TANGLE
Milo Burrows knows that of all the trouble he could ever bother to sidle up to, his first cousin Merimac Brandybuck is just that. Moreover and lately, with the added influence of his older cousin Paladin Took, Merimac has graduated to the exalted ranks of Trouble. And Milo, while not adverse to a good row, is not the type to generally go looking for disturbance.
Nevertheless, disturbance seems to be looking for him. Merimac is no longer simply that bloody-awkward-bull-through-a-crockery-booth teen cousin, and Milo feels it -- oh, yes, he feels it all too keenly. Merimac is not pretty, not really, but somehow it doesn't matter and Milo can't figure it out to save his life. Mayhap it's the way the lad smiles, one side of his mouth curling higher than the other as if he's laughing at some secret jape. Mayhap it's the fact that, wherever he is, he is there, so present and vital that everyone responds to it, even the lasses whom he ignores with the scornful manner that only a teen can muster. More than likely it's the way that, from the moment Merimac became aware that his anatomy could be used for more than a quick piss or wank, he just was instinctually and remarkably adept at making everyone else aware of it too.