Chalk by Janette Le Fay
Summary: Merry doesn't want to get up just yet.
Categories: FPS, FPS > Merry/Pippin, FPS > Pippin/Merry Characters: Merry, Pippin
Type: None
Warning: None
Challenges: None
Series: None
Chapters: 1 Completed: Yes Word count: 1101 Read: 1591 Published: January 26, 2009 Updated: January 26, 2009
Story Notes:
This is the first time I've tried my hand at a Merry/Pippin, so I'd be obliged if somebody would tell me whether they prefer my Frodo/Sam, or this, or are indifferent. Sometimes experimenting is bad. :-)

1. Chapter 1 by Janette Le Fay

Chapter 1 by Janette Le Fay
"Merry?" Pippin's voice was soft and insistent, tinged with the forced rasp of a whisper. Merry recognised that tone all too well as the one Pippin used to wake Merry up out of impatience; loud enough to rouse him but still close enough to a whisper that Pippin could pretend he'd been 'only checking if you were up, Merry!'

Well, it wasn't going to work, not this morning. Merry tugged the sheet up closer about his neck, one fist clenched in the cotton under his chin and the fingers of the other hand tucked between his ribcage and the mattress. He could tell simply by the damp chill of the air whispering over his face that it was a dull, grey morning, set to be a rainy, miserable day, and by Elbereth he wasn't prepared to crawl out of this warm tangle of sheets any earlier than was absolutely necessary.

"Merry!" Pippin's voice had lost its cautious lilt now. Merry frowned, tilting his face to bury deeper into the mattress. Truthfully he had lost any urge to actually sleep, but getting up now would be admitting defeat. Determined not to capitulate until his cousin had given up trying, he shifted slightly, still feigning sleep, and then lay still.

There was a short silence. Merry was alert now, so involved in this new game that he could hear the steady prickle of Pippin's breath, the thrum of his own heartbeat in the hand now resting under his cheek, the impatient rustling of Pippin's blankets on the bed not three feet away from his own.

"Merry!" Sharper this time, so sharp that Merry was certain that if this call drew no response there would only be two possible courses of action that Pippin might take. The first was that he would give up, which was fairly unlikely and Merry didn't really expect it. The second was that he would dissolve into a sullen tantrum quite fit for the Thain's heir, which was more likely, and so Merry braced himself for it.

He waited. Nothing seemed to be happening. He could hear a soft scratching of something fairly hard on skin, which he analysed to be Pippin chewing his lower lip, and then Pippin's breathing began to grow suddenly slower and more measured, short cautious breaths of concentration. This was somewhat puzzling. Indeed, Merry was so involved in wondering what in Middle-Earth his cousin was doing that when a sudden weight pressed gently on the far side of his mattress he almost jumped.

It was Pippin's hand, he concluded, most likely clenched into a fist, pressing into the mattress. The gentle force had created a long rift in the bed, shifting the momentum so that it felt almost as if he were rolling down towards his cousin. He clenched his teeth and clung to the sheets, grinning now. He felt Pippin's slight weight shifting, the measured breaths drawing closer, until eventually the tip of a curl brushed his face. Merry bit at the inside of his cheeks, trying desperately not to betray on his face that he was awake.

"Merry!" Pippin' breath was hot and forceful, blown straight into his ear at point-blank range, and with a sigh of resignation he shot out a hand from under the sheet, catching his smaller cousin by the collar of his nightshirt.

Pippin emitted a shrill squeak of protest as Merry tugged him round over his shoulder, pressing his slim frame into the bed and feigning a frown. "How old are you?" he barked in mock rage, a grin emerging despite all his efforts to repress it.

"Twenty-six," Pippin grunted, struggling, but Merry pushed him back down by the shoulder.

"Are you looking forward to twenty-seven?"

"Not particularly, no," Pippin replied airily, with a smile. He looked so adorable lying there with his copper-tinted curls strewn haphazardly across his forehead that Merry had to laugh.

"Don't you ever - wake me up again - when I don't have to get up," Merry growled, pausing between each word to give his cousin a little shake.

"Or else what?" Pippin demanded defiantly, and Merry could tell from the insolent expression on his face that he would have had his hands on his hips had his arms not been pinned immovably to the bed.

"Or else I'll ignore you for the rest of the day," Merry declared. "And the next, and the next, until you apologise. So there."

Those impossibly big green eyes were twinkling now with insolent glee. "That's not true. You know you always forgive me sooner or later, Merry." He screwed up his nose, causing the faint freckles that dusted his cheekbones to leap into disarray. "I got bored. You know I get bored when I'm awake all by myself."

"The trouble with you is that you can't stay still," Merry muttered, relenting, as he sat up. Pippin struggled up hurriedly, rubbing at his arms where Merry had been holding them.

"And the trouble with you, Merry, is that you are far too violent," he stated, holding out his arms and examining them. His tone was so absent that for a moment Merry was suddenly anxious that he had genuinely hurt him. The lad looked so slender and delicate from here, coppery curls tumbling awry over the aristocratic features of his face, that he reached out intuitively to lift his chin, but Pippin was too quick, grinning up at Merry disarmingly.

"Don't worry, Merry, I'm all right. I'm not made of glass, you know. But, see - I made you jump!"

And then all in one motion he sprung from the bed, deftly avoiding Merry's arm that flailed to catch him. "Come on, lazybones. It's morning, don't you know! Just think what we could be doing!" Pippin flashed a smile, his teeth very white in the pale light, and Merry reluctantly swung his legs out of the warm haven of the blankets as his cousin darted across the room to splash cold water from the washbasin uncomplainingly on his face.

Merry smiled whimsically. Indeed, there were any number of things he could think of to do at that moment, with the light filtering clear through Pippin's nightshirt like that, the shadowy line of his back arching and twisting as he washed his face, but none of them seemed to involve getting out of bed.

With a sigh he set his feet down on the cold wooden floor and leaned across to tug the curtains open, running his fingers through haphazard curls as if to clear his head as a duster wipes a blackboard clean of chalk.


End
This story archived at http://www.libraryofmoria.com/a/viewstory.php?sid=692