By: Dana
Summary: There is thinking, and there is thinking too much.
Characters: Merry, Pippin
Pairings: Merry/Pippin
Rating: G/PG
Warnings: Slash, angsty fluff
Author's Notes: Written for the two lines fanfiction challenge. Beta by Molly, who rocks and yes you needed to know.
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.

count the years, you always knew it
strike a match, go on and do it
- shawn colvin, sunny came home

Firelight paints shapes on the floorboards and across the worn fabric of once-bright carpeting; red-orange light makes swirls and starbursts against faded spirals of gold and blue and green. The time is late – at least, Pippin thinks, it must be late, though it isn't yet morning – and the sky outside is dark. He has sat here for far too long, a pipe gone cold clasped in his right hand, his eyes on the firelight as it pools upon the floor.

What a cool evening, he thinks, breathing in the scent of apple and wood smoke that so thickly scents the air. Autumn, it must be autumn, and some distant thought at the very furthest reaches of his mind tells him that he knows that it is in fact autumn; Halimath, and the days are shorter, cooler now, it seems, than they were only last week.

He clutches at the stem of his pipe, thinking, thinking more now than he ever thinks he has thought before. His body is tired, but his mind is still sharp, almost frantic as it thinks, and the fire cracks and snaps, sending sparks high in the air within the safety of the old hearth. All around, Crickhollow is quiet, as if in the night it can be at peace. Pippin clutches harder at the stem of his pipe, worried for a moment it might break, watching sparks like star-fire drifting downwards, consumed once more in flame.

No, he thinks, consciously aware of letting out a deep breath, willing his fingers to uncurl from around the stem. He swallows, his gaze heavy, and he holds the pipe out. Such an innocuous thing, really, though it was of fine make; the stem was long and slender, curving slowly like a languid cat, the wood of the bowl worked with intricate knot work in gold and green. It was well-balanced and Pippin, having seen more than his share of fine pipes, thought it perfectly made; that it had been a gift from Frodo, when he was much younger, shouldn't have to matter. Even if Frodo was gone, so very, very, far away.

Frodo. It was hard, wasn't it, more difficult than he'd have thought, living in Frodo's house, living now that Frodo had gone away and all but given up on life; silly, that was fully silly, since Pippin knew as well as Merry, and even Sam, that Frodo left for his healing, so that he could find his own peace; hadn't he?

There was nothing else that it could be.

Still, Pippin finds it all hard, far too difficult. Sometimes, like now, when he is too tired to sleep, and Merry's snores are a gentle rise and fall at the very back of his hearing, Pippin regrets that things had decided to turn out how they had, but found he's never thought they'd turn out any other way. Frodo had been himself, after Cormallen, those long months in Minas Tirith, but he hadn't been, not completely, and Pippin at least remembers noticing him slipping, slipping further, until they had come back to their home, and he kept himself locked in Bag End more than just all the time. By then, when there had been a chance they could draw him out, show him there was still life to live, that the Shire would welcome him as they did, with open arms, it was already too late.

Does that mean Pippin had loved Frodo any less, or that his leaving had hurt him no more? He misses Frodo more than he can possibly put to words, Frodo who gave him this old pipe when he'd been no older than seventeen, over Merry's ardent belief that it should have been his; Frodo, who had been his friend almost longer than even Merry; Frodo, who had always had a laugh and a smile, until his ending came, and all his smiles turned inexplicably sad.

No, not inexplicable, as he knows the cause.

Now, Pippin sinks back in the comfort of an old chair that had once been Frodo's. It was old, yes, weathered, and was more a comfort than anything else Pippin might know; left behind as there was no more room in Bag End, at least, that was what Frodo had said. Frodo had been so certain that it stay with them, with the both of them; here, in this house that feels too small, but is big, big enough, and sometimes, Pippin is quite sure he hears the echoes of some other time, some other voice.

Frodo, maybe, and a shadow of his ghost.

Pippin puts one hand against his forehead, clutching at the pipe stem as he closes his eyes. If he waits, and thinks very hard, and if he listens to nothing else, it is more than just a ghost of some other time that Pippin can hear. It is Frodo's voice; somehow warm and cool all at the same time, like all the good that comes between summer and spring.

Oh, how he wishes he could sleep.

"Pippin?" Merry's voice rouses him, and it feels like a lifetime later, as Pippin is sure the fire was brighter than it is now, burned down to naught but embers. He exhales, lowering his hand, setting the pipe against his knee. No firelight painting the floorboards, now, nothing but a soft rise and fall of breathing light, flaring to sudden life and then dying back down. Is that morning Pippin tastes in the air? He can't be so sure.

"You never did come to bed."

"Well, not for a lack of trying, Merry," Pippin sighs, and his grin can't seem real, turning his head and looking upwards at Merry, where he comes to stand at the very edge of the chair. Merry's hand, with long, clever fingers, sets against the arm, and Pippin bows his gaze, his hand now atop Merry's. "You slept more than enough for the both of us, I think. No bad dreams?"

"None," Merry replies, and then he's sitting on the edge of the chair, and Pippin shifts the pipe sideways, onto the far arm, so it's not in the way. Merry's arm slides around his shoulder, and Merry's breath is warm and sweet against his cheek. "You seem to have been waking in one, though."

"Just thinking of Frodo," Pippin says, turning his face to Merry's cheek. "You know how that can be." He exhales, and then breathes in deeply, though it seems too short, too shallow, and Merry does indeed know how it can be. He has been angry, they have both been tired, and now, Pippin is tired more than anything else, a weariness that seems to smother. And Merry holds him, if only because there doesn't seem to be anything else they can say.

It has been a long year, and they have said it all already.

"When spring comes," Merry says, and promises, in that way that he has, and always has had, though there is a long winter between now and this promise, "we will have ourselves a party. And then, we will see if you can still dan?e on those over-long legs of yours, Pip."

Pippin manages a grin. "Are you finally admitting that I'm taller than you, Merry?"

Merry pauses, as though to purse his lips in thought, and Pippin pictures that he does. He tilts his head slowly, as if he is admitting his defeat, and when he whispers, Pippin feels a rush of warmth with the weight of Merry's breath against the shape of his ear. Oh, Pippin thinks, feeling fire sparking in his blood. It isn't that it's been too long since they last touched, or let themselves kiss, or that he misses Merry now even though they share the same bed; it's something else, something that Pippin feels slowly forming, and he clutches at Merry's sleeve until his knuckles turn white.

"Just for now, Pippin," Merry says, at last, and Pippin lets out a low breath, his mind turning, "though I doubt such a thing will last."

Pippin laughs, bright and sudden, and tugs on Merry until he has been pulled down into Pippin's lap. Merry laughs, too, shaking his head, and the first light of a new day breaks through the windows, pale and ghostly but shining so suddenly and so bright that Pippin can feel it burn away the ghosts and memories of a long night. Merry rearranges himself, and Pippin winds his arms around Merry's waist as Merry presses his forehead to Pippin's. "We will just have to see, then," Pippin says, quite matter-of-factly, and neither need mention that he means more than games of height.

They kiss, slowly, and the fire dies out, the pipe left alone on the arm of the old chair. They kiss again, and Pippin finds that he is thinking of nothing more than this moment, the feel of Merry's weight against his. There is nothing else, no memories of a time before, no nothing that reminds him of anything else but the simple rightness of Merry's mouth, and Merry's kiss. Such a good kisser, his Merry, but he always has been, hasn't he? Pippin almost laughs again, right against Merry's mouth, soft noise muffled in between their kiss. Pippin feels that slow trickle of warmth spreading, through his jaw, and down his neck, spreading across his shoulders and then down, slowly still but with growing speed, through his arms. Where he clutches at Merry's shirt, his grip loosens, and he feels fire in his fingers where they press through too-thin cloth at Merry's skin.

Is it so surprising that it is Merry who is his warmth, now, with Merry's mouth against his and Merry's fingers curling as they wind their way through Pippin's hair? It should be, but it shouldn't, and bare skin and sweet kisses hardly seem enough to keep that darkness, that worry, at bay.

He has been thinking too much, far too much, and the moment is better suited to pushing at clothing, to feel skin and breath beneath searching fingertips. Pippin can (and does) press his hand flat against Merry's chest, feeling the almost frantic beating of Merry's heart against his palm; thrumming as it seems to ripple outwards through Pippin's fingers, and in another wave, he feels Merry moving back through him, warm again and something more.

Pippin feels sluggish, too slow, but Merry's mouth is alive on him, through him, and Pippin decides that it is simply best if he were to stop thinking. He had been thinking too much as it was, maybe ever since they had come back to their home.

"I think," Pippin finds himself whispering, though he grins, some heavy darkness lifted from his shoulders, leaving only love and Merry's light, "that it would be best if we took this to our bed."

With what seems a soft breath of their own, the embers left on the hearth die, the fire fully out, and daylight shines so brilliantly that all is white for a moment in Pippin's eyes; but when that light clears, he finds only Merry's grinning face there before him, though he doesn't whisper as he proclaims that he agrees.

Later on, once they make their way back to the parlor, they will see that in their rush to the bedroom, they had upset the pipe, and it had fa?len from its precautious perch upon the old chair; when they find it, it is lying on its side, with ash and crumbled leaf scattered across the floor.

That won't be right, and Pippin will pick it up from where it lies, setting it on the mantle along with old and worn mathoms that have traded hands so often that the edges of once bright details have long since begun to dull. There, just how it should be, just for the moment, and all will feel at rest.

But for now, Merry and Pippin curve against each other, having found themselves again, and Pippin is now more tired than just overly-tired; the parlor and a dead fire seem a lifetime away, and Pippin quickly finds himself asleep.

(With Merry there, there are no bad dreams.)