Archive of Our Own

For the longest time, Pippin assumed the way he felt for his cousin was no different from how anyone might feel about someone who has always been there. Their connection soars far above and beyond anything he's ever had with anybody else, and even his adoration for someone like Frodo Baggins felt subdued in comparison to that of for his Merry.

And forever, for since they were young, Pippin assumed that adoration he held for his Merry was equally, unequivocally requited.

It was never in question. 

Merry was always close; and as they both reached halfway maturity, Pippin was always elated when Merry's eyes found him first in any crowd. Where there were moments that they might be inclined to separate, their hips remained intact. At parties and celebrations, they shared smoke and drink, even after Merry was of an age where he did not need to sneak those things. When there was work to be done around the Shire, little of it as there ever was, they did it side-by-side. Or, at the very least, within sight of each other. Or, even least than that, they would always reunite periodically throughout the day, if not to smoke then to exchange affirmations. 

Even when they fought, as lackluster as those disagreements or tiffs ever were, Merry was not cruel. Nor was Pippin; perhaps even less so. Wordlessly, they would sit together for dinner and for supper still.

Even when they were apart, especially when they were apart, even when Merry admitted he did not know what would happen—did not know if they would ever see one another again—Peregrin did not wonder if Meriadoc was happier off alone. He knew that was silly. He knew that was never in question. 

He thought, for all of this, his feelings for his cousin were expected. Anticipated, even. 

Until war passed and the Shire settled and they resumed a pocket of normalcy, and Pippin began noticing a weight he had not placed beforehand. 

It started slowly. He realized that his mind turned the thought of Merry over and over. No reason, no rhyme. Only a thought or an image or a phrase repeated again and again. It lulled him to bed at night while he slept alone, it entertained him as he cooked or cleaned or did odd chores here nor there. He replayed small happenings over and over, until eventually he began rewriting those histories in different ways.

When the fantasizing made his breath hitch, made his face warm, made his skin tight—he began to understand. Vaguely. Barely. 

So he started analyzing. He paid attention to himself, his body and his heart, in way of being in his cousin's presence. Which was often. Which was nearly every hour of absolutely every day.

When Merry leaned in close to whisper something foolish and usually offensive into the shell of Pippin's ear, there was a distinct, annoying shiver that seized the younger hobbit's spine and throat.

When Merry chose to sit beside Pippin, always too close, always and forever in any setting, Pippin's thoughts turned fuzzy. He lost focus and could not grasp the passage of time. It was always over too quickly. 

When they smoked together and Merry did not think twice about putting his lips to the pipe they shared, even though he preferred to puff his own with any other hobbit, Pippin could not help the twitch of his fingers nor the thickness of his throat. Unconsciously, he'd pass his tongue over his lips before each drag, and think idly about kissing his Merry.

When the indulgent fantasies about kissing turned to tossing and turning at night, only soothed by a wandring hand and surefast guilt, Pippin considered for the first time that maybe this was not how anyone feels about just anyone.

It worsens, then, when Merry's eye begins roaming from Pippin's in the crowds. 

Pippin notices it immediately because of course he does. A pretty head of a hobbit visiting from Hobbiton for Yule in the Shire. He, of course, could not ignore the quick spark between her and his Merry, nor how his Merry disappeared both nights of the tidings. To his quiet horror, she disappeared those nights too.

It was just as well. Pippin did not ask about it, and Merry did not tell.

Matters not. Matters not. It does not matter. It does not...

Ah, shit. 

There is always partying, always something prosaic to celebrate, so it's not many moons later that she returns.

Pippin braces for the night by stocking up on a stolen barrel of drink and enough leaf to turn him stupid. He takes to the hills, just on the edge of the village, and sits alone with the stars and his growing tolerance to his vices. He'd slipped away before Merry even had the chance to disappoint him with his leaving, had spoken to no one about his pining or his woes, so he felt sufficiently lonely. Despite the company of his ever-resplendent pipe and mug.

He's on his seventh mug and fifth pack of herb by the time he's surprised by a gentle kick to his foot.

"And what are you doing out here, hogging all the goods for yourself?"

Pippin blinks blearily up at his Merry, afraid he is hallucinating. Smoke curls around his sharp features, catching under one of his eye's lashes. He hisses and rubs at that eye, his voice almost slurred. "I hadn't thought anyone would notice their missings."

"Well, tough to you, I would, and I did." Unceremoniously, Merry plops down to his rear beside Pippin, their thighs almost touching. "Hand'um over."

Very pointedly keeping his eyes ahead, Pippin obliges.

Except he can't keep up with that, and can't help but to watch from the corner of his eye as the moon catches on tan-kissed skin and golden curls. The edges of his person glow in the lowlight, encapsulating Merry with a brilliant halo of silver. He pulls deeply from the dying embers of the pipe, gray-white smoke billowing around his crown as he exhales into the mug he's already raising to his lips. 

Merry tips his head back to swallow down the dregs, the apple of his throat bobbing.

Pippin looks away, pulling up his legs to tuck his knees under his chin.

With a satisfied seethe, Merry hands over those emptied devices. "Another, then?"

"Aye," Pippin intones, trying not to sway as he reaches sidelong to fill the mug again. He hands that off, and by the time he's packed another smoke, Merry is trading the empty mug in favor.

"Drunkard," Pippin jabs with a smear of a smirk, and Merry only scoffs.

"Says the hobbit run off to drink a whole keg to himself, then."

"Aye," Pippin says again, hoping no more will come from that river of thought. 

As the stars wheel overhead and the party ebbs in the distance, songs barely heard from their churning between instruments and voices, the two take turns nursing the only pipe and the only mug. Pippin loses track of how much they drink and how much they smoke, the night and the herb and the mead blurring all together by the time the moon has passed fractionally across the sky.

They don't speak much. Not about anything important. The pretty head of a hobbit visiting from Hobbiton never comes up, despite how desperately Pippin wants to ask—he wants to ask, but he does not want to know.

Similarly, he does not want to consider the way Merry leans into him now. Somehow he's inched closer; or perhaps it was Pippin who slid that way. Regardless, they are closer, totally flush flank to flank. It's an ignition of burning and buzzing all along his side, infecting the thrum of his heart with an insufferable fluttering. Cotton is stuffed between his ears, and that thickness has returned to his throat. No matter how many times he swallows, mead or smoke or air, the pressure does not let up.

That pressure blossoms all through him, until it is an ache, until it is painful.

Merry is laughing about something, but it passes through one pointed ear and out the other. Pippin only laughs because Merry is laughing, and he presses deeper into his cousin's side.

When Merry presses back, he needs to douse that too in another pipe.

Pippin's head is spinning, somewhat unpleasantly, but in an addicting, sort of exhilarating way. Unfortunately it hinders any inhibitions he'd previously had, and his closeness grows bolder. When they pass the pipe back and forth, he sloppily, mindlessly drags his fingers over Merry's. As they take turns speaking and laughing, Pippin's face finds Merry's shoulder a couple times, his hand finds Merry's chest or leg a couple more.

That's not quite what catches his own attention. What does, however, is that Merry begins mirroring these tiny graces. 

Pippin passes the mug, the near-last of the barrel, and Merry cups the Took's hand and keeps it tethered. Even as he pulls the mug to his own mouth.

Merry wraps an arm around Pippin's shoulders and pulls him in closer, until Pippin has no choice but to bury his nose in the crook of his neck.

When the drink is all gone, and they've found themselves on their last pipe, they lie tangled in the grass. Merry has one arm tucked under Pippin's head, fingers idly draping up and down his further arm. Pippin's closest leg is hooked over Merry's closest thigh, his foot slotted between his knees.

Surely it's nothing, Pippin tells himself. He draws in from the pipe and Merry tilts his face toward his own with a finger beneath his chin, bringing their mouths close. He demands that puff, and so Pippin passes it through the space between their parted lips.

It's nothing, Pippin tells himself. His heart hammers in his throat and he's dizzy and his thoughts are crooked and dazed.

But it's nothing. Surely. Merry blinks, their noses brushing, the smokescreen he exhales between only slightly dulling the stars glittering in his eyes.

If it's nothing, then it surely wouldn't matter if Pippin simply...

When he leans in and presses his mouth to Merry's, the world stills, then tilts, then blurs. Merry goes slack, but neither recoils nor pushes Pippin away. The night frozen around them, drink and smoke muddling judgement, Pippin tests the other hobbit by moving his lips, sinking in deeper, parting his gape.

Gingerly, a hand finds his chest. Not giving, not taking.

Still. It momentarily fastens Pippin's betterment, and so he breaks away. The night barely resumes, faraway music finding his ears again. 

Merry blinks at him, his hand still touching narrow chest. The stars in his eyes burn, and his mouth hangs slightly open.

"S-" Pippin chokes, makes to stumble backwards. "Sorry—"

In wordless answer, Merry follows the backward motion to chase Pippin's mouth to the earth. He traps those sorries with a more intentional kiss, the hand on Pippin's chest joining the other now wrapped around his jaw.

Pippin makes a noise, somewhere between a sharp gasp and a squeak, and finds himself drowning in the mouth on his. Surprised by its regard, by how Merry quickly and easily crowds him into the grass, he has half a mind to push him off and run away.

Fortunately, destructively, he is unable to will his body to do more than bend beneath his Merry's touch. One hand finds his temple, pushes thick curls back, the other brushing a thumb over his cheek. All of it makes Pippin's head swarm, swimming until there's nothing more than his own lips moving to meet each desirous inch.

When Pippin does not try to do more than kiss back, Merry seems to loosen and melt. He kisses deeper, richer, until their teeth knock and his tongue swipes between. Hungry but not demanding; he stills when Pippin stiffens, finally parting for a breath.

Without a mouth on his, Pippin feels the world kilter again. The earth beneath him is hardly there. 

Dazed, he stares up at Merry, who is staring down at him.

His throat bobs as he swallows thickly, and for a moment, his glittering eyes darken as they dart elsewhere. "Is this- uh—" When they fall back on Pippin's, Merry's breath is a shudder. "Is this okay?"

Finally discarding the pipe and trepidation with it, Pippin's hands find Merry's shoulders as he nods feverishly. "Ye- yeah! Yes-! I think-...!"

Merry exhales hard, forehead drooping to Pippin's collar. Exasperated, almost amused almost anxious, he slurs, "You think?"

Pippin gasps for air, his voice breathy and desperate, "Please kiss me more, Merry."

Cursing, relieved or otherwise Pippin can't quite tell, Merry plants wet kisses to his neck. That wasn't quite what he'd expected, but it's nowhere near unwelcome- Pippin escapes a moan and his hips cant reflexively. They twitch again as Merry worries the column of his throat, undoubtedly blooming yellow-purple marks in the wake.

Time is lost and space bottoms out. There are broken breaths and hands unsure of where to hold—Merry's fingers tangle in messy, curly locks; Pippin's hands curl into layers of fabric over chest and shoulders. When their lips meet again it is haphazard and fervent; like the first gasp of breath after being too-long submerged at the depths of an endless sea. Pippin swims against the current to reciprocate the ardor, but he finds himself overwhelmed. Merry is two paces ahead, leaving Pippin to trail sheepishly behind. Merry escalates first; a tongue over his molars, a hand under his shirt, rolling hips between Pippin's legs-

That makes the Took gasp, reel, part only to bury his face in Merry's neck. "Feh- feck, Merry—!"

Despite the fingers twitching wanton against the hot skin of his belly, Merry is unmoving. Calm, but Pippin can feel the way his heart hammers into his. "Too much?" His voice is soft, if not a little uneven. His other hand draws over the back of Pippin's head, holding him against his shoulder.

"Suh-" Pippin drags in a breath, his tensed fingers unfurling from their hold in Merry's finery. "Slower- is all, maybe-"

Lips to his temple, Merry exhales. "F'course, Pip." 

It's easy for Pippin to unravel again, especially as Merry keeps speaking honeyed and low, a string of breathless confessions lacing the heavy air. "I just never thought- I mean, I'd hoped, maybe, but didn't let myself hope all too much that maybe you'd-" His hand, slightly bigger than Pippin's, slides up his abdomen, fingers delineating the divots of each pronounced rib. "-want this, want me, the way I've wanted you-..." His lips ghost his ear, his jaw, nose to his cheek and Pippin shakes. Breathes. Exhales. All of it drawn out, the world a too-thick jelly to move through. Time slows around them, the distant rejoiced commotion barely prattling at the nape of his conscious. "...-forever, oh, forever, my Pippin-"

The Took sucks in a sharp breath, wrapping an unsteady hand around the wrist nearest him. Its hand still travels the expanse of his taut skin, a calloused thumb swiping over one stiff nipple. "Your Pippin," he murmurs. 

"Your Merry." A misplaced kiss to the corner of his mouth before Merry takes him in again, the words he's trying to drool coming out sideways and slurred. "Always your Merry."

Stubbornly, Pippin's mind flashes unwanted images of his Merry laid out with the pretty Hobbiton hobbit. Not my Merry, he thinks bitterly, but his pathetic, needy voice betrays him, "My Merry, my Merry, my Merry..."

But his Merry kisses the dying words away, leaving no more than soft noises and shallow breaths between them. It's more than Pippin could have ever hoped for, ever let himself hope for—knowing Merry had hardly let himself hope for the same thing warms him and pities him all in the same bated breath. He searches for purchase anywhere that he can touch; hands in golden locks, nails bruising the skin beneath layers and layers keeping them apart. Merry has gone still save for the hand roaming his gooseflesh, the other locked at the back of his cousin's neck. Pippin knows it is because he asked him to slow down, but something in him hopes hopes, hopes, hopes that Merry would push those boundaries.

Is he not worth pushing those boundaries for?

Another flash of the pretty hobbit-woman's face breaks his resolve.

Quietly, Pippin sobs into their buss.

The capricious nature of their intoxication leaves him maudlin, and Merry is too good a hobbit to push or ignore it. He recoils too-quick, hands to Pippin's face, leaving a stark cold where his caress had been. Thumbs wipe away the tears streaking Pippin's face before he realizes they'd fallen. "Pip?"

For all that good, Pippin can still feel Merry's excitement pressing into his lap, against his own. 

"Pippin? What's wrong?"

As small as hobbits are, Pippin suddenly feels all too heavy. He falls away into the earth, knees lulling apart and his head finding the grass as one of his arms come up to wipe at his face. With his brow burrowed into the crook of his elbow because he cannot look at his Merry as he says it, everything escapes on a drunken blubber, "Why did you bed that girl if you wanted me? I've never had any interest in anyone else and I couldn't bear the thought of- ah- of-" He breaks off, teeth masticating his bottom lip to stifle the ugly noises threatening to take over. Only a beat passes by the time he's felt the weight of embarrassment press down into him, but he's trapped under something he's waited decades for, so he can't do anything more than pin his arm tighter against his eyes. Phosphenes bloom behind his eyelids, fireworks budding so that tears may not. "Gandalf was right. I'm a fool of a Took, aren't I?"

Of all the things Pippin had expected, Merry staying still with him was not at the forefront. He hardly adjusts, slotted between Pippin's thighs and one forearm bracing his weight so that he lingers above. His other hand smooths carefully down Pippin's torso, to his waist—not for the claim it had been only moments ago, but as an affectionate, soothing gesture. When he speaks again, it is light. "I- ah... I'm sorry, Pippin."

Pippin remains silent, afraid that anything he might say could tear it all down.

The fingers curled around his waist flex. Cautiously, searching for the right words, sifting through gallons of inebriation, Merry speaks slowly. "I had thought... I wrongfully assumed, anyway, that you might find me repulsive if I ever, you know..." His hold skims to Pippin's hip, fans out over his abdomen, fingers dancing dangerously toward his core. There's a moment of anger there in Pippin; not at his Merry, but at himself and his body and the way it reacts in spite of the tears he's choking on. His breath is lost again, his face hot behind his elbow. "...touched you, or kissed you, or..."

It's devastating because Pippin knows how he means, considering it's what held him back from this very moment too. 

Merry keeps spilling, his thumb drawing lazy circles beneath Pippin's naval. "...or, Gods forbid, I ever tried confessing any of it at all to you. I thought giving up that hope and trading it for..."

Realization settles into place. Pippin can hear a smirk cock Merry's expression. "Ah, is that why you came out here to smoke and drink yourself stupid and alone?"

Pippin scoffs, throwing his arm out into the grass as he shoots his chin in the opposite direction. "As if."

"Cute," Merry says, sinking down into him again. "You damned pout."

"I'm sick of you," Pippin grumbles, skewing his eyes shut. The world spins when he does.

"I can feel that that's not true." Merry gives the Took's hips a pointed nudge with his own to emphasize the point.

Another scoff, this time half-hearted. "Perhaps you are repulsive."

"Hmm," Merry hums thoughtfully, pressing his lips to Pippin's jaw. "And perhaps you are a fool."