by Willow-wode

He should have known that they’d not leave immediately once they’d conferred. It would have been too… hasty.

Merry shucked off his coat, kept walking. He’d not gone far—mindful of the sullen, untamed trees that loomed over him—but he’d stalked four deliberate circuits about the peripheries of the disbanding Entmoot. The forest watched him, heavy and waiting. It was not easy going: roots to clamber over, branches to duck, always listening for the deep thrum of Ent vocalizations to ensure he did not lose his way. By the time he had done one circuit in the still, humid air he was damp with perspiration; by the time he’d done three more he was actively sweating. Removing his coat hadn’t helped; he yanked open the first three buttons of his shirt and halted, lifting the fabric from his damp chest, trying to create a small gust of breeze to his belly.

Evening was approaching. The light was retreating into darkness, night coming early to the forest as it always did. The dark was spreading, rising.

Perhaps it was. Yes, they were too little and yes, there may well be nothing that they could do, but he had really thought that the Ents might listen to him…

Sunlight filtered through about him, sideways slats of scattered luminosity through the thick, grey canopy. There were not many spots which allowed outside light within Fangorn, and he seemed to have found a rare place where tiny, hazy fragments peeped through. Merry held out his hand almost desperately to a thin filament of light; it ran over his palm like liquid copper.

Like the brilliance of Pippin’s eyes, dulling as Merry had rounded on him and faced him against the truth:

Why did he have to be the one who snuffed the blithe exuberance in those eyes?

He’d had no choice. Pippin would venture any hope to make him happy, would bat away shadows like persistent mosquitoes until they swarmed him and still flash a persistent smile. He’d an unwavering brightness to him, did his younger cousin, and one that Merry heavily relied on to hold fast within his own occasionally darkling heart. It had become a challenge to Merry to see that such radiance would never dim—if Pippin’s mission in life was to give pleasure to himself and his loved ones, then Merry’s would be to never let despair or doubt seed itself in that uncomplicated, straightforward soul. Pippin would pull him from the shadows; Merry would hold his hands protectively about that steady flame lighting his way.

But like many other vows and resolutions set aside as broken toys on their quest, this too had been violated. Pippin refused to bend his knee to the knowledge of despair, yet Merry had all but slapped him down with it. And in this moment he despised himself, the Ents, yes, even Pippin for forcing him to the necessity.

Merry crossed his arms over his ribs as if in pain, his jacket falling from numbed fingers, leaning heavily against a sideways burl of grey wood. Oddly enough the tree did not protest, as if slumbering beneath the murmurings of Entish. He too had thought of going home at one time—had in fact been quite sure that as long as there was the Shire behind them, nothing could go wrong. Until he’d seen Gandalf—Gandalf!—fall. Until he’d seen the flat, despondent calm in Frodo’s rainwater eyes. Until he’d seen Boromir—mentor, gruff pillow, friend—felled like an animal. Until he’d lain, staggered and bleeding, a prisoner in the rot and stench of the orc encampment.

All of it teaching him the true meaning of helplessness.

All of it, taking him from the now and the moment and making him look ahead such as hobbits were never meant to do.

All of it, making him vow that he would never be so powerless again.

But that vow was crumbling beneath the awareness of his own inadequacy—vulnerability and breakage and betrayal were all he could see, spreading hugely beneath his broad, wearied feet.

It had all gone wrong, somehow. How did they get here, to this place and this time where they could no longer shield each other?

"Merry?" Soft, the voice, uncertain—familiar and beloved beyond words. He closed his eyes, laid his head against the stubborn wood of the sleeping tree, and couldn’t answer for the choking in his throat.

"I was worrying after you. I know Treebeard said that the Entmoot has calmed the trees and that we’d be well enough on our feet as long as we didn’t stray too far, but… still…" Pippin trailed off, fell into uncertain silence.

Water, a distant runnel over rocks. Wood, a slow shifting moan, a creaking sigh. Earth, settling with small pops into the stillness.  The almost-silent tread of hobbit feet upon moss and loam, then the sound of Pippin’s breath, very close. The feel of fingers, brushing his temple and lightly tucking several stray sweated curls behind his ear. Then a kiss, light as moth wings upon his nape.

He stiffened and tried to pull away. This was not some momentary burst of temper that Pippin could—and many times had done to—tease him from with words or a caress. It was wider and taller than the green-black roof of Fangorn, deeper than his eyes and his soul. It was grief and fury, vulnerability and betrayal, taking him and sinking him downwards, and brightness had no place within it. He wanted to wallow in it, frankly, wanted to just lose himself in it and then perhaps he wouldn’t have to think about what it meant to him, to his world.

Or think about what doing nothing, of what his own helplessness would mean. To his world. To Pippin.

Pippin, however, didn’t let him pull away, With gentle insistence he went with him, and before Merry knew it he was face to face with a narrow, sweat-wet expression of implacable concern. Pippin’s hands tightly gripped his shirtsleeves, and in turn Merry captured his wrists, tried to disentangle the long fingers and swerve away. Again Pippin held to him, went with him, then shoved him back against the tree, hard. Merry let out a startled huff, made as if to protest. The protest twisted into a strangled gasp as Pippin angled his body along his. It laid heat and shock into the already thick, heavy air; the motion was deliberate, unmistakable. Every inch of that lithe body was hard against him, stilling him, and as Pippin fastened his gaze upon Merry his large, gilt eyes smouldered with the missing elements in this close, feral place: Fire. Air.

"Merry," Pippin murmured, and the sound sent a quiver through him. In response Pippin shored up harder against him. Damp breath glided across his cheek and into his ear. "Merry. Touch me." Slender fingers laced into his, solidifying a presence unwavering and insistent as a beacon, piercing the spiraling shadow behind Merry’s vision.

Almost blindly, he reached for it.

The tree bark scoured his spine and shoulders, the forest hanging heavily about them, the smell of it wet-deep and dark to the back of his throat. Pippin’s hair crushed against his lips; Merry breathed him in, warm and sharp, tangled his fingers in those sweat-damp, dusty curls as Pippin laid his mouth to his collarbone. Sweat clung his shirt and waistcoat to his ribs, hindering Pippin’s hands as they tried to peel cloth away from skin, sliding Pippin’s tongue over the cords of his neck in a trail of salt and wet.

A smile flashed quickly, wickedly in the gloom, and a glimpse of green-gold sparked his way, wilder than even the wood about them, dancing to some pagan hornpipe that Pippin alone could hear. It was if the long-ago Tookish faery bride had transported herself, body and soul, into Pippin’s eyes. Would that quicksilver elemental also be dimmed? Burned to cinders and ash, stilled and deadened…

"We’re here," Pippin chanted in time with his pulsepoint, as if Merry had spoken aloud. "You and I, we’re here. We’re here…"

Somehow, Merry wasn’t sure exactly, those nimble fingers had unfastened his breeches and reached down, wrapped about stiffening flesh. His head arched back into the unforgiving bark, Pippin’s name forcing itself from his lips in a long sigh. Pippin lurched upward, pulling and pushing, encompassing Merry in a fierce confrication of hand and hip. Lips sought, met, clung, parted. Merry’s arms quivered, twined tighter, one hand lowering to cup itself against Pippin’s flank, lift him slightly, angle him even closer. The other hand grabbed at shirt fabric, yanking it upward to gain access to damp and feverish skin. Pippin whimpered into his mouth, fingers sliding then knotting tightly at his nape, but that hand between them was still gentle, still stroking down-soft, teasing him in the slow fashion that he liked. It was a display of utter control which never failed to humble and amaze him, that Pippin’s natural impulse to forward biddance could and would be restrained beneath the wish to pleasure him.

Bars of light scattered over them. His hands chased the tiny fingerlings of illumination, flowed upward over ribs, spine, heaving shoulders, then back down around Pippin’s waist, settling themselves to fabric. Grimacing with no small impatience at his own sweaty palms and Pippin’s slippery breek buttons, Merry fumbled more and more irritably. He was pinned between Pippin and the tree, those agile fingers never once ceasing their delicate work; it made Merry crazy with not only the need to push upwards into that fabulous pressure, but also to touch, to fill his hands. Pippin didn’t give an inch, grinding up against him; indeed he just laughed, a low, rippling sound that duly informed Merry how pleased his cousin was at so confounding him.

"It is too warm in here," Merry gritted out, "to be wearing so many bloody clothes."

"Ah," Pippin purred in his ear, "but I’m not the one all neatly buttoned away in my favorite waistcoat…"

Merry gave up on the buttons, instead wriggling his hand beneath the thick fabric. between them. It was no less a struggle; Pippin’s attentions towards him made him lose his way more than once. He could feel, each time he was diverted from his path, those lips curve into a smile from where they were—and they were indeed everywhere. One moment busily nibbling a path from chin to cheekbone, the next kissing his eyelids shut, the next running an agile tongue along the cords of his neck. But finally Merry did find what he was seeking and as he latched onto hard flesh, Pippin gave a moan and ground into his hand.

"And you were trying to stop me from doing this?" He nipped remonstratively at Pippin’s left ear.

"What fun is there in easy?" Pippin gasped. "I like it when you win—but that doesn’t mean I’m going to just let you… oh… do that harder…"

Soft, loose skin and rigid heat sliding wet within his grasp. Pippin’s hand also fisting itself tightly to him, done with teasing. Falling back against the tree burl, knees weakening to slide slightly downwards, buttons and cloth finally giving way beneath not only Merry’s insistence, but the insistence of what they covered. Reaching upward to tangle his hands in the scarf still somehow about Pippin’s neck, using it to pull him close once more. Pippin climbing him as if he was part of the tree, knees locking against his hips, calves wrapping about him, fingers lacing into his hair. Merry’s palms curling about Pippin’s flanks to hold him in place, tangling in corded cloth bunched backward even as bare flesh met forwards, all tangled and reared up against their bellies. Pippin riding him as if he was a Tuckborough pony, those limber thigh muscles that only a lifetime of the saddle could give keeping him in place even as they flexed and released, flexed… thrust… gripped so tightly that Merry all but lost his breath.

Panting for air with hoarse, shaken wheezes, drinking it in against that sweat-slick breastbone, arms trembling and nearly losing their grip as Pippin arched back, light splintering across his chest, shirt and jacket falling open from bare skin. He whimpered into the stillness, bucking so suddenly hard against Merry that his arms wrenched violently in their sockets, fingers clenching tight in woolen fabric. At this Merry’s knees finally did give and he yanked Pippin forward; instead of falling they slid down the tree, still entangled together, almost as if sharing one skin. Pippin curled even tighter if that were possible, tremors shaking him. They echoed into Merry, and Pippin cried out into the stillness, snapped his hips two last times against Merry’s own…

And the dam burst and Merry was crying out, sobbing into Pippin’s neck as it took him, fingers gripping his cousin’s damp shirt so tightly that threads creaked. But for the first time his release into Pippin gave no comfort; the tight-wrapped tangle of love and need opened him like a melon thrown on stone, pulled him inside out. It gave no surcease. It hurt…

Was this also to become casualty of war?

"No," he whispered, burrowing tighter into that slender, shaking frame. "No."

"Merry…" Pippin panted into his hair. "We’re here…"

"We’re here," he repeated in shaky, quivering breaths. "We’re out here, alone."

Pippin clutched him tighter. "We’re never alone as long as we’re together."

"And how long will we be together in this?" Merry raged, pulling back with the same sudden need that he’d held close. "We’ve lost everyone and everything else—who’s to say we’ll not lose each other?"

"Don’t say that—"

"I’m so afraid, Pip… afraid that we’ll go back and find a burned-out husk instead of our home… that our families have long given up on us as dead… afraid that Frodo’s dead and we would never know it… that Sam tried to go after him and never found him… that Gandalf’s come back alive only to be taken by the shadow once more and before this fortnight’s out they’ll all be gone—Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, gone. Slaughtered by Saruman’s army. Everything we love. Gone. Like Boromir."

"Merry!" Pippin still shook against him, but his knees gripped firm as Merry tried to pull from him; those fine-boned, strong fingers inexorably pulled Merry’s head to rest against him. Merry gave to it in sudden terror and shame, cuddled tightly to the damp, heaving skin as if it were the only viable thing left in his world. Pippin’s heart thundered against his cheek, war-drum and protest both.

"We have to do something, can’t you see, Pippin? We have to do something, because all I can see before us is that we’ll have nothing—no Shire, no family, not even each other once this is done! If it will ever be done…"

Discomfiting sweat and sticky warmth, nevertheless Merry had no wish to let go; his own consciousness and life lay cradled, lithe and aware within his arms. Light and shadow splayed over them, the sun sinking quickly into the western lands. Pippin simply held him, rocked him, crooned soft, unformed words against his hair. They huddled there for moments—or hours—doubled against each other, sharing solid touch and jagged heartbeat, trembling breath and troubled soul and shards of light and sound.

When Merry drew back, his spent tears were echoed in the silvered traces on Pippin’s cheeks. He reached up with trembling fingers, touched them. Glimmering in the fading sun motes, tracks of light.

"There’s no light’ll hold back this darkness, Pip. When wizards turn to the left-hand path and breed soulless things that would rather kill than eat..." Pippin twitched atop him, stung by his own memories of the orcs. "When evil can sing and glint its way into the Shire, and to vanquish it our cousin is forced to lie with it like the lightest of tavern whores…"

Pippin gripped Merry’s face firmly between his hands. "If anyone can hold that Ring at bay, it’s Frodo. And if anyone can take care of him, it’s Sam. They’ll return to us, Merry, whole and sound, and they’ll laugh at us for being silly little boys afraid of the dark." But there was doubt in Pippin’s eyes for the first time—a doubt that Merry knew he had put there.

But he couldn’t stop, couldn’t halt the words now that they had started. "At least they’re doing something," Merry said. "We can’t even help them any more."

"Merry." Pippin’s thumbs traced Merry’s jaw. "We’ll do something. We will."

"You said it. You said it, and you were right. We’re too little. We have nothing."

"We have each other," was the rebuke, and in it was a stern reminder and sudden glimpse of the future, of the Thain-to-be. If either of them ever returned to their home, or even a future to look forward to. "We’re here, we have each other," Pippin repeated, strangely obstinate, "and we have what made us, what we left behind. If you don’t remember what we used to accomplish, you and I together, then I do."

"Games. Games and tricks. This is no tweener lark, Pippin…"

"I know that!" was the passionate response. "D’you think I don’t? When all I’ve ever wanted is to see you happy, and instead I have to see you like this…" His voice quavered and broke on the stillness; Merry looked at him in surprise.

"I don’t understand you sometimes, or Frodo," Pippin said quietly, not looking at him. "Both of you, taking it all in so deep where all it does is fester and hurt you."

"Pippin…"

"Give it to me, love. Let me hold it for you."

"You won’t hold it, you silly Took." Merry’s hand rose, the back of it stroking Pippin’s dirty cheek, his own voice small and thin in the vast gloom. "You’ll just let it go, like a butterfly into the wind…"

"Yes." He stared into Merry’s face with that wilding, unsettling glimmer in his eyes. "I know."

Merry tried to speak, found he couldn’t.

"We’ll do something, Merry. Because we always do. Something. Somehow."

Merry took a sharp breath, and twisted his hands impotently in Pip’s hair, and a ray of sun broke through the canopy to dance in those cinnabar curls, light running through his hands like molten copper.