These teensy ficlets have been posted separately on my LiveJournal, but I thought I’d put them together in one place.  Some are book-canon and some movie-verse, but all are lighthearted (and loving) glimpses into the ever-fascinating and irrepressible Pippin Took.  The ficlets range from baby!Pip to post-Quest and back again, and I hope you enjoy them.

DISCLAIMER:  Of course.  The characters don’t belong to me, I just get to think about them day and night.

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* Cousins *

"How do his parents keep him clean?" Frodo asked in exasperation.  Once again, he pulled his tiny cousin out of the enormous, nearly hollowed-out pumpkin, where the inquisitive hobbit had crawled in search of more of the delicious, orange-y snack.

"They don't," 11-year-old Merry replied matter of factly, "they've given up.  Uncle Paladin says he's never known a Took who was such a pure-bred rascal as this one."  He dampened another cloth and ran it over his cousin's tiny face.  Pippin laughed with glee and threw his chubby arms around Merry's neck, splattering pumpkin into his cousin's hair as he did so.

"Good thing he's so loveable," Frodo grumbled, "or we'd have to trade him in."

"Did you ever want to trade me in?" asked Merry in sudden alarm.  "I was never any trouble, was I?"

"Not a bit of it," Frodo said with a fond smile, remembering how little Merry used to crawl unerringly into the nearest mud puddle every time someone took their eyes off him for two seconds.  "You were a perfect baby."

"Of course I was," Merry said smugly.  He hauled Pippin back from another pumpkin encounter and held the 3-year-old on his lap.  "We shouldn't trade him in yet, Frodo," he said seriously, entranced by the child's sparkling green eyes.  "I like him."

"I like him too," Frodo agreed.  He wiped tiny, messy hands with their last clean cloth.  "All right, we'll keep him for another year then, shall we?"

"Another year it is," Merry agreed.  "You hear that, Pip?"

"Mewwy," Pippin murmured.  He curled up in Merry's lap and slid a pumpkin-flavored thumb into his mouth.  Frodo shook his head in amazement at how this tiny one had wrapped himself around their hearts so thoroughly.

"Frodo," Merry sighed, resting his chin on Pippin's soft golden curls, "we might like him even more in another year."

"I don't think that would be possible," Frodo said softly.