I Changed My Mind, Don't Wake Me Up At All
Feb. 9th, 2002 09:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gilascaveLast one! Then back to non-RPS fiction.
sequel to "Wake Me Up For Second Breakfast"
Billy knew he had drunk real beer last night, as soon as he woke up. The pounding in his head could not be replicated by the judicious application of cheap soda, or in fact anything except alcohol or lots and lots of really quality chocolate. There wasn't any chocolate in the flat, and there had been lots of beer, so he was pretty certain his vague feeling of having acquired his hangover the traditional way was correct. It didn't explain why the pounding in his head was coming in groups of three, with a pause in between. Or why it seemed to be coming from the outside hallway.
From the front door, in fact, Billy realized as he woke up a bit more. He groaned and buried his face in the pillow. Let someone else answer it. Forget for a moment it was *his* flat. He didn't feel like moving -- in fact he couldn't, he blearily realized. There was something warm and heavy lying on his back, which was too heavy to be a duvet and too small to be a equally-hung-over Dominic, but in either event meant Billy couldn't be expected to crawl out of bed.
He smiled, satisfied, and let himself drift off to sleep again, ignoring the triple pounding and what sounded suspiciously like a voice calling someone's name. Then the thought he'd had a moment ago wandered into his brain again. There was something lying on his back. Something heavy, warm, and it didn't seem to be someone he expected to ever be lying on top of him when he awoke. He opened his eyes, regretted it, and peered over his shoulder. He saw a mass of brown curls.
Ah. Pippin.
Billy closed his eyes and lowered his head -- then flung the naked hobbit off himself and onto a pile beside them, and was out of the bed and staring at it as though it had grown, unbidden, in the middle of his room overnight. Perhaps it had. That would explain the three naked, sleepy, protesting bodies digging through blankets and limbs, complaining about the noise and the trajectories.
What in god's name had happened last night? Billy searched his memory frantically, and was relieved to discover he had no idea. Not a single jot of an idea, and he was happy to ignore any evidence lying about the room as...well, evidence. There was the pounding again, and a voice shouting his name.
"Answer it already," Dominic muttered, rolling over and burying himself in the pillow, quilt, and hobbits again.
Billy fled the room.
He wanted to head for the kitchen and make a cup of tea -- or even grab another beer and go back to being too drunk to be held responsible. But he knew he ought answer the door, first, before the neighbors called the constables. He staggered towards the door, noticing along the way how the living room looked as though someone had held a party there, then forgot to arrange for maid service afterwards. He peered through the peephole in the door, saw a unfocused brown something, and proceeded to unlatch the front door. He blinked in confusion at his visitors. "Er? What?"
Elijah and Sean exchanged a grin, before turning back to Billy. Billy pretended he didn't notice Elijah's glance downwards. Bugger him if he expected Billy to remember to find a robe at this hour of the morning.
"Can we come in?" Sean asked, after a moment of everyone standing there, staring at each other.
"Sure." Billy stepped backwards. "Why are you here?"
Elijah laughed. "You forgot you'd invited us this weekend?" Another exchanged glance, and Billy wondered if he should throw them back out, if they were going to be right prats about waking him up, then expecting coherent thought.
"I didn't forget," he protested. "You were coming up on...oh, hell. It's Saturday, isn't it?" He'd forgotten all about it -- no wonder, what with yesterday. He moaned, and wished again for tea. Or aspirin.
"You all right?" Sean asked.
"Hangover," Billy replied. "Anyone want some tea?"
"I'll make some," Elijah said, giving him a sympathetic look, and heading for the kitchen.
"Bless you." Billy wandered over to the sofa, and collapsed. He pulled something out from under his butt, and dropped it on the floor without looking to see which magazine it was that someone had found worthy of marking up with a red marker.
Sean settled himself on one of the chairs, facing him, and gave the room a knowing look. "Had fun last night?"
Billy moaned. "I can't remember."
"Who's..oh, hi Sean." Dominic came shuffling into the room -- also naked, so there Sean and Elijah, Billy thought with triumph that it wasn't just him-- looking just as asleep and mussed as he had yesterday. Billy had a sudden jolt of fear that was apparently shared by Dominic at the same time, as they both looked around the flat rather frantically.
"Sean and Elijah? S'at all?" Dominic asked, sounding much more awake, and worried.
Sean gave them both a worried look. "You expecting someone else?"
"No. No, but we weren't expecting anyone yesterday, either." Billy looked towards the bedroom. He hesitated to ask if their guests were still in there.
Dominic glanced over his shoulder, following Billy's gaze with a perplexed look, before he stopped, and merely nodded.
"Who came by yesterday?" Sean was asking.
"Um...." Billy looked at Dominic, who looked back, completely unhelpfully. "That is--"
"I smell tea! Where's breakfast?"
Pippin came ambling out into the living room. Billy was faintly relieved to note the hobbit had put on a pair of pants -- then he noted they were Merry's pants. Then he realized he knew they were Merry's pants, and he decided he wanted his tea, now. Merry came out right behind Pippin, looking only slightly less awake than the wide-awake and apparently starving Pippin.
Sean screamed.
Billy and Dominic looked at him. Sean looked from one to the other, back at the hobbits, then back from Dominic to Billy. "The..they...the...." he managed.
"Merry! Look! It's a big Sam!"
"Where's Frodo?" Merry looked around. Elijah had, of course, come hurrying out as soon as Sean had yelped, and came to a dead stop when he spotted the hobbits.
"Ooh! Look, here he is," Merry noted. "And he's been making tea?" he added, hopefully.
Elijah looked frantically at Billy. Billy levered himself off the couch and headed towards the kitchen. "I'll get the tea. Anyone wants food is going to have to make it himself."
He meant it mostly because his head wasn't up to anything complicated like sticking something in the microwave and heating up food -- but also because it hadn't taken more than two meals, yesterday, to discover the hobbits were really excellent cooks. Eager ones, as well, and they'd needed no encouraging to take over the chore.
Merry was nodding, now, and heading his way. "Right. Breakfast for six -- or eight? Sam and Frodo around?"
Billy couldn't tell who the question was directed at, and when he looked around, he could tell no one else did, either. Sean and Elijah had gone rather pale at the question and were looking about the flat frantically.
Merry looked at them all like he thought they'd all gone off their nuts. Then he shook his head. "Well, they'd better be along soon, if they're not missing breakfast."
Billy heard a strange noise from Sean. He decided to ignore it -- if *he* had to deal with a short, hairy version of himself, then so should everybody else. He got into the kitchen and began pouring out tea, leaving two cups on the counter for Merry and Pippin, who had followed Merry in to help with breakfast. Billy handed one cup over to Dominic, then carried two out for Elijah and Sean. Neither seemed to notice when he held the cups out.
"Billy?" Elijah's eyes were wide, and staring towards the kitchen.
"You're not going to ask where we found them, are you? Because I'd have to say 'the kitchen' and you might not believe me."
Elijah blinked. He focused on Billy, and Billy found himself slapping down the urge to tell him everything was going to be all right, there was nothing to worry over. Instead, he sighed, and forced Elijah to take the cup of tea. "Drink that."
"Will it make them go away?"
Billy snorted. "Hardly."
He forced Sean's cup on him, then went back to get his own cup of tea. He took it over to the dining table and sat down beside Dominic, who was doing a fair job of pretending he had no idea anything odd was going on. He was also quite clearly nursing a hangover, so perhaps the moaning and holding his head was just distracting him from the hobbit-sized oddities of the day.
Billy thought he had a great idea, and considering joining him. He leant forward, and felt his blood pouring into the fore-parts of his skull, and found gravity doing the rest. Soon he had his head on his hands, and there was a soft moan coming from somewhere. Now *this* was more like it. Headache, tea, and no one was screaming, anymore.
There was the disconcerting sound of very familiar voices coming from the kitchen, but Elijah and Sean were walking closer, and their stammered questions seemed to be covering up the sound nicely.
"What happened?" Elijah finally asked, loudly enough that Billy realized he was expected to answer.
"Dunno," he replied, not lifting his head.
"Got drunk," Dominic supplied.
"We can see *that*," Sean put in, sarcastically. "We meant...what *happened*? How did...."
"How did they get rid of their hangovers?" Billy asked. Which made him wonder -- how *had* they got rid of their hangovers? Surely the little pipsqueaks hadn't held their beer any better than the larger humans. Granted, he and Dominic might've had a bit more beer, as they'd been in more need of it.
"How did they *get* here?" Elijah asked.
"Oh. Gee, never thought to ask." Billy raised his head, just a bit. He hadn't been able to get the question out of his mind ever since he'd realized they weren't hallucinations, but he hadn't got up the courage to ask.
He'd tried to get Dominic to ask, but Dominic had said something about not wanting his psychotic manifestations telling him he was insane. Billy had asked how that was better than being told it by a professional, and sometime right after that, they'd had their first beers for the day.
Sean and Elijah were looking dubiously towards the kitchen. "Why didn't you ask?" Elijah questioned.
"If *you* had hallucinations making you breakfast, lunch, dinner, supper, and a nice snack, would you risk insulting them with stupid questions?"
"They're hallucinations?" Sean asked, sounded both confused and relieved.
"We're hoping," Dominic answered.
Elijah looked doubtful. Sean glanced towards the kitchen again, a hopeful expression on his face. Then Billy saw him blanch. He glanced over, and saw that he could only see into part of the kitchen. He could see Merry just fine, but not Pippin. Elijah and Dominic looked over as well, at the same time Billy realized he was hearing more than two frighteningly familiar voices coming from the kitchen.
He lowered his head again. Aspirin. He wanted aspirin.
"Look! Frodo, it's you and me! Merry wasn't kidding!"
Billy heard a soft eep from Sean. He didn't raise his head. Beside him, Dominic whispered, "Wanna go back to bed?"
the end
sequel to "Wake Me Up For Second Breakfast"
Billy knew he had drunk real beer last night, as soon as he woke up. The pounding in his head could not be replicated by the judicious application of cheap soda, or in fact anything except alcohol or lots and lots of really quality chocolate. There wasn't any chocolate in the flat, and there had been lots of beer, so he was pretty certain his vague feeling of having acquired his hangover the traditional way was correct. It didn't explain why the pounding in his head was coming in groups of three, with a pause in between. Or why it seemed to be coming from the outside hallway.
From the front door, in fact, Billy realized as he woke up a bit more. He groaned and buried his face in the pillow. Let someone else answer it. Forget for a moment it was *his* flat. He didn't feel like moving -- in fact he couldn't, he blearily realized. There was something warm and heavy lying on his back, which was too heavy to be a duvet and too small to be a equally-hung-over Dominic, but in either event meant Billy couldn't be expected to crawl out of bed.
He smiled, satisfied, and let himself drift off to sleep again, ignoring the triple pounding and what sounded suspiciously like a voice calling someone's name. Then the thought he'd had a moment ago wandered into his brain again. There was something lying on his back. Something heavy, warm, and it didn't seem to be someone he expected to ever be lying on top of him when he awoke. He opened his eyes, regretted it, and peered over his shoulder. He saw a mass of brown curls.
Ah. Pippin.
Billy closed his eyes and lowered his head -- then flung the naked hobbit off himself and onto a pile beside them, and was out of the bed and staring at it as though it had grown, unbidden, in the middle of his room overnight. Perhaps it had. That would explain the three naked, sleepy, protesting bodies digging through blankets and limbs, complaining about the noise and the trajectories.
What in god's name had happened last night? Billy searched his memory frantically, and was relieved to discover he had no idea. Not a single jot of an idea, and he was happy to ignore any evidence lying about the room as...well, evidence. There was the pounding again, and a voice shouting his name.
"Answer it already," Dominic muttered, rolling over and burying himself in the pillow, quilt, and hobbits again.
Billy fled the room.
He wanted to head for the kitchen and make a cup of tea -- or even grab another beer and go back to being too drunk to be held responsible. But he knew he ought answer the door, first, before the neighbors called the constables. He staggered towards the door, noticing along the way how the living room looked as though someone had held a party there, then forgot to arrange for maid service afterwards. He peered through the peephole in the door, saw a unfocused brown something, and proceeded to unlatch the front door. He blinked in confusion at his visitors. "Er? What?"
Elijah and Sean exchanged a grin, before turning back to Billy. Billy pretended he didn't notice Elijah's glance downwards. Bugger him if he expected Billy to remember to find a robe at this hour of the morning.
"Can we come in?" Sean asked, after a moment of everyone standing there, staring at each other.
"Sure." Billy stepped backwards. "Why are you here?"
Elijah laughed. "You forgot you'd invited us this weekend?" Another exchanged glance, and Billy wondered if he should throw them back out, if they were going to be right prats about waking him up, then expecting coherent thought.
"I didn't forget," he protested. "You were coming up on...oh, hell. It's Saturday, isn't it?" He'd forgotten all about it -- no wonder, what with yesterday. He moaned, and wished again for tea. Or aspirin.
"You all right?" Sean asked.
"Hangover," Billy replied. "Anyone want some tea?"
"I'll make some," Elijah said, giving him a sympathetic look, and heading for the kitchen.
"Bless you." Billy wandered over to the sofa, and collapsed. He pulled something out from under his butt, and dropped it on the floor without looking to see which magazine it was that someone had found worthy of marking up with a red marker.
Sean settled himself on one of the chairs, facing him, and gave the room a knowing look. "Had fun last night?"
Billy moaned. "I can't remember."
"Who's..oh, hi Sean." Dominic came shuffling into the room -- also naked, so there Sean and Elijah, Billy thought with triumph that it wasn't just him-- looking just as asleep and mussed as he had yesterday. Billy had a sudden jolt of fear that was apparently shared by Dominic at the same time, as they both looked around the flat rather frantically.
"Sean and Elijah? S'at all?" Dominic asked, sounding much more awake, and worried.
Sean gave them both a worried look. "You expecting someone else?"
"No. No, but we weren't expecting anyone yesterday, either." Billy looked towards the bedroom. He hesitated to ask if their guests were still in there.
Dominic glanced over his shoulder, following Billy's gaze with a perplexed look, before he stopped, and merely nodded.
"Who came by yesterday?" Sean was asking.
"Um...." Billy looked at Dominic, who looked back, completely unhelpfully. "That is--"
"I smell tea! Where's breakfast?"
Pippin came ambling out into the living room. Billy was faintly relieved to note the hobbit had put on a pair of pants -- then he noted they were Merry's pants. Then he realized he knew they were Merry's pants, and he decided he wanted his tea, now. Merry came out right behind Pippin, looking only slightly less awake than the wide-awake and apparently starving Pippin.
Sean screamed.
Billy and Dominic looked at him. Sean looked from one to the other, back at the hobbits, then back from Dominic to Billy. "The..they...the...." he managed.
"Merry! Look! It's a big Sam!"
"Where's Frodo?" Merry looked around. Elijah had, of course, come hurrying out as soon as Sean had yelped, and came to a dead stop when he spotted the hobbits.
"Ooh! Look, here he is," Merry noted. "And he's been making tea?" he added, hopefully.
Elijah looked frantically at Billy. Billy levered himself off the couch and headed towards the kitchen. "I'll get the tea. Anyone wants food is going to have to make it himself."
He meant it mostly because his head wasn't up to anything complicated like sticking something in the microwave and heating up food -- but also because it hadn't taken more than two meals, yesterday, to discover the hobbits were really excellent cooks. Eager ones, as well, and they'd needed no encouraging to take over the chore.
Merry was nodding, now, and heading his way. "Right. Breakfast for six -- or eight? Sam and Frodo around?"
Billy couldn't tell who the question was directed at, and when he looked around, he could tell no one else did, either. Sean and Elijah had gone rather pale at the question and were looking about the flat frantically.
Merry looked at them all like he thought they'd all gone off their nuts. Then he shook his head. "Well, they'd better be along soon, if they're not missing breakfast."
Billy heard a strange noise from Sean. He decided to ignore it -- if *he* had to deal with a short, hairy version of himself, then so should everybody else. He got into the kitchen and began pouring out tea, leaving two cups on the counter for Merry and Pippin, who had followed Merry in to help with breakfast. Billy handed one cup over to Dominic, then carried two out for Elijah and Sean. Neither seemed to notice when he held the cups out.
"Billy?" Elijah's eyes were wide, and staring towards the kitchen.
"You're not going to ask where we found them, are you? Because I'd have to say 'the kitchen' and you might not believe me."
Elijah blinked. He focused on Billy, and Billy found himself slapping down the urge to tell him everything was going to be all right, there was nothing to worry over. Instead, he sighed, and forced Elijah to take the cup of tea. "Drink that."
"Will it make them go away?"
Billy snorted. "Hardly."
He forced Sean's cup on him, then went back to get his own cup of tea. He took it over to the dining table and sat down beside Dominic, who was doing a fair job of pretending he had no idea anything odd was going on. He was also quite clearly nursing a hangover, so perhaps the moaning and holding his head was just distracting him from the hobbit-sized oddities of the day.
Billy thought he had a great idea, and considering joining him. He leant forward, and felt his blood pouring into the fore-parts of his skull, and found gravity doing the rest. Soon he had his head on his hands, and there was a soft moan coming from somewhere. Now *this* was more like it. Headache, tea, and no one was screaming, anymore.
There was the disconcerting sound of very familiar voices coming from the kitchen, but Elijah and Sean were walking closer, and their stammered questions seemed to be covering up the sound nicely.
"What happened?" Elijah finally asked, loudly enough that Billy realized he was expected to answer.
"Dunno," he replied, not lifting his head.
"Got drunk," Dominic supplied.
"We can see *that*," Sean put in, sarcastically. "We meant...what *happened*? How did...."
"How did they get rid of their hangovers?" Billy asked. Which made him wonder -- how *had* they got rid of their hangovers? Surely the little pipsqueaks hadn't held their beer any better than the larger humans. Granted, he and Dominic might've had a bit more beer, as they'd been in more need of it.
"How did they *get* here?" Elijah asked.
"Oh. Gee, never thought to ask." Billy raised his head, just a bit. He hadn't been able to get the question out of his mind ever since he'd realized they weren't hallucinations, but he hadn't got up the courage to ask.
He'd tried to get Dominic to ask, but Dominic had said something about not wanting his psychotic manifestations telling him he was insane. Billy had asked how that was better than being told it by a professional, and sometime right after that, they'd had their first beers for the day.
Sean and Elijah were looking dubiously towards the kitchen. "Why didn't you ask?" Elijah questioned.
"If *you* had hallucinations making you breakfast, lunch, dinner, supper, and a nice snack, would you risk insulting them with stupid questions?"
"They're hallucinations?" Sean asked, sounded both confused and relieved.
"We're hoping," Dominic answered.
Elijah looked doubtful. Sean glanced towards the kitchen again, a hopeful expression on his face. Then Billy saw him blanch. He glanced over, and saw that he could only see into part of the kitchen. He could see Merry just fine, but not Pippin. Elijah and Dominic looked over as well, at the same time Billy realized he was hearing more than two frighteningly familiar voices coming from the kitchen.
He lowered his head again. Aspirin. He wanted aspirin.
"Look! Frodo, it's you and me! Merry wasn't kidding!"
Billy heard a soft eep from Sean. He didn't raise his head. Beside him, Dominic whispered, "Wanna go back to bed?"
the end