He swallows hard and tastes blood. It won't be long now.

But he gathers himself and keeps walking because it seems unfair to Kanan to lay down now. It seems unfair to say "In that case, I'll follow you" because then she's actually dead. There's this vague hope that he can't pinpoint that maybe if he just lives he'll be able to save her. He knows it's untrue but he can't quite kill the hope. Maybe. Maybe. His lips twist in a bloodied bubbling smile and he thinks he's spent too long thinking that to stop now. Perhaps. These few months, since she was taken. Perhaps.

He wishes he could just let himself die.

He wishes someone would come along and kill him.

It's the only way, he thinks. A desperate gaping plea that opens itself somewhere around his middle and gapes its way out through his heart and soul and belief: Someone, please kill me. He's done enough, he thinks, to earn it. He has become the type of person, type of creature that needs to be killed. Someone, please--

He manages to draw himself up against the tree and press both hands against the rolling coils of entrails and walk on, stumbling, vision blurring and darkening as he goes. Until all he can see is a blur of red in the path and he stumbles, catches himself again, stops looking down on it.

It's just a boy. A man. About his own age. Red hair and poor dress and red red blood spilling on the ground. He's still alive, Gonou thinks, even like this. He's barely alive, but he's still alive.

Suddenly, Gonou finds himself smiling. He can't quite hold himself up any more and he slides down, falls in the mud in a way that would hurt if he could feel pain any longer. He reaches out a hand, tries to drag himself closer to the boy.

The boy lifts his head. "Hell," he groans.

Not dead.

It seems like he has to cross a great distance to do so, but Gonou purses his lips, forms words. "Are you -- all right-?"

"I'm dying, what do you think?" It comes out almost casual, wry, expectant.

"What happened-?"

A long silence. Then the other stirs in his blood and twists painfully to face Gonou. "Fight in a bar. Couldn't prove I was cheating. Normally I could take him ... could ... but ..."

"You let something-"

"Girl distracted me," he mutters, and there is a story there, Gonou can almost taste it, lurking just behind his red eyes and reddened mouth. "Got knifed pretty bad."

Gonou takes a few moments to just breathe. The air tastes like rain and mud and blood. "You should have seen a doctor."

"Speak for yourself," he says, and covers his eyes with an arm and a laugh. "I can see your guts."

"Mm," Gonou agrees, and smiles, and closes his eyes.

The darkness behind his eyelids is textured, deep and thick and a long long way to go. He examines it with a lover's gaze, reaches for it, thinks: Soon. He ponders the pleasure of drowning in it. He wonders if she will be on the other side. Soon.

"Oi," the other man says, sharp and suddenly annoyed. He sounds irritable, as if this weren't part of the plan, weren't part of some sort of schedule he'd been trying to keep to. "Open your eyes!"

Gonou manages to peel them open at the command but can't focus them; all he sees is a blur of red, and he extends a hand towards that, so slowly he can feel each muscle tense with the effort, so slowly that he's not sure he's moving it at all.

It gets caught and grabbed in a firm grip. Gonou stares at fingers curled around his and thinks it would be too much effort to cry, and so he just smiles again.

"Are you dying?" The other man's voice is disbelieving. "Are you fucking actually dying?"

"I suppose so," Gonou breathes. He's not sure for a moment if the words are audible, but then there's a tugging on his arm as the red blur struggles vaguely upright. It's alarming and he tries to pull his hand back, but there's no strength left in his arm.

A long moment of silence and then another tug. "Come on. We're getting you to a doctor."

"No," Gonou requests, soft and pleading. He tries to smile, thinks he succeeds from the way the hand holding his goes very still. "No. Please."

"You--"

"I've done so many things," Gonou breathes, and now he's sure the words can barely be heard. He doesn't know if this person who is trying to save him -- a laughable concept at best -- can hear them any more. "So many terrible things. I wasn't good enough. I couldn't save her."

"Oi--"

"I couldn't save her--"

And then he is getting pulled upright and the world is spinning. He swallows sudden bile because there is nothing to throw up in his belly and he is not sure he would survive the process. So near that he can smell the other's blood and it sends a twinge in his chest that he's able to do that now. He never was before. His vision has gone dark and he cannot see but he can feel and hear and smell and taste with those senses snapped into a sharp impossible awareness. Red hair is brushing his cheek. Breath is gusting against him with an impossible hatred of life and scent of blood. He groans.

"Shut up," the man says weakly, and drags them both along with him, heading for a path. "We're -- you're going to a doctor."

It's a futile struggle and Gonou smiles again helplessly. It's no good. The other man is dying as well. He won't be strong enough to move them far until one or both of them dies. His intestines are dragging and he slides one hand for them, finds them by feel, starts gathering them up slowly.

"Shit," the man says, and a sharp gagging sound. "What the hell--"

Gonou gives up halfway through. It's too much effort, and then there is a hand over his, hauling it in.

"You aren't even going to be grateful, are you," he hears muttered, and he tries to laugh at it. "Shut up, save your strength."

He doesn't have any, he wants to tell the man. If you have the strength to save someone else, save yourself but then he doesn't think this person will listen. This is someone who was well enough to talk and walk and survive who had let a stab wound lay him out in the mud, after all.

The man drags him back towards what Gonou assumes is a town and they've barely got a small way -- it's hard to tell how much; they've only made a few heaving gestures towards it but it seems to have taken forever, or next to forever, to go that far. A stranger's blood is mingling with his own and he thinks that's all right. That's all right too. That's just fine. He won't go alone.

He never wanted to die in anyone's gaze, he thinks apologetically. I'm sorry, he thinks apologetically.

***

When the body against his goes limp Gojyo thinks he's finally -- finally, goddammit -- passed out because like hell he can make it far with this much resistance. Gojyo leans against a tree and swallows back appalling pain and nausea, then gathers the man's guts into a pile on his body and swings him up into his arms. At least nothing's dragging this way.

It's night and late and dark and raining and so pretty much nobody is in the streets. It's a shame, for once, that there's nobody who'd see him, Gojyo thinks. It'd be a hell of a lot faster to get this guy to a doctor if he could have someone take him. Then he wouldn't have to move around his own injury.

Stupid bastard, trying to just die in front of him like that --

He makes it to the doctor and nearly stumbles in the door. The doctor and his assistant are sitting around a table over some diagrams, sipping hot coffee and examining them. They look up with surprise as the door breaks in, then dawning horror.

"Hourin, I'll take that one," the doctor says. "You take Mr. Sha." He comes over and Gojyo's arms are suddenly empty. The lack of weight is terrible and he stumbles back from it, hits the wall, leaves a red smear as the pretty doctor's assistant comes over and puts an arm around him.

"Hourin, is it?" he breathes at her. "Ahhh, a pretty name for a pretty girl--"

"Thank you very much," she murmurs, and presses him down onto a bed, her fingers moving fast to cut away clothing. "Ah, this is terrible, did you wait to get this treated? That's no good, Mr. Sha--"

"Whatever you say," Gojyo breathes. "It's fine, whatever you say--"

The doctor comes over moments later and Gojyo finds enough strength to glare at him. "What the hell are you doing over here?" he says. "There's a guy over there who needs you more than I do--"

"I think I can decide who and what to treat," the doctor says. "And you're the one who needs help right now."

Like hell he needs help. This wound is nothing, it's nothing. He's survived worse. Somehow, he thinks, he's survived worse. "C'mon--" Gojyo struggles and it's too much effort; he can feel himself about to pass out and he curses it because if he didn't have this wound, maybe he could be faster, maybe he could go over there and shout at this stranger until he opens green eyes and smiles again, maybe he could--

"There's nothing I can do," the doctor says. He nods to Hourin, gets out materials to stitch him up and painkillers and all those other things doctors like to do. "He's gone, Mr. Sha. Let me take care of you."

He's gone?

It seems impossible, a million things passing through a dizzying head that's grown heavy and dark and fucking bloodloss he thinks and he's gone? he thinks and images of books and frogs and nonsense things makes him think he's got a chill on top of the injury and he imagines a thoughtful cunning smile he's never seen and thinks You're an idiot and you cause me so much trouble, did you know that and thinks What the hell are you doing, going without me? Didn't we talk about this and he's sick, he thinks, he's sick with these things and doesn't know what he's thinking or doing or saying; he just knows that it's wrong.

As consciousness fades, as he starts to pass out, he struggles to stay awake and tells the doctor in as sharp and annoyed a tone as he can dig out of his scrambled hurting guts, "Gone?"

"Mr. Sha--"

"Well, then, get him back."