By: Dana
Summary: Filling a home with all the things you'd need.
Characters: Merry, Pippin, Estella, Diamond (others mentioned)
Pairings: Merry/Pippin/Estella/Diamond
Rating: PG
Warnings: polyamory, cheerful nonmonogamy, slash and het
Author's Notes: Written for the pipathon: for rubynye, with all my love. ♥
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.

The first thing they needed was a bigger bedroom; and after that, what they needed was a bigger bed. For a week there are workers at the house - and Merry, in what Pippin considers a good-natured fit, takes all of Berilac's grinning jabs and jokes with nothing more than well-mannered grins. "As if you'd not do the same, if you could manage it," he'd said, though he'd likely been thinking that they'd not manage it at all, but for Pippin's insistence. Well, Berilac would, and the week went on - the wall between the two bedrooms was knocked down, which left them with one large room. The bed was an easier match, and an easier fit - it was easily the biggest in all the Shire, or so Pippin had grinned and boasted when they'd had it arranged.

The last thing he (that is, Berilac) said, before heading off to Brandy Hall, after one last day of hard work, was: "It'll give the old matrons at the Hall something new to talk about, at least. I wish you all the best." "I haven't a clue what he's on about," Diamond says, when Berilac and the other Brandybuck cousins had ridden off, the sound of pony-hoof now dull and distant, lingering in the cooling air. "Now, what I'd like to know is this - why would those fussy old hens at Brandy Hall ever think to talk about us? We are quite proper, I should have them know."

There probably are those who would think to talk about them, even if two of their four happen to be the heirs to the Master of Buckland and the Thain of the Shire. "I've no clue, myself," Pippin replies, pushing away from those thoughts, and taking her by the arm. "Now, a little gossip never did fell a troll - that is, cause harm - but, and this is how I look at it, we've been left in the very best of hands." Diamond laughs at that, and shakes her head. It had been a joke, at least since Merry and Estella had married and they had all four lived here, together - that Merry and Estella were something of a set of chaperones, with Pippin and Diamond still unwed. So, for the very most, there's not been much talk - at least, not that Pippin's heard. "We're quite lucky, really - they take good care of us, very good care, and they make sure we keep our hands to ourselves."

"Yes, yes, they do keep us very well," Diamond says, with the slightest grin.

"The very best care, I say," and Pippin snickers.

Diamond laughs a little louder, a little harder, and presses a kiss high up on Pippin's cheek - well, as high up as she can manage. Then Pippin laughs a little more, and turns and puts his arms about her waist, and bends his mouth to hers and kisses her, long and slow and sweet. And then, with a loud smack, and the sound of Diamond's breathless giggles: "Yes, yes. They handle us both very well." Their joke would go on as it wanted, Pippin is sure - after all, for all he's planned and they've thought out and planned together, there will be years together, at the very least. He hasn't spoken on it, though, and he doesn't know how he would - but he isn't very good at giving up on those he loves. Giving up on Frodo was hard enough - but that was less giving up, than holding onto when he had to let go.

Diamond's not the only one who's laughing - Estella's cheeks are pink and her hand is pressed against her mouth. She has a full-bellied laugh, for not being very full-bellied - and right now, they all hear the sound of her helpless guffaws.

Merry's the only one with a straight face - well, you'd think he was trying his very best, anyhow. They are all standing together, out in the open - and they've all thought about it, Pippin knows - on how easy it all seems, this time that they've spent together - Merry more than most, more than all. Merry, because he's too good at worrying and no good at knowing what's best and right there for his taking. But thankfully, Pippin's good at insisting - but then, he had decided, on his own, that this was for their own good. Thankfully, there's others who've agreed. Pippin looks at Merry, and Merry looks back at Pippin, and they share a smile and a moment that feels wider than the sky. Pippin still remembers when Merry first took him to Crickhollow - when it had been for Merry's best. Maybe this is all for Merry's best, and it has made them all very lucky, in turn.

And Merry says: "You are all hopeless. Positively, without hope." Then he turns and heads on into the house, and Estella drops her hands at her sides and Diamond frees herself from Pippin's long embrace, and goes and puts her arm about Estella's stomach, hand on Estella's far hip, and kisses her cheek and then, grinning as if she'll laugh again, another kiss that falls on Estella's lips. And Pippin thinks he's sly, that he could walk right by them - but Estella murmurs something and shakes her head, and catches hold of Pippin's hand and then puts her other at the nape of his neck, and pulls his mouth down for her kiss. Lucky does seem to be a good word for it, and they are all very lucky - a bit of chance that brought them all together, time and time again. Pippin's not talked it all out of Diamond, yet, when she had first met Estella in the turning of that time when he and Merry had been gone - but Diamond's not told him it, well, not everything, at least. He's figured out a thing or two, but he never has pressed - he'd have better luck if Diamond were Merry, as Diamond is too good at keeping her mouth shut, and getting her own way.

That might be one reason that he loves her, and is glad for her love, as much as he is. And anyhow, there are things better off left unknown - he knows that, too. Secrets are allowed, even when there's love. She must have loved Estella before she loved him, for all Estella and Merry both insist that Diamond's been his first - love, that is.

And if that's how it is, then he can't say he minds it - he's needed Merry well enough, and if Estella and Diamond needed each other, need each other still, well, it's good for them all that they've a house enough with room.

Diamond laughs, and Pippin hears a rustling, a whisper of cloth, as she lets loose of Estella and goes up the front steps, and into the front hall. Pippin hears Merry's voice, and Diamond's, too. Then Estella lets him loose - the scent of flowers seems to linger, faintly, in the air - and she smiles up at him, her lashes dark. Room, yes - they have room, and more than they should need. Even Pippin's thought that, no, it shouldn't be so easy - but then, some things don't work out as you think they should.

"Now, how did that feel?"

"Quite lucky. Wouldn't mind getting luckier, if you - "

Estella laughs and gives his arm a shove, and then she turns and goes into the house - and Pippin smiles and wonders at how he managed all this, as he must be the luckiest hobbit of them all - and then he shakes those thoughts from his head, and heads up after her, shutting the door behind him.

The first thing they did was put the fire on in the parlour, and Diamond grabbed hold of Pippin and used what force she could manage to drag him down onto the sofa; of course, when one was nearly wed to a hobbit near as great as any tree (or she'd said, at least more than once), one might find that sort of play difficult, but that never caused pause. What she did then was call for Merry's help, and Merry, always one to stick on Pippin's side (honestly, and all), helped Diamond with her effort and they ended in a tangle on the sofa, all laughing, and all breathing hard. Pippin looks up when he can, and Estella is giving them all a look - and then she shakes her head and flips her hair back over her shoulder, still looking at them all.

"Well, I suppose I'll look to supper. If you would like to join me, then..."

Diamond tries to squirm free, but can't, caught between Merry and Pippin - and Merry seems to be as interested as she is, as Pippin is in them both. There is a hand on Diamond's thigh, but it's not Pippin, and one at her hip - oh, that one must be his - Merry is breathing against her ear, and Pippin is pressing his grin sharp against her cheek.

And Diamond manages: "Supper will just have to wait."

And Estella says: "You are an abnormal hobbit, Miss Diamond. Are you sure you won't join? Of course, we are together with a pair of altogether abnormal hobbits, so I do think we'd end up eating all alone."

"I - ah, in a moment, Estella, dear."

Diamond laughs a little and then she moans, pushes back against Merry and turns and kisses his cheek and then, and Pippin knows she must know that Estella is watching, and intently - and it is a very nice feeling, happy and warm, knowing that they're being watched.

Well, when that happens, Estella throws both her hands in the air - and joins them, of course, making room on the sofa (oh, shove over, Pippin, there's certainly enough room. You'd think the move would make you hungry, with all the working that we've done with the moving, but, now, really...), and she's not complaining, not really, not when Pippin laughs against her mouth, a mouth that's warm and sweet as honey, and Pippin's hand is on her shoulder, the other at her bodice, and her arm stretches over him and he feels her hand at his side but only because it's pushing up against Diamond's skirt - and her other hand is at his vest, and freeing buttons as it goes.

"Now, I do think Diamond is right," and that's Merry, but there's also the hitch in Diamond's voice and a mellow low sound, sweet and deep. "Supper will have to wait."

Estella laughs out loud at that, startling Pippin (and he grins at her, sheepishly, and she ruffles one hand back through his hair), but then she leans across Pippin's lap, startling hold of Merry's attention and they all are attentive, really.

And she says, "Much better," and she kisses the startled look right off his face.

With all they're wearing, hands only have to find their way to flesh - and there's laughing as much as moaning, and there's kissing more than that. But buttons and laces are undone, and cloth is shoved and slid aside.

They are very lucky, the four of them - if luck is counted by kisses, or touches, or the hearts of those you love - and he is surrounded by it, love, from new and old and everything that's in between.

The first thing that follows is supper by the fire - and all the firsts that followed after that, all starting with the first night in a bedroom that could fit them all, and their new bigger bed. It does seem too easy, even when they are all knotted in a tangle - but if there's one thing Pippin knows, it's that some things should be easy - unexpectedly so.

He wakes sometime between the darkness and the dawn, warm all over and warm on all sides. There's breathing at his cheek and Merry's snoring somewhere up ahead - and Pippin groans and rubs his eyes and Estella mumbles something and Diamond's arm drapes itself over Pippin's belly, Diamond's face pressed into the crook of his neck and there's breath there, too, warm and damp and sweet.

Yes - some things should be so easy - and he's tired but it's an easy tired, a content sort of tired, the sort of tired that he could grow into and sleep with for the rest of his life.

Lucky, all of them, and then he's drifting off to sleep - but he startles awake fully, when someone - Estella, he thinks - kicks - and his laughing wakes them all. Lucky, yes, and sometime after that, they all make their way back to sleep.