By: Dana
Summary: Conversations that are overheard, and how they are misunderstood.
Characters: Pippin, Merry, others
Pairings: Merry/Pippin
Rating: G/PG
Warnings: Mild slash
Author's Notes: : Written for my fanfic100 claim - I signed up for Pippin. Also, this was written for dreamflower02, and the holiday ficlets that I posted at the end of 2005. I, er, ended up getting behind on their posting, so I will just be posting these as I finish them, and as I can. This possibly fits in with defining a circle shape through points though, really, I'm not yet sure.
I can't say dreamflower02 asked me for slash (she asked for cousinfic, actually), but this is just how it all worked out.
Prompt: Friends (#21). Words: 2,238.
5/100.
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.

I. before

Pippin finds that his words are all strangely calm. "I overheard the both of you, while you were in the hall – Frodo'd gone off for a smoke, and I suppose you must have thought that I'd gone off with him, and the door'd been open, and... Well," and here, his words aren't as calm as they had, and something hurt and angry shows in his eyes. "I'd not."

"Pippin, it isn't that I – "

"You hadn't planned to tell me, had you? You'd have let Frodo go off and you – you'd have gone off with him. Well, you'd planned to follow after, in the very least. Merry, how – "

"Pippin, you haven't – "

"Tell me that you hadn't, then. Tell me that you hadn't planned on leaving me behind."

With a weary sigh, Merry sits back in the overstuffed chair that is closest to the fire, and rubs the bridge of his nose. "Fatty'd wondered why you weren't in on it – even Sam had asked, when he'd not seen you around," he says, and then he scowls and shakes his head. Pippin crosses his arms over his chest and scowls in return, and Merry sighs and says, "As if you'd keep your mouth closed – Frodo thinks his leaving is a great secret, Pippin. If you were about – "

Pippin finds it hard to keep his voice under control – they are in the parlour, after all, and Frodo is somewhere about. "Are you saying," he says, with more control than should have been needed, "that I'd ruin all your plans?"

Merry pauses and then, after that, says, "In a word – well, yes. You are too young, and you – "

And that is too much for Pippin to stand – he's never been one to go and mince his words, though it had been two weeks since he had found out that Merry knew. "Oh, the nerve of this! I can keep my mouth shut if I need to, and if you think that you're the only one who'd noticed that he'd planned on – well, I'd have told you, if I thought you didn't know. I hadn't thought you did, and I had only figured it out, and yet I find out that you had kept this from me for months!"

Merry is on his feet, then, and he grabs Pippin by the shoulders. "Shut it, Pippin! If Frodo hears you, I will – "

"What? Box my ears, like some impudent child? Merry, I – "

"If Frodo knows, then he might just vanish on us, Pippin, and if you love him even half as much as I think – no, know you do, then I know you don't want. Why don't you show me that you can keep your mouth shut, instead of professing that you can and not doing the same?"

"Merry – "

"Merry?"

A manic grin falls into place, and Merry kisses Pippin even with Pippin's mouth wide open, and Pippin grunts under the force of Merry's mouth, and hears Frodo's laughing snort coming from somewhere behind. Then Merry gives Pippin a spin, and Pippin falls back against the sitting chair – and Merry joins him, though he looks back at Frodo as he does: "I was just about to debauch our young cousin, dearest Frodo – would you like to join in?"

Frodo laughs, again, and it's good to hear Frodo laughing – from all that Pippin had figured out, and how worried he had been, he'd not been so blind that he'd not seen that Merry was worried, too, and Frodo had seemed positively miserable at times, knowing that he'd thoughts in place to leave. Then Frodo says, "No, I'd really rather not – Merry, you do know that this is not what my parlour is for, don't you? Haven't you both rooms of your own?"

"You're quite right, Frodo – we do. Up and up, Pippin, we've manners to tend to – " Merry says, grinning as he does – giving Pippin a kiss on his cheek, and then pulling him back up to his feet, and Pippin hardly finds he there's wit about him to hold back. "Come along, Pippin – let us leave poor old Frodo alone." By the time Merry's pulled him from the parlour, and Frodo has been left behind, Pippin is laughing at how crazy it all is – and to think, he had just been shouting, but Merry had stolen all those words from him, and left him with only – well, this. He could have shouted, he could have let himself be angry – that Merry knew all this time, that Sam knew and Fatty did, too, but Merry had not let him know – Pippin, when Pippin would have thought that he would have been the very first, after Merry, to know.

"Merry Brandybuck," Pippin says, laughing still. "Oh, you are mad."

Merry looks back at him, and they are still moving away from the parlour – down the hall, and then they will find their guestrooms – though which they'll go to, Pippin doesn't know. "Are you angry with me, Pip?"

"No. Well, as long as you don't go and hide anything else – I am in on this, now. I won't let you go on thinking that you are keeping things from me, and keeping me safe – and if you think I can't keep my mouth shut, well, I'll show you that I can."

"It is – I mean, I know you can, but I'd thought..."

"Merry, you don't love him first or best or even anymore than Sam. And if you are in on this, then I am, too. I wonder, how you kept it secret from me, and for this long..." It mustn't have been easy, Pippin thinks, just the same as Merry says: "Well, it was... difficult, to save the very least."

Pippin stops him, kisses him first on the cheek and then on the lips. "I could see that, Merry. You needn't worry yourself, so – I will look after the both of you, as long as I can."

And that, well – Merry smiles, and he pulls Pippin close, and kisses him until there seems no need to do anything else but it, and breath. Then Merry draws back, and touches Pippin's cheek. "Pippin...?"

Pippin opens his eyes – he'd closed them, and he doesn't wonder why or how Merry feels so hot to the touch. "Yes?"

And Merry's grinning, a Brandybuck grin: "As long as Frodo thinks you are being debauched, perhaps we ought to – "

"Well," Pippin says, grinning in return, "I was just thinking of that myself." He almost says, I love you, but he feels too tired, almost, after all their fighting – well, he had shouted more than Merry had, but Merry had shouted at him too.

He says it, anyhow, and Merry grins at him, no, smirks, and pulls him onwards to his guestroom – the better one, of which Pippin is glad of his choice – and says, "I love you, too."

II. after

Merry's words are all strangely calm. "I overhead them talking, when they were in the hall," he says, and Pippin wonders at the wisdom of having left the healing room's door open – well, the room was small and stuffy and the windows were high up, and quite narrow, and before Pippin had gone to his duty, Merry had mentioned how it would be nice to have more than just a breath of faint air.

"Merry, I came – "

Merry's words are suddenly not so calm. "Did you not intend to tell me? Would you have left me here, thinking me invalid, thinking that I – " There is fire in his words that Pippin thinks he's not ever heard, and Pippin's voice rises up in protest – that this is a foolish thing to argue over, when Pippin knows there are only two more days.

"Merry, there is no reason to shout!"

"You're the one who's shouting!"

"I am not – oh, all right, perhaps I am, but you needn't shout back at me, Merry. I'd have told you, just as soon as – "

"What? Just as soon as you'd returned? If you even will." His mouth trembles, and his jaw shakes, and he sinks back against his pillows as all the colour seems to drain from his face. "Would you have told me as you marched away? My sword is gone, Pippin, and my arm... I won't be able to fight." He his head, he puts his left hand against his eyes. The air about them is thick with silence, solid and tense. Pippin steps forward, and that is when Merry's hand falls, and he shakes his head and then with more force than Pippin might have thought possible, Merry pushes back the covers and pushes himself off the bed, and to his feet.

"Did you not intend to tell me?" he demands, his mouth drawn and tense. "Did you think that I did not need to know? Pippin, you – " and Merry looks away, arms falling at his sides. His shoulders shake, and he shakes his head. "Take me with you, Pippin. Don't let them leave me behind."

"Oh, Merry," Pippin gasps, nearly overcome by emotion at Merry's outburst. Merry is wan and listing, and Pippin takes hold of his hands and presses a kiss to skin that is faintly chill. "Merry, please..."

When Merry speaks again, it's with a great sob – and then he lets himself lean against Pippin, lets Pippin gather him close and in his arms, and Merry winds his left arm about Pippin though his right still hangs at his side. He says no more – and though he cries, Merry muffles it against the black of Pippin's shoulder. Merry can't go – he is well, but not well enough, and he is still too worn and too tired, and Merry should see that, but of course Merry can't see that and Pippin understands, implicitly, why.

Pippin lets Merry cry it all out, whispering against his ear at times and once or thrice pressing a small kisses against Merry's warm, damp cheek. And Merry does cry it all out, leaning heavily against Pippin as he does, and Pippin rubs circles on Merry's back with one hand, and then lets his other hand find Merry's, where his arm is still hanging limp and near as lifeless as stone, wrapping his fingers about Merry's and pressing one more kiss to his cheek. And Merry laughs, drawing back, cheeks streaked and eyes somewhat red. "Oh, I've cried a fool of myself, Pippin," he says, sounding tired and looking it, too. Pippin tilts his head one way and then the other, and then he says, "Well, I suppose I would have done the same," and then he takes Merry by the hand and leads him back to his bed.

"Now, lie down, Merry, and I'll bring something to clean up your face."

He does, with Pippin's help, and then Pippin returns with a square of white cloth – fresh wrung with cool, clean water – and Merry lets Pippin fuss over him, smiling softly as Pippin does.

Then Merry says, when Pippin is all through, "You must be tired, and after your day," and he folds the covers back and pats the space beside him. And Pippin joins him, letting Merry pull him close and letting the covers tangle at their feet. "I've been quite tiring, too. How do you ever stand me, Pippin?"

"No – no," Pippin says, as Merry's not just something that he stands – well, there have been times, but he loved him even when he was most tiresome – but Merry kisses him and quiets him, and Pippin draws himself closer and lets Merry wind his arm about him, the other left in the space between – hand presses flat against the silver upon Pippin's chest, and Merry then says something in a murmur, too low for Pippin to clearly hear. "What was that, now?"

Merry grins, and the sorrow is mostly washed from his eyes. "Oh, you are wearing too much," he says. "If you are to leave me, then you should let me say goodbye."

"Merry – " Pippin gasps, and thinks he might cry. But Merry shakes his head, and touches one finger to his lips, before letting that touch fall away. "You are right, I suppose," Pippin says, at last. "I am wearing too much. I will get rid of this, at least."

He sits and then rises to his feet, dealing with the tunic and then the hauberk beneath. He sets it all very neatly, on the overlarge chair that is at the side of Merry's bed. He is left in his trousers, then, and those are long and very dark. Then he turns and looks at Merry, and Merry beckons him back into the bed. And he goes, of course he goes, and folds Merry in his embrace and pressing a laughing kiss to Merry's mouth – and he only laughs at Merry's smile. There are only two days, and he would rather not waste the time that is left to them – there is no reason that they should fight.

"I do love you," Merry says, though there is hesitation left over – from having fought, and having been so tired. And there is something else there, something that Pippin can hear even if he can't see it – something that he can read, as clear as if Merry were an opened book.

And Pippin only says, as he touches Merry's cheek: "Oh, I love you, too."