This was only my 3rd ever Lord of the Rings fic, so please be nice :) I understand these types of stories are not for everyone! So please, if you do not like the story, just close the page. If you don't understand why I write major character deaths in my stories, please read my profile page. This type of story is sort of a way to reflect how much Merry and Pippin mean to each other and what Merry would feel if Pippin left in a devastating way.

"How tall do you think you could climb?" Merry asked as he looked all the way up to the top of the tree they were currently perched on. Pippin joined him in looking at his challenge. "I bet I could get to the top of the top." He said smugly.

Merry held out his hand to shake Pippin's, "It's a bet then." They both smiled as they shook hands to seal the deal. "I get a week's worth of all your apples if you can't." Merry offered as they shook.

Pippin smirked, confident that Merry would loose the bet, "If I do get up the top though, I get all your pipeweed for a week." He smiled as he once again looked up towards the top of the tree.

It was actually quite high, higher than a Hobbit should probably go.

"Deal." Merry jumped off the first branch and landed on the grass, becoming a one man audience for Pippin's climb. He watched from the ground as Pippin stood up and adjusted his scarf and vest before setting his journey to the top.

Two branches up, Pippin had a little slip, which almost caused him to fall off, but he regained himself and smiled, "That was close." He mumbled to himself.

"Give up now, Pip!" Merry called happily, "You won't win." Merry place his hands on his stomach, rubbing them up and down, closing his eyes in bliss at the thought of apples.

"Mmmm, I can just taste those apples now. Ripe. Juicy. Gloriously red and shiny with the perfect crunch when you bite into it; oh, I've always loved the sound of the first bite-"

"Shut it, Merry! I'm trying to concentrate." Pippin playfully yelled back at his distracting friend. Pippin could do this; he loved pipeweed too much not to win. Plus the look on Merry's face would be priceless when he finally did.

Pippin pushed himself another two branches. Then it went to three. Four. Another three atop that; gosh, he was quite high now.

Pippin looked back down with wider eyes than he had started with. Merry looked much smaller than he had before. Pippin closed his eyes and slightly shook his head, clinging harder onto the tree. He had never known himself to have a fear of heights when he was younger.

'No,' he told himself, 'you're not that high up. You're fine. You're fine.'

Looking back up the tree once again, he noticed there was still a long way to go yet; it looked safer when he was down below. Trying once again to keep his cool, he breathed deeply and continued on, desperate for the extra pipeweed. Mmmm, he could almost smell the smoke of the good ol' plant filling his nose.

Merry stared up at him from the safety of the ground, watching his cousin's feet hop from one weak branch to the other. Hmm, maybe it wasn't such a good idea to get Pip to climb to the top. 'He'll be fine.' Merry told himself, 'Pippin's always been the better climber.'

Pippin was climbing quite quickly to the top and finally, after a few moments of competitiveness and crafty footwork, Pippin cheered in victory. "Yes!" He punched the air, causing the top of the large tree to swing slightly.

"Yes, yes, alright, Pip. Now come back down. Safe as you can." God, Merry was starting to sound like Sam, but he had that small niggling feeling in the back of his head that something might go wrong, but he ignored it, like he usually did, and smiled, cheering Pippin on.

Merry sighed theatrically heavy, "Guess you get my pipeweed for a whole week." Merry called up at him and chuckled, "You smoke so much of that stuff already; it's going to kill you one day." Merry commented as he watched Pippin's feet.

Step by step, Pippin cautiously stepped down the tree, his head darting from his own feet to his own hands. There was no way Merry could've done this; he was god awful at climbing.

Slightly slipping a few times, Pippin called back "Oi, you can't back out of the deal. I won fair and square! And if I die from it, I'll die a happy hobbit."

They both giggled, but the laughter was cut short when Pippin's feet finally deceived him and he fully slipped off the tree, only to be saved by the scarf he was wearing, which got caught on the branch.

Merry looked horrified at the sight of his cousin literally being hung by his own scarf and he darted to and up the tree as fast as he could.

Pippin flung himself about a little, trying to reach back up to the branch. Any branch. Anything that could save him as his air started to quickly run out. Pippin couldn't grab onto anything, and was just hanging there by his neck.

Merry never took his eyes off his cousin's reddening face in the tree. He didn't know which was worse, being hung to death or falling to death.

'No, don't think like that.' Merry told himself, 'Just get him down!'

Pippin's eyes started to become out of focus and had fluttered shut.

Merry's eyes never looked away from Pippin. Not once. He cursed his inability to climb! This is his fault; why did he have to make the bet? Angrily sighing to himself, he fumbled a few times and had probably scratched and cut himself on the bark, but it was worth it to reach his friend.

When Merry got to the branch that Pippin's scarf was caught, he untangled it from the trees and held onto Pippin, keeping him safe from falling and held him next to his own body.

But Merry could tell... he could tell that as soon as he unwrapped Pippin's tightened scarf that he had been seconds too late, as Pippin has taken his final breath just then. Pippin's chest fell, his limbs went limp and his already pale skin seemed ghostly pale as a cloud on a summer's day.

"Pippin?" Merry refused to think that his best friend in the world had gone. "Pippin!" He yelled at the lifeless figure in his arms leaning on the main tree trunk, shaking the body as if he would wake up any minute.

But Merry knew better.

Merry knew there was naught he could do, and that angered him more than he thought possible. Firstly though, he focused on climbing back down the tree with Pippin before anything else, making sure they were safely on the ground; and as soon as they were, he mentally broke down.

"NO!" He slammed his fist into the tree over and over, rawing the skin of his hand. He kicked it and yelled at it and hit it and did anything else he could think of. But when he looked back down at the body among the orange and red leaves, he knew it was in vain.

Nothing would bring Pippin back.

His back slid down the tree trunk as tears flowed down his face. He sat on the ground with his head in his hands before looking at the strangle mark the scarf had made around Pippin's neck and he couldn't take it anymore, he didn't know what to do. This couldn't have happened.

Frightened and alarmed by the raised yelling, Frodo had come wondering into the forest in search of the cause.

Merry looked distraught as his weeping eyes glanced at Frodo, who was staring at the new corpse of their late friend and family.

Before the burial of the body, Merry collected all the pipeweed that would've lasted him a week, and stashed it in Pippin's trouser pocket.

"You won it fair and square." Merry quietly told the corpse. Because that's all it was now; just a corpse. There was no more Pippin left... No more Pippin. It was only a shell of what he used to be.

Merry bent down and kissed the body's forehead as a last goodbye. His skin had become cold and even whiter; the memory of this devastating day would always be with Merry.

For his remanding days, Merry never smoked, nor climbed a tree again.