Title: Of Pranks and Experiments
Rating: PG
Summary: Saradoc gets a chance to repay his brother for a prank he played on him.
Year: 1364 (Merimac has just turned 22, Saradoc is 24)

Special thanks to Ariel.

~*~*~

Icy winter wind whistled through the slightly open window. The curtains billowed and dust seeds danced in the strands of morning sunlight streaming in through the gap between them. Saradoc shivered and glanced longingly at the still warm covers of his bed before returning his attention to the washbasin before him. He looked at it for several long minutes, knowing that the water it held was as icy as the wind. He took a deep breath and braced himself, gritted his teeth, squeezed his eyes shut, and splashed the freezing water into his face. How he hated Sterdays! He reached blindly for the towel, rubbed it with just a bit too much force over his pale cheeks and gazed into the mirror. Eyes underlined with dark rings, tousled curls and a decidedly pallid face looked back at him. Yes, he definitely hated Sterdays.

Saradoc shook his head – even if he didn’t feel it he at least wanted to look awake – and groaned in pain. He pressed his cool palm against his forehead. The fifth glass of brandy might have been one too many. Or perhaps it was the four pints of ale, or…

A moan from the bed made him smile in spite of his own miserable state. He, at least, was up and dressed. As long as father didn't storm into their room and pull him out by his ears, he would even consider himself on time for today's training lesson.

“Uncle Saradas won’t approve of that,” he announced, trying to arrange his hair. He knew his uncle was as strict as his father when it came to punctuality for training, and Merimac had a gift for being late.

Merimac answered with another grumble, shifted his weight several times and disappeared under his blanket.

Saradoc grinned. “He’ll probably have you muck out stables all day, or you’ll have to clean the sumps. You smelled awful the last time you did that.”

“Just leave me alone, will you?” a hoarse voice from somewhere on the bed snarled at him.

Saradoc looked at the bundle that was his brother and a vicious grin appeared on his face. Under normal circumstances, and considering that he was almost too tired to pester Merimac, he would probably have left him be. After all, last night had been a very long and exciting one, but as matters were, he couldn’t waste such a golden opportunity to repay Merimac for what his brother liked to call ‘the water incident’.

It had happened last summer during a visit to Whitwell. Saradoc had been asleep during the planning stages, but from what he had been told, it must have gone along these lines….

~*~*~

“You can’t do that!” came a hushed but appalled voice.

A grin, a sideways glance: “Don’t tell me you’re not curious.”

“It’s nothing to do with curiosity. It’s about dignity.”

“Dignity?!” Merimac’s jaw dropped and for a few moments all he could do was gape at his cousin. “Really, if growing older means becoming as cautious as you have become, I hope I never will.”

“Maturity will catch you.”

Merimac hastened to his cousin’s side and covered Paladin’s mouth with his hand, a look of mock horror on his face. “Hold your breath and don’t move,” he whispered. “I think you’ve been possessed by my father. I heard him speak through your mouth.”

Paladin grabbed his wrist and locked eyes with him. “Don’t be ridiculous!”

“I’ll stop being ridiculous when you stop acting like an 80-year-old gaffer,” Merimac told him reprovingly. “Really, Pal, you used to be fun to be with. What happened to my cousin?”

“He grew up,” Paladin said matter-of-factly and straightened as if to punctuate his words.

Merimac stared at him. The light of several candles reflected in their eyes and cast a shivering red and golden glow over their faces. For the first time in his life, Merimac, who had always looked up to Paladin and counted on his support, felt a painful second of rejection. It seemed as if a gap had opened between them, just broad enough to keep Merimac from reaching his older cousin.

His unease must have shown on his face, for Paladin suddenly broke into a smile. “Have you tried it before?”

Merimac grinned and the tightness in his chest eased as the gap vanished. “No, but the Bucklebury twins did and they said it worked just fine. Besides,” he hooked a thumb towards the bed in which his brother slept peacefully. A wicked grin spread on his face. “This is just too good an opportunity to miss.”

Paladin raised an eyebrow following his gesture. Merimac watched him, hardly daring to breathe lest he interrupt his cousin’s pondering. He needed him to join in his plan, for what use was there in proving a myth if no one but him saw the result?

“I’ll warm the water,” Paladin said eventually and Merimac had to bite his tongue to keep from exulting.

“That’s my cousin!” he cheered in a hushed voice and slapped Paladin on the shoulder. “That’s the Pal I know.”

“And I already regret it,” Paladin replied with a wink before he left the room.

Not long after, he and Paladin sat cross-legged beside Saradoc’s bed, the candles’ glow on their expectant faces. Carefully, Merimac lifted a bowl of warm water underneath his brother’s dangling hand until it was completely immersed. Now there was nothing to do but wait. Merimac found this part of the enterprise the most trying. He could hardly sit still, which made it difficult to keep his brother’s hand from slipping out of the water. Both he and Paladin were completely focused on Saradoc, alert to his every move and softest sound. So fixated were they that they did not hear Esmeralda until she was almost standing beside them.

“What are you doing?” she whispered.

Merimac jumped, almost spilling the precious water and Paladin hissed a warning for his sister to be silent. She started at his commanding tone, but complied as Saradoc stirred.

He frowned and mumbled in his sleep, then stretched, turned and curled up against the wall.

Merimac watched, his heart thumping and his breath held, but Saradoc did not move again. His features relaxed and his breathing once again grew deep and even. Merimac closed his eyes for a second, and breathed a sigh of relief before turning to glare at the intruder. “Happy now?” he hissed through gritted teeth. “How will I ever get his hand back into the bowl without waking him now?”

“Get his hand into – what?” Esmeralda looked at him in confusion. “Why?”

“Because I am about to prove a theory,” Merimac declared, still whispering. Without waiting for an answer he leaned over his brother’s body, tempted to shift him to a more suitable position. But then he discovered a gap between his brother’s face and the wall, just big enough for the bowl. He carefully situated it there and submerged his brother’s hand once more.

Satisfied and with a nefarious grin, he turned back to his audience. Paladin seemed embarrassed, but Merimac found that he did not mind having Esme join them at all – now that the experiment was no longer in jeopardy. The more witnesses, the better.

“He is about to do something in the bed he’s probably not done since he was a faunt,” he explained to a still frowning Esmeralda, “because, it’s said that when you place a body’s hand in warm water as they sleep, they will wet themselves.”

The girl gaped at him in disbelief. Her mouth worked in angry silence for several moments before she turned and addressed herself to her brother. Her voice squeaked from her efforts to keep it down. “Don’t tell me you’re involved in this.”

“I’m… well…,” Paladin stammered and shrugged. Merimac hastened to cousin’s side before Esmeralda could convince her brother of the error of his ways.

“He’s only here at my invitation as a witness.”

Esmeralda turned her steely, blue eyes on Merimac. They glistened in the candlelight, menacing daggers of light in her darkly shadowed face. She looked to him like some wild animal lurking in the dark and waiting to attack. Merimac shifted uneasily but did not shrink. She shook her head in disgust. “I can’t believe your wickedness! He’s your brother!”

Then, to his and Paladin’s utter surprise, she plopped down beside them. Merimac stifled the grin that threatened to split his face and winked at Paladin who seemed unsure whether to be shocked or relieved. Esmeralda, however, did not comment and so they all proceeded to wait and watch in silence.

It was difficult to tell whether they waited minutes or hours. Time seemed to slip out of existence and for a while there was nothing but their breathing, the flicker of the candles and the occasional creak of the mattress when one of them strained a little too hard to see if anything had happened.

In the end it was Saradoc himself who told them that the anticipated event had eventually occurred. He stirred in his sleep and grumbled a curse even Merimac was shocked to hear. But it was Merimac whose cheer of triumph sounded first and loud enough to cause Paladin and Esmeralda to jump in surprise. Saradoc, too, started up in fright and tipped over the water bowl in the process. This, in turn, alarmed him so much that he jumped out of the bed and almost knocked them over.

“What…? What…?” he cried breathlessly, as he looked about him, disoriented.

Merimac could hardly breathe for laughing. The Tooks stood sniggering, Esmeralda hiding her mirth behind her hand, until Paladin pointed to the wet spot on Saradoc’s nightshirt. Merimac didn’t know how he found enough air to form the words.

“Really, brother. I thought that at your age you could control that sort of thing.”

The trio dissolved into more uncontrolled laughter as Saradoc frowned and looked down the front of his body, still too confused to understand what had happened.

~*~*~

But understand he eventually did. And ever since he had been keen to return his brother the favour. Saradoc looked at the basin of cold water, tempted to dump it over Merimac’s head, but dismissed the idea almost as soon as it arose. That was the kind of thing a sullen child would do. It would not be an appropriate retribution for the humiliation he had suffered. And in front of Esmeralda no less! No, a dash of cold water waking Merimac up after a long night was not enough.

Merimac shifted again and sucked in some breath as if in pain. Saradoc frowned. “Do you have a problem?”

“Yes,” Merimac growled in reply. “It’s called Saradoc Brandybuck and he is dreadfully annoying this early in the morning.”

“You’re having a good day already, I see,” Saradoc replied unfazed and forced his tired feet to walk towards the bed. “Would it brighten your morning if I stripped you of your blanket?”

“No!” Merimac’s outcry was sudden and almost desperate. The figure pulled the blanket tight until it turned into a taut cover. “If you as much as touch it I swear you shall never have a moment’s peace again.”

Saradoc raised an eyebrow in surprise. The usual Sterday-morning affection consisted of a threat or insult only, not a frantic exclamation that caused his headache to pulse even more vigorously.

“Mac?” he asked almost concerned, trying to remember whether anything had upset his brother the last night – anything more than Maramdas beating him at cards which was nothing out of the ordinary; especially not while they were drunk. But then, as he gazed at Merimac’s oddly stiffened frame outlined under the cover, another thought came to him. Perhaps the issue was not something that had happened last night but rather, this morning. The grin returned to his face.

He walked to the window and opened the curtains fully so that his brother’s bed was bathed in light. The icy water might come in handy after all. Leisurely, he then walked back to his brother’s bed and poked the younger in the back, hoping to distract Merimac from his death grip on his blanket.

The desired effect followed instantly. Merimac drew the blanket over his head and growled angrily at Saradoc to leave him alone. Saradoc’s grin grew wider and more vicious and he tugged at the concealing blanket. Merimac grabbed it with both hands, still trying to cover himself, but finding himself outmatched in his just wakened state.

“Might as well get out of bed since you’re already ‘up’.”

Merimac didn’t even finish his insult before he snatched the blanket from his brother’s grasp and disappeared beneath it once again.

“As if it’s never happened to you! Why don’t you just leave me be!” The voice was angry now and Saradoc could not help but feel very pleased with the morning’s events. He walked back to the basin and smirked at his reflection, while he traced a finger across the water’s cool surface. This was the kind of thing he needed. Too bad, though, that he didn’t have an audience as well.

Humming a light tune he lifted the washbasin and advanced the bed once more. Unable to resist the chance to tease his brother some more he called in a sing-sang voice: “Oh, Merimac… I can hear mother coming...”

It was a downright lie, but a very effective one. Immediately the blanket was pulled even tauter and Merimac’s head emerged once more. “You…!”

Whatever his brother had been about to say drowned in a surprised, half-choked yelp. Water poured through the blanket’s thin weave dousing the bed and occupant thoroughly. Merimac jumped out of his bed instantly and stood stiff as a statue and dripping wet from his belly downwards. His breath hitched and came out in uncontrolled gasps as he looked down the front of his nightshirt in utter shock. It took him a moment to note the now empty washbasin was in Saradoc’s hand and still he was unable to do anything but pant helplessly.

Now this was revenge. Saradoc grinned smugly, savouring the retribution he had waited far too long for.

“I seem to recall,” he said at length, putting the basin back on the chest and out of the way of Merimac’s certain outburst. “Once you illustrated a body’s – my body’s – reaction to warm water.” He turned to his brother to see understanding dawn on his appalled face. His grin grew even wider as he gestured at the mess that was Merimac and his bed. “I simply used yours to demonstrate the effect of cold water. And I think the theory is well proven, isn’t it?” He nodded at his brother’s soaked lap.

That did it for Merimac. His face darkened with murderous rage. Saradoc only just managed to make it out of the room and down the steps to the family corridor before Merimac latched onto his collar. His mother looked up in surprise at the sudden turmoil.

“What’s going on?” she demanded, suddenly caught between one snickering and one furious tween.

“I’ll kill him!” Merimac cried in a voice that trembled with anger. He tried to get past Menegilda, but she was standing in the kitchen’s doorway and blocked his way. “Let me get him!”

“First you explain what’s going on.” Menegilda insisted and pulled herself up to her full height so that she was level with Merimac. She put her hands on her substantial hips, making it impossible for him to squeeze past her. Saradoc stood safely behind in the kitchen and took in the scene before him with delight. No one could match his mother, not even father, when she stood up like that; strong, compelling and unassailable, like a dragon defending her treasure – the able Mistress of Buckland. He was glad that he was not the target of that fierce look.

“I want to rip off his head!” Merimac screamed as a reply. Menegilda turned to Saradoc, who was struggling hard to keep a straight and not too ecstatic face.

“He couldn’t handle a prank,” was all Saradoc could say before his face split into a broad grin that infuriated his brother even more.

“Let me at him! He deserves being beaten black and blue – and yellow and green and…!”

“Merimac Brandybuck, mind your tongue!” Menegilda glared at her youngest, her voice stern and angry. Saradoc bit his tongue to keep from laughing out loud. This was getting better by the minute.

“You don’t need him,” Merimac told her in a voice dark as death itself. “You’d still have a son and I’m the better of the two anyhow. Look at this!” He grasped his soaked nightshirt and shook it angrily. “Look at what he’s done to me!”

Menegilda dutifully looked him over from head to toe, while Merimac stood trembling with rage and too little sleep. His eyes were swollen, his hair too long and unkempt and his nightshirt clinging to him while droplets of water ran down his ankles. Had he not richly deserved this treatment, Saradoc would almost have felt sorry for him.

“Explain.”

Saradoc found his mother gazing at him sternly. The dragon had discovered the intruder. He sobered immediately. “It was payback.”

“Payback for what?”

“Whitwell,” Saradoc answered and sent daggers past his mother’s shoulder in spite of his triumph. Everyone had heard the story many times and Saradoc still found himself the brunt of the occasional joke over it.

Menegilda, still standing formidably between her sons, nodded. “I see.”

“But that was nothing compared to this!” Merimac defended himself. “That was a joke! This was pure cruelty. I would never have done this to him if he was… if he were… if….” he trailed off.

Menegilda looked over her shoulder but Merimac said no more. He clenched his fist and avoided her eyes.

Saradoc grinned at Merimac and, in his most conciliatory voice, explained to his mother: “He had a problem. I merely helped him solve it.”

“Solve it?!” If looks were able to kill Saradoc would have dropped dead then and there. “I’ll be in pain for the rest of the day!”

“You will not. Don’t exaggerate!” Saradoc told him.

“Let me spill a basin of icy water over your privates and then tell me if I am exaggerating!”

“Stop it right this instant!” Menegilda’s voice rose over their heated argument. Silence fell immediately. No one stirred, no one breathed and even the distant clamour that was morning in Brandy Hall’s main quarters was no longer audible. Menegilda looked from one son to the other and when she was satisfied they were silenced, she commenced in a reasonable voice.

“Let me get this straight. You,” nodding at Saradoc, “are still upset because of Whitwell. Understandably so,” she added before Saradoc could argue. “So you went ahead and spilled water…”

“Cold water,” Merimac pointed out.

“… cold water,” Menegilda repeated and Saradoc knew that the look she sent in Merimac’s direction told him not to interrupt her again. “You went ahead and spilled cold water all over your brother’s private parts while…”

“Mother!”

Menegilda shot another glance at Merimac before facing Saradoc. “Did you?”

“Yes,” Saradoc nodded, without the slightest remorse or embarrassment.

Menegilda shook her head, pressed two fingers to her brow and sighed. “You two will be the death of me one day.”

“Right now I’d rather be his death,” Merimac proclaimed and Saradoc knew his brother would be at him already if their mother hadn’t been blocking the doorway. He didn’t care. Right now nothing could overshadow his sense of righteous satisfaction.

“You realise this is your own fault, do you?”

Saradoc turned in surprise to find his father advancing on them. He had been too occupied with Merimac to notice that both Rorimac and their uncle Saradas had been sitting at the kitchen table the whole time. “That was a nasty joke you played on your brother last summer, and this was an equally mean retribution. Both of you should be ashamed of yourself not just because of what you did to your brother, but because you have enjoyed each other’s misery.”

Saradoc lowered his eyes and bit his cheeks to conceal his pleasure. Merimac said nothing, but his stiff posture told Saradoc that there were quite a few things he’d have liked to reply.

“I don’t want to hear of anything like this happening again,” Rorimac continued in a calm but stern voice. “You’re even now and if I see you,” this with a sharp look at Merimac, “even raise your voice against your brother, you won’t see the inside of an inn for the rest of the month.”

Merimac’s mouth opened in protest but Rorimac wouldn’t let him interrupt. He turned to Saradoc without taking breath. “The same goes for you if I see the ghost of a complacent smile on your face or you do anything else that might infuriate your brother.”

Saradoc nodded, lips pressed tightly together.

“He’s grinning!” Merimac squealed.

“Stop being a tattletale and get dressed!” Rorimac shouted and for a second father and youngest son locked eyes in silent combat. It was the son who eventually broke contact and sullenly stomped back down the corridor. When he slammed the door of his room, the whole smial shook.

Saradoc smirked contently and immediately received a slap to the back of his head. “You get yourself into that study! You’re half an hour late already.”

“Yes, sir.” Saradoc, feeling more pleased than was good for him that morning, took a moment to fetch two slices of bread from the table before hastening down the corridor.

He did not see his parents shake their heads in unison. Nor did he hear uncle Saradas’ amused comment on Rory’s extraordinary speech.

“You know that you were worse than the two of them put together, do you?” Saradas pointed out as he followed his nephew with his eyes.

“I was not,” Rorimac answered matter-of-factly and returned to the table to finish his tea.

Saradas smiled at Menegilda who nodded in agreement. “He was. If they have indeed inherited their father’s spirit, I can at least hope I’ve tempered it enough so they won’t pass it undimmed onto their own children.”

“Don't bet on it,” Saradas said and raised his hand in farewell as he walked towards the boys’ bedroom and called. “If you don’t come out of there in ten seconds, Merimac, I will drag you to the stables in whatever state you’re in.”

The door opened immediately, but before Saradas saw more than a glimpse of Merimac, his nephew shoved a coat into his arms. The tween looked hardly better than before and was obviously still boiling with rage as he stomped down the steps, slipping into the second sleeve of his shirt and buttoned it up.

Saradas bit down his laughter as he followed his apprentice. He smiled at Menegilda who still stood in the doorframe but had resigned from saying more. “I’d say they're as true blood Brandybucks as ever there was.”

~THE END~