"Displaced"
Victoria Bitter
NC-17
Merry/Pippin
1/2

Disclaimer: These aren't my hobbits, but honestly, once they're in bed, 
I don't think J.R.R. Tolkien or New Line Cinema quite wants them either.  
Let's just say they belong to collective myth, eh?  Or anything else 
that won't get me sued.

Author's Notes: This story could be considered a sequel of sorts to 
"Last Standing," (http://hosted.insanity-inc.org/vb/laststanding.html) 
however, while recommended, it is not necessary to have read the former piece to 
understand this one.

Synopsis:
Where is there home for the wanderer?
Where is there peace for the warrior-child?
Where is there comfort found welcome again,
In hearts that have learned to run wild?
				- "Solace", Kara O'Niell
***

He almost missed him

The little figure stood at the gentle knoll of a hill on the very edge 
of camp, looking out over the broad plain and silvered band of the Anduin. 
His sable cloak made him seem little more than a shadow wounding the night, 
but here and again, a soft wind caught the folds of the sumptuous fabric, 
teasing it back to reveal a coat of glimmering jet mail that wrapped 
around him as if the sky itself had descended to embrace or smother. The 
laughing play of the wind offered the illusion of movement, but in truth he 
stood utterly still, seeming not even to breathe as he stared off silently 
into the distance.

Merry's breath staggered in his chest, ragged with frantic search as he 
came to a grateful halt at the foot of the hill. He'd turned only a moment, 
spoken briefly with a guard regarding the next day's watch, and Pippin 
had been gone, vanished into the shadows like a phantom of silvered 
midnight. He had thought little of the seeming impatience at first, but when Pip had 
not been at their tent, worry had struck with the force of a hammer-blow.

Finding him now, a part of Merry lunged to run to him, to embrace and 
admonish him at once for such irresponsible foolishness. It would be 
the natural thing to do, yet something seemed to hold him back, sucking 
deep, tattered breaths of cool night air as he looked on his dearest friend 
and cousin with the eyes of a sudden stranger.

He had been so flush with joy at seeing Pippin up and about all day 
that he hadn't really taken any time to simply look at him. Now that he had, he 
almost wished he could take the image back again. It had been a long 
and painful ordeal to wait nursemaid by Pippin's bedside as he lingered 
between life and death, but now.… He lived, that much was clear and strong, but 
Merry sensed that something had yet died nonetheless.

In the shadow on the hilltop, there seemed to be hardly anything left 
of the young hobbit lad who had liked to dangle great bullfrogs in front of 
unsuspecting lasses or even the youth who stood with crossed arms and 
stubbornly jutted chin before the Council of Elrond. A cold lump 
knotted at the base of his throat as Merry realized that were he not still no 
taller than a half-grown human lad, Pippin would indeed no longer look like a 
hobbit at all.

His cinnamon ringlets had loosened with length, hiding the soft curve 
and point of his ears, falling in tumbled waves over his shoulders in the 
fashion of Men, yet clutched in places tangled-tight to his skull by 
the memory of the helm's band. Mail clung to limbs grown hard-sinewed and 
lean, shoulders stretched broader than he remembered, or perhaps it was just 
that he no longer stood like a lad - on one foot and then the other, hands 
jammed in his pockets or fumbling at his sides - but like a soldier, legs 
planted firm and steady, hands clasped loose at the small of his back. It made 
him seem taller than even the Ent-draughts had rendered him, and almost 
dangerous, his pose so easy, yet so clearly ready to take to the sword 
at his side. Even his sturdy, auburn-curled feet were hidden by the means 
of Man, clad in black leather boots that made them look smaller somehow, 
though yet not as impossibly dainty as those of Men.

The wind caught the cloak again, tossing it away from one shoulder, the 
embroidered stars above the white tree glinting silver, and Merry felt 
his heart clutch. Around his neck, incongruous against the elegant mail, 
wrapped a tattered and travel-worn scarf.  One tattered end flapped up and 
away, and Pippin flinched, batting it back.

Merry gasped involuntarily, startled more than he had expected by the 
sudden movement, and he saw Pippin freeze, his fingers knotting in the thick 
knit.  For a moment, he nearly seemed ready to dismiss the noise and return to 
his regard of the river, then he pulled the scarf from his neck, turning in 
a single strangely smooth motion until his gaze tumbled down the dark 
hill to pin Merry in place. In his own garments of green and white, Merry felt 
dreadfully exposed under the silent stare of one who seemed to stand 
within the comforting fold of night.

Neither spoke, but it was Merry who at last swallowed a deep breath and 
ducked his head, breaking the silent eye contact and fixing his eyes on 
the river as he climbed the hill to stand near his friend. He could hear 
the whisper of cloth and the swallowed moans of leather as Pip stepped up 
behind him. The muscles of his neck trembled as he fought not to look, and 
Merry found himself holding his breath. He didn't know why he couldn't look, 
what this strange thing was hanging in the air between them where even an 
hour before everything had seemed to laugh on the brink of being utterly 
right again.

Then a hand slipped into his, leather-gauntleted but slim-fingered, 
weaving through his own but not squeezing. Just settling there, settling and 
waiting. Merry folded his hand over the welcome contact, turning with 
the cup of his fingers to find Pippin staring back at him. His face was 
silvered pale in the starlight, but his cheeks were almost fever-flushed, his 
eyes shining too bright with unshed tears and unspoken worries. "Where do we 
go now?"

Pippin's voice was so smooth and soft as to make the simple question a 
riddle of intent, and Merry frowned. "Pip?"

"Where do we go?" A tiny smile cracked the corner of his mouth, but his 
eyes remained deep and searching, their pure need swirling and eddying into 
Merry's heart. "Now that all this is done?"

"Back to the Shire, I would suppose." It wasn't what Pippin was asking, 
he knew that much plainly, but what he was asking was a question Merry 
didn't want to try to answer, half for fear that he couldn't, but half as well 
from fear that he could.

"And then?" The humourless smile widened meaninglessly, Pippin's thumb 
tracing a slow circle across the ball of Merry's palm. "Frodo has his 
books to fill with adventures. Sam's garden will need weeding and watering 
and planting and pruning long after we're all gone. But what of you and me? 
Bilbo's old Elf-Blade is the only sword the Shire has ever seen in our 
grandfather's lifetimes. What use have Buckland and Tuckborough for a 
Shield Thain of the Mark and a Knight of the Citadel?"

"You're the heir to the Took and -"

"Aye. I know. I've been the heir to the Took and Thain since they knew 
I was a lad." There was a bitter touch to the words that Merry had never 
heard before, and it startled him. Pippin had always been dully proud of his 
line, edging sometimes even upon vanity, though ever so charmingly that no 
one could hold it much against him.

Keeping his right hand entwined in Pippin's left, Merry turned the 
younger hobbit towards him until he could settle his free hand on Pippin's 
shoulder, his fingertips nestled in the tousled curls that spilled over the black 
collar. "You are, and they cannot take that from you, no matter how far 
from home you journey. It is your right of blood and birth."

"But what does it mean? A title, fancy words for you and me both. 
Master of Buckland. Took and Thain. We were to be those things, as you said, from 
the time we were born. We were those things when we left the Shire." His 
chin lifted in a move of nearly imperceptible defiance, but he betrayed the 
bravery as he snatched the corner of his lip briefly between small 
white teeth. "And I'm not the hobbit I was."

"No, you're not, and neither am I, but that doesn't mean we can't love 
the same things we once did. Swimming in the Brandywine, hunting for 
mushrooms, camping out under the stars because we want to, not because Strider has 
funny ideas about what counts as shelter." Merry brushed the back of 
his hand against Pippin's mouth, trying to find a smile there, but a 
melancholy had come over the lad deeper than any Merry had ever seen before, and 
he realized that this was not the time for humour. "Come now, cousin, 
there is more to this sorrow than a title."

Pippin bowed into the touch, pressing his mouth into the cup of Merry's 
palm, his lips moving warm through white leather as he drew in close. 
"I couldn't make Frodo laugh."

"Oh, Pip." Slipping his hand free, Merry wrapped the younger hobbit in 
a gentle embrace. He knew that despite his easy manner all that day, 
Pippin still suffered from the broken ribs he had sustained when he had been 
crushed by a Troll at the Last Battle, and his arms settled light as 
butterfly wings around Pippin's slender body. His cousin still 
trembled, but Merry knew it was from no pain of flesh.

"He's not the same any more, Merry. The Ring did something to him, and 
it did something to Sam. They're changed, and you're changed, and 
everyone's changed, and I'm changed, only I'm not changed enough to matter." The 
last words slipped out on a dull-edged whisper that scoured a dark place 
through Merry's heart, and he had to catch the urge to pull Pippin in and hold 
him so tightly that nothing could get through.

Of course, he couldn't. And of course, it was too late anyway.

"It matters! You bear the mark of the King, and for more than his 
friendship. You bear it for your bravery and your self-sacrifice, your 
strength and your honour. Ask any of the Company who listened to you 
moan on an empty belly and sore feet in the mountains, and you'll hear tell of 
your change, dearest Pip."

"Perhaps." A deep sigh began to slip through Pippin's shuddering lips, 
but then he stopped, letting the air out again carefully with only the 
slightest hitch of pain that Merry would not even have felt had he not been 
holding him so near. The little hesitation seemed to scorch the palms of 
Merry's hands where leather touched mail, and he wished suddenly that they were 
both in their Shire garb again. Linen and wool felt, at least, like the 
clothing of friends. Leather and mail were worn by enemies, and as long as such 
things stood between his hands and Pippin, how could he hope to reach 
the wounds that bled so horribly through Pippin's eyes and words?

Pippin brought his still-bandaged right hand up between them, the scarf 
wrapped soft around his knuckles as he rested it gently on Merry's 
chest.  "Do you know what day it is?"

"8 April in the old calendar."

"I'm twenty-nine. I turned twenty-nine during all this."

"Well then, Master Peregrin," Merry drew back just enough to plant a 
kiss on his cousin's forehead, a tender smile on his lips as a chuckle rumbled 
dark in his throat, "I shall speak to Aragorn about arranging you a proper 
party. Of course, now that you're a Knight of the Citadel, I'll be expecting a 
fine present."

"But that's it, Merry!"  With a strange sound that could have been a 
sigh or a sob or a broken laugh, Pippin tore harshly away, turning so that he 
looked again over the broad, flowing expanse of the Anduin.  "I mean, not the 
presents, but that I've not changed enough, not grown *enough,* not for 
the Shire! I'm twenty-nine. You'll go home, and you'll have choices, Merry, 
but I'll be a lad still. What will there be for me to do? Frolic about and 
play pranks and make a lie of blind innocence for four years until I can 
take on the Mayorship of some little Tuckborough village and wait for the 
Thain? I don't fit in that life any more, Merry." He looked down at the scarf in 
his hands and giggled suddenly, almost desperately. "I don't suppose I fit 
much anything any more."

A dark frown gathered at Merry's lips.  Pip was wrapping himself in his 
own despair, almost comforting himself with it, pulling away from any 
thoughts of hope.  No kind word or gentle touch seemed able to ease him, and 
Merry thought suddenly of Strider on the shoulders of the mountain outside 
Moria.  There were times, perhaps, when grief was something not to be soothed, 
but battled.  He stepped up to the younger hobbit, turning him around again 
with a firm hand on his arm.  "Perhaps you've not changed enough, then, 
Peregrin, but it has naught to do with your age! I'd thought you'd grown beyond 
sulking like this."

Shock chased anger over his face, leaving a dark and sullen muddle of 
emotion mired in sorrow.  "I'm not sulking."

"You are! You say Frodo has his books and Sam his garden, but I don't 
know if they'll want them any more. You couldn't make Frodo laugh tonight, 
but I looked in his eyes, and I fear he may never laugh again.  The Frodo we 
knew is *gone,* Pip.  Aye, and the Sam as well, though he perhaps shows it 
less dearly.  We've all changed, and life in the Shire has not changed for 
generations, but we've all survived, and in *that*, there is yet hope!  
You're sulking that you cannot fit that life as you cannot fit your old 
clothes, but new clothes were made for us, and a new life can be as 
well.  I want the old pleasures back again, of course, but I won't be content 
with them alone any more than you will.  So I've thought perhaps to expand 
Buckland, lead an expedition or two towards the Old Forest and make it 
a place of fear and shadows no longer.  I shall write a book of the 
herblore of the Shire and place in it all that I could never tell dear King 
Theoden.  Make a life to fit me, rather than sulk over the life I've outgrown."

Anger flashed hot in Pippin's eyes, but it was a vibrant anger, and 
Merry almost welcomed it.  Anything was better than that strange, cloying, 
clutching melancholy, and he did not struggle as Pippin struck Merry's 
hand from his arm. "Make a life! Make a life, you say.  Expand Buckland, 
write a book…fine and proper for you, Merry!  My hand is clumsy with a pen, my 
head worse for poetry.  And once we're home, I fancy my Dad won't be letting 
me past the door of Great Smials for a long time yet!  I'm a child there, 
a child in what I may and may not do, where I may and may not 
go…everything except my memories."

"Then perhaps you want to stay here?  You would ignore your title, your 
family, but you would have a purpose, oh yes! Knight of the Citadel, 
Perian, hero of the War of the Ring.  Only their time has passed here as well, 
or is passing very soon.  But you could stay, I'm certain Strider - or 
Aragorn, or even Elessar, as he too has changed now - would allow it.  Do you want 
to?"

"I don't know what I want! I don't know if I want to go home or not! I 
don't know if I want to stay! I don't know, but I can not know, don't you 
see? I can not know and not be unable to know, I just need help, but I don't 
need help because I can't do it myself, I just -" His arm had swung out in a 
sword-stroke flourish, but now it broke in to his chest, grabbing tight 
as his face clenched in sudden pain, the words cut off in a high, wailing 
wheeze of tortured air as the colour fled from his cheeks.

Merry dashed forward, barely reaching his cousin's side in time to 
catch him as his knees gave way, his body trembling as he fought for breath. Red 
foam glittered cruel rubies at the corner of Pip's mouth, and a cold fist 
clenched deep in Merry's gut.  What had he done?

To Be Continued

VB

Keeper of Sam's Unfailing Loyalty and his Box of Earth

"I love him. He's like that, and sometimes it shines through somehow.  
But I 
love him, whether or no."
       - Sam Gamgee, "The Two Towers"