Written for the "20_rings" livejournal challenge. Theme = "food" :)

Picnic

"Pippin, not the mud, please dearest," Frodo said absently as he turned the page of his book with only half an eye on what he was reading. Eventually he sighed as his cousins’ protests grew louder, putting the book down and turning over to squint at one of the younger lads. "Merry, this is hopeless."

Merry had the baby on his lap and was trying to pry a stone from Pippin’s tiny fingers. Pippin’s bottom lip was starting to quiver, and both lads looked up at Frodo with identical expressions of frustration on their faces. Frodo tried not to smile and crossed his legs, holding out his hands to take Pippin from Merry, who sighed and scowled, surveying the remains of their picnic scattered across the grass. "It is hopeless," Merry retorted. "He hasn’t eaten anything edible since elevenses, and what’s left is all ruined."

Pippin had been single-minded in his determination to let nothing but grass and soil and worms in his mouth this lunchtime, although his hands had been busy enough in the jam and honey and butter and cheese. Swirls and blobs of red, yellow and brown reminded Frodo exactly where Pippin had been as he looked around at the multicoloured canvas created by the small Took’s busy, sticky hands. The lad himself, he realised, was gazing up at him happily now he’d found a more forgiving cousin, wide green eyes protesting such innocence that Frodo couldn’t help but grin back at him. The stone came out of Pippin’s grubby hands easily enough now he’d been distracted, and Pippin put his newly free thumb in his mouth, closing his eyes as he chewed on it gummily.

"I wonder what that tastes like," Merry snorted.

Frodo smiled at him, "I don’t know, but he seems to like it."

Merry shifted closer to Frodo and watched his little cousin curiously. He’d found a piece of pie that still looked edible, plucking some blades of grass off it exasperatedly before taking a bite. "One day he’ll learn that it’s silly to waste food," he frowned. "If he likes eating his finger so much, why wouldn’t he have some of this pie?"

Frodo shrugged, casting about for ideas. In the end, only one reason came to mind. "He’s a Took, Merry-lad; and Tooks don’t make much sense."

Merry nodded understandingly, as though he’d heard the unexplainable explained this way before. "I suppose I’d better get used to this, then," he said, patting Pippin’s curly head. "He is rather sweet, I suppose, even when he’s being daft."

Frodo grinned and pulled Merry closer to him. A moment later, Merry found a bundle of smiling Took lad back in his lap and he grinned, reaching for a piece of bread that had had its crusts cut off and was now spread aimlessly with jam and cheese and something brown. He pulled it in half and offered one bit to his attentive cousin. The other half he tried himself. "Mmn," he said uncertainly. "It tastes all right. See, Pip?"

Pippin patted Merry’s face happily with one sticky hand and squashed the bread into his mouth with the other. Merry rolled his eyes, though he was smiling at his achievement, and he turned to Frodo. "Do you think he’ll do what I tell him when he gets older?"

Frodo chuckled as he looked at them both; two pairs of big eyes turned to him as they munched away. Pippin was behaving now, but he was probably hungry. If his elder cousin would eat a mud sandwich for his benefit, Frodo suspected that Pippin would get the better of Merry when he was older too. But such things were impossible to guess when dealing with a pair like this, and Frodo put the thought aside with a shrug and a wink at Merry as he joined them in filling up the corners with a strange snack.