By: Dana
Summary: A moment in the sun.
Characters: Merry, Pippin (Frodo, Sam, mention of Tom Bombadil)
Pairings: Merry/Pippin
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Slash, light sexual content, implausible!, hobbit love
Author's Notes: I should write more Merry/Pippin, so.
Beta thanks to slightlytookish.
Prompt: Light (#73). Words: 1,435
31/100.
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.

It unsettled him somehow, still, but Merry hardly thought that he should bother Pippin with that: not now that they had found their way to light, the plain light of day, where they were weary and warmed but together, and finding rest.

Cold white stars and dead black dreams scurried, half-forgotten as if they themselves were lost in a long dark fog, and that at the very back of his mind. Wandering, aimless, and Merry felt very out of sorts. What was it that Tom had said: oh, that they had found themselves again, out of deep water – and somehow Merry felt half-forgotten himself, still lost and very cold, half-dead and half-drowned. His heart still ached, and yet – no, he'd not bother Pippin with that.

Run naked on the grass, Tom had told them, and they had: the light was now very clear and warm, and a haze of bright gold was in the distance. Beside Merry on the grass, Pippin lay with his arms stretched out above his head, and with his eyes shut. Oh, how lovely he was, Merry thought, but that thought seemed very distant. Pippin seemed very distant as well, for all Merry knew that he was within reach.

When Pippin opened his eyes, it seemed as though Pippin himself had surfaced from some dark dream: but then he cast his smile wide, and caught Merry in his gaze. Oh, how lovely he was, thought Merry; and Merry, caught in Pippin's gaze, could only smile in return.

Merry's heart did not ache now as it had, but it felt almost that it was still somehow cold and dead; and that smile did not last long on Merry's face. He felt it fall away, could not will himself to grab at it; and then it was gone.

Pippin shifted, up on one elbow in the grass. He reached out and touched Merry's face – Pippin's hand was warm, his fingers slim and strong. Hidden strength, that was what his Pippin was, made of it and bound by it. A day would come, and maybe even soon – and it would seem unexpected then, but in the golden moment, Merry did not think it unexpected, or even impossible: but that strength would shine forth, and Pippin would show all that he was capable of.

And he would be great.

But right now, Pippin's hand was warm, and his voice was warm as well – though Merry hardly paid heed to what Pippin said: and Merry kissed him, quieted his voice and took hold of his mouth. In that moment, hot and sharp and completely in focus, Pippin felt completely real, and not at all distant.

Still, Pippin's actions were as if from a dream – and he wrapped his arms about Merry's neck, and sank back into the grass, drawing Merry down with him. The heat of touch was almost more than Merry could bear, but he would bear it: and Pippin's mouth was sweet and deep and very real as well. Merry groaned, drew his mouth away, and gazed down at Pippin. Pippin, grass in his hair and his curls in disarray, grinning and lovely, and oh, his.

A questing hand sought Pippin's hip: and Pippin gasped softly, and pushed against Merry's hand. Pippin arched beneath that touch, and Merry's hand quested further: and Pippin's eyes shut, and he arched further, and his throat was long and pale gold and lovely, and this all seemed so very, very right. There would be no doubt, and there would be no regret. At least, not at this.

Not this, this that was right, so very right, and all that Merry had never thought to dream. Oh, he loved Pippin, he had loved Pippin like breath or something else so inevitable, and as Pippin touched him, Merry let out a ragged groan.

Pippin was very warm, and his neck was hot as summer: and Merry tasted the golden light on his skin, and Pippin laughed like summer as well. And he kissed Pippin once more, and Pippin tangled his arms about Merry and then kissed him, very hard. So they touched each other, kissing as well, drawing soft gasps and then louder ones, and laughter bright and sharp like the flow of song. Delight in skin, in touch and in laughter, in love as well, and Pippin's touch drew out the cold from Merry's heart, and then cast it aside.

Distantly, Merry wondered after its return.

Merry shuddered and gasped and bent his brow against Pippin's: trembling, he caught his breath, now weakened in his release. But Pippin drew his arms about him, and held him tightly. Pippin's voice was low and soft, and the song he sang was not one that Merry knew – likely, it wasn't that he sang at all, but Merry felt so beyond his mind that the melody of it, or the tone of Pippin's voice, spoke to him more than any words. Still, Merry found strength in that as well, and he laughed brightly against Pippin's mouth and then kissed him once more.

There had been doubt, and his own dead heart: but it was alive now, and well. He had come from cold darkness and yet had found his way to warm light.

Sometime after that, when the light was not quite as golden, and Merry could not recall when he had been coldest, the world around them once more returned. And Pippin looked at Merry, half amused, and told him that they likely had given dear Frodo, and Sam as well, quite a show.

And Merry laughed, of course he had, and cast off whatever chill that might have lingered: 'Well,' he said, not thinking he minded it much, even if they had (and later on, if they had been noticed, Frodo was too much a gentlehobbit to mention if he had, and Sam of course would not have mentioned it, no matter what), 'at least Master Bombadil has yet to return.' And Pippin laughed, as well.

'Oh, but you're quite right. Frodo and Sam can have a go at watching us all they want, just as long as good old Tom's not around.' Of course, at that, Pippin hastily added: 'Not that I don't appreciate him, given all he's done.'

'No, of course not,' Merry said, and in saying so he meant it. And he wondered at his own dark dreams, and at the darkness that might have, no, that had haunted Pippin's own dreams. Like rising from deep water and then breathing at last. For that short moment, at least, Pippin seemed very far away. Oh, the ache in Merry's heart. 'Of course not.'

And he sat, and he stretched, and Pippin sat and stretched as well. Merry, sitting there in the grass, looked at Pippin: Pippin, shining beneath the sun. And somehow, his Pippin. Everything had changed, and yet to Merry that did not seem to be a particularly distressing thing: that everything had changed, and that it would go on changing. They were still themselves, after all, and there was still a task before them, the one they had set upon themselves: and they would go at Frodo's side, wherever that would lead.

Whatever adventures he had guessed at, following Frodo, this had not been one of them. But he would see this road through to its end –

(Smoke and flame and cold dead stone, and other dying dreams: submerged once more in deep water, and feeling as it rose. Merry would not be broken, or at least would not be broken to his end, and if he was taken from Pippin, or Pippin was taken from him, somehow, somehow, they would find their way back to their proper place.)

– And wherever he might wander, at Frodo's side as he always had intended, and with Sam there as well, Pippin would be at his.

But he could find no real hope in that thought, though Merry looked for it, and knew he should have been able to find it. He was sitting in the warmth of the sun, though then for one lasting moment he felt his mind drifting, as if in a fog: and he thought himself lost again, still cold and half-dead.

Then he heard Pippin's voice, calling his name, and that lasting moment, cold and endless, ended, and passed into the next: and then Merry smiled, saw the warmth in Pippin's eyes, and golden sunlight in his hair.

Perhaps Merry needn't go looking for hope, then: perhaps instead it would come to him, unbidden like light out of great darkness, when it was needed most.