Pop, Six, Squish, Uh-uh, Cicero, Lipschitz...

Part I: Pop!

***

Pop! Snap. Pop! Snap.

Grr.

Pop!SnapPop!SnapPop!SnapPop!Snap.

... Ahh.

Pop!

"Arghh!" Pippin growled in disdain, flinging aside the offending object he held in his hands. Contemptuously eyeing the complex thousand-piece put-it-together-yourself toy that a (now loathed) relative had delightfully given to Faramir as a Yuletide gift, he grudgingly picked up another part.

Sitting on the floor, Pippin thought of said relation’s pleased face when Faramir had squealed in joy upon opening the present, and Pippin’s thoughts rambled in retaliation angrily ... Yer face i’gunna look a law di’frent next time Ah see you...

Looking over the directions for the ca-zillionth time, Pippin read: Slide nozzle A into latch 14 after clicking point F into the fifteenth hook section in color-coordinated receptor Aqua-Marine.

Eyes widening and brain somewhat frazzling, Pippin turned to the toy-turned-catastrophe laid out in a thousand pieces covering the floor by the Yuletide tree. Holding up the one small piece he did manage to complete, he gazed at it doubtfully while comparing it to the diagram.

"If Ah jus’ get th’t one piece in..." he said, picking up the piece he had thrown aside earlier in aggravation. "... then I can fit this piece," he said, and proceeded to cram the part into the respective point with all his might. It was being extremely difficult, so gathering his strength once more, Pippin inhaled and jammed it harder... Come’n Pippin, yer a Knight’f Gondor fer da’bloody Shire’s sake... you can build this toy...!

Crack.

Suddenly very gentle, Pippin held the, now broken, pieces in his hand, looking down at them, and then to his son who sat watching, stuffed bear in hand and thumb in mouth, beside him.

"Heh...whoops," Pippin offered, smiling anxiously at his son whose eyes were growing wider and more tear-filled by the second. "O, no...don’t cry, now. Dun’ go an’ cry..." Pippin begged, discarding the toy and reaching over to grab his lad, before he started to bawl.

Faramir’s eyes began to overflow as he squeezed his stuffed animal close to his chest, seeing the broken toy in pieces in front of his father’s lap; and before Pippin could reach him, he let out an incomparable shriek of sorrow, dissolving into tears.

"O, no," Pippin despaired, picking the bawling lad up off the ground and making many (failed) attempts to shush him. "Please, dun cry, Faramir," Pippin begged, his voice barely audible above his son’s howl. "Ah’ll fix it Ah promise," Pippin said hopefully, but to no avail. Trying to bounce Faramir in his arms, looking up in strain, Pippin sighed miserably, feeling quite like coming to tears himself.

Just then, Pippin’s wife Diamond blew into the room (probably heralded by her son’s sobs), eyes growing wide and surprised as the saw the state of utter mess the room (and her husband) were in.

"What happened?" She asked over Faramir’s sonorous screaming, brushing her light hair back behind her shoulder.

Pippin opened his eyes, for the first time noticing his wife there before him. Relief almost flooded through him, but seeing her critical gaze eyeing him scornfully, he immediately became defensive. "Well," he began tartly. "Ah was trying to put together this bleeding toy, but the Valar know that that is never going to happen," he explained. Faramir screaming in his ear, he continued, "Then, he starts to cry... It’s not my fault none of the directions make any bloody sense!"

Secretly amused at his frustration, Diamond stifled a smile behind her hand at his cursing, and hoped he didn’t notice, turning her gaze all the more disapproving.

"How in Middle-earth d’they expect a five-year-old t’play witha t’ousan’ piece toy, anyhow!" Pippin supplied in self-defense, the very burr of Tookland coming out of his incensed tone.

Diamond shook her head – at the mess or the state of her husband or at the state of her screaming son, she didn’t know. She picked up something off the floor.

She let the charade play out for a few more seconds then, "Faramir," she called quietly, and to Pippin’s surprise, he soon quieted and his wails subsided to bubbling sobs, as he stared with large, teary, green eyes to his mother.

Diamond smiled at her boy, and pulling a small round ball from behind her back, she held it aloft and said, "Do you want to play with me?"

Faramir’s face lit up, and with tears still wet on his cheeks, he gurgled in delight, reaching out to her from Pippin’s arms. Startled, Pippin let him to the ground and watched him toddle delightedly over to Diamond, arms outstretched.

Diamond handed her son the ball, and Faramir giggled, looking up to her, and she gave him a kind smile. Rolling the ball out of the room and down the hall, he chased after it gleefully.

Diamond coolly raised a brow to Pippin who stood flabbergasted amidst the wreckage of the Toy.

She turned to leave their apartment, but before she left, she stopped at the doorway, addressing Pippin’s attention up from the mess once more. "They don’t expect a five-year-old to play with a thousand-piece toy." Making to leave once more, she stopped again, looking in and saying with a sigh of pitiful tolerance, "Just clean up your mess, Pippin."

Seeing Diamond disappear once more into the hall, Pippin groaned as he looked down to the scattered parts he was going to have to pick up, and slapped his palm to his forehead, dragging his hand down his face.

"Bleeding thing," he grumbled, and kicked the pieces.

A piece flew up, hit the wall, then the floor, then bounced, (Pippin ducked), it hit the ceiling, then the wall once more, and to Pippin’s dismay:

Pop!

"Argh!!" he yelled and clutched his throbbing eye.