the pimple and the miller's boy

its only one chapter fam

It was... what, twelve o'clock in the morning? Possibly later. It was certainly late at night. Too late to be drinking, definitely, and too late to be drinking with Ted. The dullard was swaying in his chair. Though, Lotho couldn't really talk— he was equally drunk.

Lotho sighed, sticking his hand in his waistcoat's breast-pocket to feel the smooth silver surface of his pocket-watch. He fumbled for a few seconds, before pulling it out of his pocket and flicking it open, trying to focus on the hands and numbers.

"Yavanna's sake... it's a quarter 'til two, Ted. My mother's going to riot." The Sackville-Baggins groaned, rubbing the spot between his eyes.

"Whassat matter for, Pimple? 'Ee ain't ever cared about your mum tellin' you off. Just like I don't care about my pa's fussin'." Ted snorted.

Lotho sniffed, bristling at the degrading nickname. "Silence, Sandyman. You're lucky I tolerate you."

"I'm thinkin' it's the other way around," Ted snickered, a noise of pain and complaint leaving him when he got a hard thump upside his head, knocking his hat off.

"I'm going home," Lotho began, trying to sober himself up, going to push his chair back and stand up. "You can pay for the drinks, as usual."

"Now now, Mr. Lotho," Ted grinned sleazily, gripping Lotho's wrist with his calloused, unkind hand. "Don't 'ee think 'ee should pay for your own? And besides, it's rather late to be skippin' on home. The Green Dragon's an inn for a reason."

"Ted, if I don't go home tonight, I'll get my head gnawed off tomorrow."

Ted just made some odd rumbling noise in his throat, and tightened his grip.

"Let go, Sandyman. That's an order," Lotho hissed, his voice slurring.

"Since when did I listen to the likes of your kind? I'm not your gard'ner or butler," Ted guffawed. "Stay, Pimple. If not to drink, then to get away from that slag of a mother, eh?"

"Don't speak about my mother that way, you boorish hooligan," Lotho spoke through gritted teeth, wrenching his hand away and thumping Ted on the head again.

Ted stood up rather abruptly, getting all in Lotho's space. A couple stragglers still at the bar looked over at the sound of mugs rattling and chairs harshly scraping the floor.

"Quit doin' that, 'fore I hit you back, dandy," he sounded fierce, and Lotho flinched visibly. Ted wasn't scary necessarily, but he was a very brutish lad who had been in a few bar fights, in comparison to Lotho's zero. Lotho had witnessed some of Ted's squabbles himself, and they weren't pretty, that was for certain.

"Apologies, apologies," Lotho folded immediately, holding his hands up beside his chest, trying to placate. A slight thrill went through him at the tense silence that followed, Ted's finger pushing into his chest and the miller boy's smoldering anger. Perhaps he shouldn't be thinking or feeling that way about another lad. Wasn't very proper of him.

He looked over at the windows in front, noting the very obvious late hour.

Did he really want to walk home, drunk and tired, and then get chewed out by Lobelia?

...No, he truly didn't want to deal with all of that. And the sound of a night at the inn was becoming increasingly more appealing. Lotho sighed, and looked at Ted.

"I'll stay. Not because I enjoy your company, I just don't want to walk home right now."

Ted just chuckled quietly, backing away and slumping back down in his seat, picking up his pipe. "Coward," he chortled, taking a puff of the Longbottom leaf in his pipe.