, and they had sat on that arch and watched the frowning of Isengard. But it was night, now, and it had been hot before but now it all seemed covered with a peaceful cool. Too cold, almost, and too damp.

"I can't see how you expect me to sleep," Merry says, and he doesn't mean to snap. "And anyhow, you aren't sleeping, are you?"

"No," Pippin says, after a pause. "But I'd rather you sleep, even if I can't. At least, I'd like that you try."

Merry thinks on that, then sits up. It's cold and damp and dark, and his arms are sore. A moment longer, and he hears the rustle of moving cloth. Then Pippin is sitting, and moves both his hands to Merry's arm, one sliding with self-assured ease, before taking hold of Merry's right hand in its grip. "But aren't you tired?" Pippin asks, as his fingers thread with Merry's.

"Of course I am. And you'd think I'd sleep, but…it's quiet, Pippin. Too quiet, and I don't like it." He listens, for even the mournful howling of a distant wolf, but there's nothing, only the sound of his own thoughts. It's exhaustion that's made him so snappish, he knows, but he can't sleep – he knows he can't, there doesn't seem to be a reason for him to try. But of course, Pippin should have his rest, even if Merry's made to force it on him. "You should try to sleep, at least. And what are you doing, now?"

"Just thinking that you should do well to relax," Pippin says, and he rolls Merry's sleeve back to his elbow. Merry grins at him, and Pippin's face is hid in shadows, but Merry doesn't need to see Pippin's face to know that he is grinning back. He lets out a small gasp when he feels Pippin's mouth brush slow across his wrist. Warm and smooth and right, and everything that the cold and damp and dark isn't, and Merry wants nothing more than to drag Pippin's mouth to his, and to kiss him until one of them or maybe both forgets the need to breathe.

But he only shudders, mouth opening to the cool night air. "Ah. Pippin."

And Pippin only says, with his mouth still hanging low and almost touching skin, "You're terribly tense."

Merry could have laughed. "Yes well – I would be."

Pippin's lips are as smooth as Merry recalls. And he can, clearly, recall a long spent summer day, golden light the only thing that could be seen – but then, even that was dark, and Merry had his eyes closed. Pippin was as warm as that light, and the late August day, and had settled against Merry, even with their clothing between them. He was as comfortable and as close as a second skin. His kisses had tasted of – of – of something, but that Merry cannot recall. But he can taste it now, almost, when he wets his lips and feels the chill of the night air flash quick along the wet. And Pippin speaks, his voice still low and Merry wonders if it is more than just him being tired, but it is Pippin's voice which brings him back from thinking on old memories: "We should maybe do something about that. What do you think?"

A quick breath. The flick of Pippin's tongue, and even though the night is cool, fire is bleeding out from Pippin's mouth and onto Merry's wrist, up his arm to his elbow, as Pippin's head bends fully to the task. All the skin that Pippin touches feels more alive than it had been, it felt – just more. Another breath, but this one is slow. "I don't… ah. Know what you mean."

Pippin does laugh. A small, tired laugh, but it's Pippin's laugh, and even when he still knew all too well how to be an irritating prat (a talent that came from him being a younger cousin, as well as more than just a friend), how could it be anything but dear? He looks at Merry, straight on, and what little light the night gives illuminates him. He almost seems to faintly glow, like a distant burning star, and Merry wants to pull him close, wants to clutch him to his chest, wants to kiss him and to touch him and to forget the awful cold night, and the earth on which they sit, the field of almost but not yet victory. And Pippin says, lightly: "You must be cold. At least I'll not ask you to take off your shirt."

Merry almost laughs and feels the warm taste of it fill his mouth. He hears a softer sound, then, when Pippin clucks his tongue against the roof of his mouth and unwinds the sleeve of Merry's shirt from where it was pushed far up. They're still sitting and Pippin presses himself close, winds his arms up under cover of Merry's cloak. Merry lets loose his breath, puts his arms back about Pippin even as Pippin's face presses closer into the crook of Merry's neck. Pippin's breath is warm and steady and Merry sinks into the familiarity of Pippin's body, closing his eyes and clutching at Pippin with a grip that is possibly too tight. And Pippin does laugh, and he kisses skin that had been damp and chilly just before. But Merry can feel heat sinking back into him, where Pippin touches him, where Pippin touched him.

He wants more.

It's odd, then, what thought comes to him – and what he next says. That it doesn't fit the moment, and it doesn't fit the mood – though he's left feeling cold. Colder than he'd been, anyhow – the sort of cold that strikes bone-deep, and lingers for a long moment before he speaks. "He should be here. With us."

Pippin is quiet a moment, but then he says, "Of course he should. But he's off, and he's well-taken care of, if you have the slightest faith in Sam. And I do, Merry, elsewise… well, I'd not have let them off as easy as they went. And Frodo should be here, I know, and I'd rather he be where I could… see him, but he's off with more important business than what we've busied ourselves with here. You know that."

"Ah. Pippin."

"He's a strong one, Frodo is. Our cousin, he can be more than a handful, can't he? He might be Frodo, but he didn't turn away from – well, he didn't back down, when we were all on Weathertop. If I remember right, we were the ones who had trouble when it came to standing on our own feet."

"Pippin…"

Merry doesn't know what he wants to say. But he holds Pippin closer, and Pippin grunts quietly and then pulls away. He touches Merry's cheek, then puts his mouth to Merry's, and kisses him with all the quiet assuredness that comes from having given more kisses than either of them had ever cared to count. It almost ends before it's even fully begun, and Merry opens his eyes – because he'd closed them – and now Pippin seems even more real than he had, no longer shapeless against the darkness of the night.

"Bravery has a price," Pippin says, then, his taste still warm on Merry's lips. "Frodo knows that, and you should know that, too. He knew it the first time we all spoke again in Rivendell, he knew it after Master Elrond went and saved his life. He knew it when he decided that he'd carry the Ring himself, even though there were others who were better fit for the task. But he chose it all himself. At least, that was what I thought then, and I still think it now! Just like we decided on going after him, whether he wanted us, or not."

And Merry does know bravery has its price – Frodo had been brave, when he had stood against darkness and they had fell to the ground. And he left Frodo, his dearest cousin (well, dearest but for Pippin), alone with only Sam, and Strider (though, at the time, Merry didn't think he'd thought Aragorn had counted), and Frodo must have been terrified, himself. Against those night-blasted Black Riders, and he'd taken a wraith's blade to his shoulder. They'd almost lost him, and that thought still chills Merry, and he realizes just how useless he'd really been. He'd failed Frodo – no, he's smarter than that, and he's no that there'd been nothing that they could do, not against such enemies. And he'd come to fail Pippin, too – well, that was what he thought, at times, at least when it came to when they'd been taken off by the Orcs.

And he says, "When did you get so wise? You never did act like this before."

Merry has had enough of Orcs for a lifetime, and he's not thought of them for – well, at least since night had came, when his thoughts turned to other things. And he'd not thought of them when Pippin first kissed him, when Pippin bared the skin at his wrist. They've done things and they've seen things, though Frodo's done more and greater, and he's out there, still, where Merry can't reach him. And Frodo's been hurt – but it would take more than a Morgul blade to stop him, though it had come close. Now Merry can only think of scars, and how you hope that, in time, they will all fade – he has enough, left over from his an almost misspent youth, and the years have added to them. But then he thinks of what Pippin managed, when he was still bound and they were lost, for all Merry knew. He owes Pippin more than he ever realized, and in the last minute, he's realized so much. He brings his mouth back to Pippin's, whispers his thanks even as he presses their mouths together, and fumbles for something, anything, when nothing seems like it would ever be enough.

He wants more than just more. He wants to push Pippin back, even if it is to cold stone, and he wants to distract them both from how very bad things have been, though it does seem better, now –and perhaps, for a time, he just wants to forget what has to be remembered, and remember what he feels he's almost forgot. He won't let that be Pippin – he won't, and he can't, and he will never lose Pippin. He won't know how to handle that, if he did. And Pippin knows Merry well enough that he doesn't struggle, that he doesn't resist, and he goes down to the hard stone willingly. Merry knows that the cold will bleed through, right to his back.

Pippin lightly says, his mouth against Merry's, "You should let me be on top."

And Merry thinks that this is a very good idea, and he grunts softly but only when he's put his arms about Pippin and then rolls him over, and then Pippin is the one whose back is to the night sky. This is probably a better set up, anyhow, though it brought them teetering too close to the edge – to the very edge of the arch, and that closer to the drop below. Pippin's laugh is quick and warm, and his kiss the same.

"Oh, but you do so nicely humour me, Merry. Just let me sit back."

Pippin does sit up, and Merry grins at him, him and the light about him and the night so black at his back. The stone's cold and hard and as uncomfortable as it was when they only tried to sleep, and for a moment it's more than just that. But Pippin's here, and sitting atop him, pressing snug against Merry's thighs. "What are you up to?" Merry asks.

And Pippin only grins, sharp now though the night's still almost completely black. But that glow Merry thought Pippin possessed now seems to have a life of its own, and when Pippin's hand moves it trails faint luminescence in its wake.

Maybe this is madness – which is a possibility, more now that they've made it just as far as they have. But they have made it, and they have come through it all alive. Well, it's not the end of it, anyhow. But it is a very good middle, Merry thinks.

But he's losing nothing, only gaining more, and he pushes himself up on his elbows and tilts his head to better look at Pippin, and Pippin sits with his head ducked and his hands working on the fastenings of Merry's trousers. Merry wets his lips, and almost speaks, but thinks better and instead closes his eyes. He's not sure if he can watch Pippin, and Pippin's motions all glow faintly like a will o' the wisps light as it dances in the falling night – a light that appears to breathe. "It would be best if we could properly undress," Pippin says, but Merry knows that this is neither the time nor the place. And he can't say what he rightly wants, only knowing that he doesn't want to have to think. He gasps, Pippin's name on his tongue and it falls heavy like a groan. And when Pippin touches him, it makes fire spark beneath his fingers – and Merry feels that heat rushing through him, like new life returning after a long cold. Well, he's warmer now, anyhow, and it's Pippin, and Pippin's touch alone, and Merry's hard and wanting and this was a sudden turn. "Ah, Pippin," he gasps, and cracks his eyes open. His vision blurs and Pippin bleeds out light in all directions. And it is covering Merry, too.

Pippin's touch is firm, steady, and Merry's back arches and his mouth opens to the cool air. Beneath a dark sky and with no sound but the hitching of their breath, Merry feels Pippin against him, still sitting and with only his hands moving.

But then Pippin mutters something and it's a rustle with cloth that Merry hears, and Pippin settles down against him and it really would be best if this was the right time and place, because it would have let Merry feel more than just a teasing slight of skin. But the night is cold and damp and dark, and it isn't right, not really, and the patch of skin that has been left is more than they might deserve – skin on skin and hard against hard, and Pippin winds his arms about Merry's neck and Merry puts his arms about Pippin's waist, clutching him close. There's a scramble, and they tangle their legs and Pippin tries to move, and that's good and best and then Merry thinks that it would be best if he could ground himself. On something. Anything. He turns them both, and Pippin's leg hitches up to his knee, catching behind it. The slick of skin on skin makes Merry gasp. And it leaves his mind blank and free of thought, at least for the moving moment.

He finds no proper anchor but he still moves against Pippin, and Pippin's breath shudders as the light about him waxes and wanes – pulsing, yes, along with his breath, wavering and slow. Merry moves against him, skin pushing against skin, and Pippin presses his mouth to Merry's, gasping as the kiss falls into them, and goes deep.

It isn't anything more than frantic, moving against and steadying against, and Pippin comes with a strangled cry and Merry follows after, and his mouth still on Pippin's. It's best, he thinks, that they make no loud sound.

A creak in the night, distant, and then the fainter warbling of a lonesome wolf. Pippin trembles and Merry winds himself tighter against Pippin, though there was a sticky mess between them. Pippin laughs, a faint laugh that he turns into a kiss, and they lie like that for some time, just breathing and kissing, and neither of them thinking much at all.

Merry supposes it's for the best.

They draw apart, only to clean up as best they can, and do up their trousers. When they are all in one piece again, Pippin looks out into the emptiness of the almost complete dark. The light around him is still there, but it's fainter, and Pippin is blending back into the dark. Merry wonders if it's the approaching dawn that's sapped Pippin's glow – no mortal should glow like that, not when the sun should soon be rising in the sky.

And he does think the day is near – at least, it seems that there is a lightening in the eastern sky, and Merry hopes that it is more than the darkness playing games with his eyes.