The Fire
by Lullennye-mail: gutter2stars @ yahoo.com
Story notes: "The flames brightened with the new fuel Merry fed it."
Merry watched Pippin feed the fire with bits of dried twigs. Smoke mingled with the smell autumn leaves, moist and dark, and Merry sat straighter and looked quickly round, a feeling of loneliness and danger settling on him like a sodden wool cloak.
Pippin looked up from his contemplation of the flames. "What's wrong?"
Merry drew his palm over the back of his neck. "Nothing. I just felt a shiver, like I was being watched."
Pippin's gaze cast about, and he squinted, trying to pierce the shadows. Merry looked again as well, and he listened, too. Their ponies drowsed peacefully nearby. There was no sound but the snapping of the fire and the small sounds the hobbits themselves made. Pippin relaxed and resumed breaking off twigs to toss into the fire. "There's nothing out there. The ponies would give us a warning."
"They would," Merry agreed, yet he still felt uneasy. The flames cracked and hissed on damp wood. It was an old sound, familiar to Merry, though distant. He listened carefully and watched the sparks fly up into the night to join the stars. Abruptly he said, "You have been quiet all evening, Pippin. You've said nothing about Diamond, nothing about the children, no songs, no gossip. That's hardly like you."
"You saw them when we left; there's nothing I can add to that," replied Pippin. "And I guess I'm not in the mood for songs or jests." He threw the last of his twigs into the fire and sighed. "At least we have a fire tonight," Pippin added, sounding distracted, as if he spoke to the end of a different conversation.
"But it's not the same."
Pippin looked up at him curiously. "Not the same as what?"
"We always sat together, you and I," said Merry, and suddenly he knew now why he felt watched, as if unseen things stalked the night. "For warmth, at night. Every night."
"And the days," said Pippin softly. "We traveled at night after Rivendell, and slept during the day."
But Merry recalled better their journey before Rivendell. It was hard to imagine, but once, the lands between the Shire and Rivendell had been dangerous; once, Merry had thought Strider sinister and unsavory: a possible bandit out of the untamed Wild. When he did not rob them or lead them astray, Merry had still thought him dour and blunt; not until after Strider's actions at Weathertop did Merry give over his entire trust to the Man. Merry smiled a bit at the name: Strider. Aragorn, the King Elessar, seemed a wholly different person.
Of course, they had all changed.
Merry decided it was the smell that brought him this impression from the past -- smoke and wet leaves and wool during a rainy autumn -- but it was an incomplete impression without the overlay of Pippin's warmth and scent. "Was it really so long ago, Pippin?"
Pippin appeared to think about it. "Thirteen years ago this month we left Buckland. Not so terribly long, not really."
"Long enough for us to marry and have lots of children," said Merry. "How many does Sam have now?"
Pippin chuckled. "I lost count."
Merry smiled. His affection for Sam was like his love for the Shire: warm and unshakeable. There were other ways to love, though, some of which led to great sorrow. He drew in a careful breath and slowly said, "It took far less time for you and I to let each other go."
He met Pippin's gaze through the shimmering heat of the fire. Pippin was older now, just as Merry was older, and his thoughts no longer ran across his face freely for all to see. "Do you miss it, Merry?"
Merry didn't know how to reply. For all that they'd been friends forever, Merry suddenly didn't know the hobbit sitting across from him. "Do you?"
Pippin looked down. "Diamond's a North Took. They're a bit, ah, clannish. Possessive, even."
"Ah." Merry found an old branch in his hands. He worried it, peeling off curls of bark and flicking them into the fire. "I'd gathered as much, then, though it seems to me she's mellowed since chasing after four young hobbits."
Pippin made a non-committal sound. The flames brightened with the new fuel Merry fed it. Merry poked the embers and the spent logs collapsed, blasting his face with dry heat that felt good. He closed his eyes and leaned into the warmth.
"Move over, Merry." Pippin stood suddenly on Merry's side of the fire. Merry scooted to make room on his blankets, and Pippin sat. Pippin leaned against his side, and Merry slid his arm around him. It was a familiar feeling, Pippin's weight nestled close, and not at all distant. Merry would not be surprised if Strider suddenly entered the ring of firelight, a rabbit or bird in hand, dressed for roasting. If he squinted, maybe he would see Frodo's dark-eyed ghost across the fire, Sam at his side.
Pippin moved under his arm. "You're right," he said, "it's not the same."
"Has it," began Merry, and he had to wet his lips, "has it been too long? Is it forever lost?"
Pippin drew away and looked at Merry. "I don't know. Maybe." Pippin's regard swept over Merry, touching his hair that he knew glinted with strands of gray at his temple, his broad waistcoat, and his feet folded neatly under him. Pippin took Merry's hand in his. "I love you, though, and that has never been lost, no matter how else I might have missed you."
Merry closed his eyes, his heart hurting from both happiness and regrets. They snapped open again when Pippin clasped him close, and Pippin's lips pressed a kiss onto the corner of his mouth. "Pip?" The old nickname came without thought, just as Merry's skin heated, outside his will.
"Is this all right?" asked Pippin softly.
"I don't know," said Merry. He looked long at Pippin's sober face: the patient longing that was always there; the maturity brought on by war, time, and family; and a shadow of the imp that yet lived deep inside. Perhaps Pippin saw something inside Merry, for he drew him close again and covered Merry's mouth with his own.
This will change us, Merry thought even as heart leapt, change us like the War changed us, and time, and family.
Breathless, Pippin pulled back enough to speak. "Oh, Merry, it's like it used to be, like burning up from the inside."
Merry wondered if this fire would leave them with nothing but ashes, but aloud he repeated softly, "I know, I know." And he kissed Pippin back until the campfire slumped into embers hot enough to last until they added wood the next morning.