#WELCOME TO FUCKING WEDNESDAY BAAAABES

[tanjir0se]

As the World Caves In--Part 1 of 2

Pairings: Rengiyuu Words: 2.3k/? Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Everybody Lives AU Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Canon-typical Violence, Medical Procedures, Blood

It felt like he was in a dream. No, a nightmare. Any moment now he’d wake up screaming, heart pounding in his ears until it settled back to a normal pace. Any moment now he’d be back in the mansion gardens with Rengoku by his side, wisteria on the breeze, warm from the sun and the sound of Rengoku’s laughter. All he could hear now was his own heartbeat, all he could smell was the sharp copper scent of blood. His entire field of view had gone red. 

Summary: Giyuu was fortunate enough to be on a mission just South of the Mugen Train crash and the site of Rengoku's battle with Akaza. Now he's all that stands between Kyojuro and death.

Thank you to @babykirara for the amazing header she made for me that I can't stop using to decorate my various putting of Giyuu in Situations

UPDATE: read part 2 here!

Giyuu rarely put much thought into where Rengoku was headed on his missions. Being a Hashira seemed as easy for him as breathing, swordplay coming as naturally as the ease of his conversations. As much as he missed their walks in the gardens, their one-sided conversations, the hot flush on his face while they sparred in the training grounds, the idea of Rengoku facing genuine danger was foreign to him. 

As for himself, quite a few times Giyuu had awoken in the Butterfly mansion, bandaged and bleeding and bruised, always with Rengoku waiting by his side. He’d chide him for his recklessness, extol his strength as a demon slayer, and offer to help him train during his recovery. Their positions had yet to be reversed. Rengoku was…well, he was Rengoku. The flame Hashira would return with a few scrapes here and there, but they were easily outshined by his bright-as-the-sun smile. It was easy to ignore them. 

Until it wasn’t. Until that day. 

Giyuu sheathed his sword and exhaled, watching the demon he’d just decapitated smolder apart, ashes drifting into the early dawn sky. He’d been on the case of a demon at a local theater for a few days when he’d received a raven with a letter from Rengoku, telling him all about the latest mission he’d been assigned to: investigating the Mugen Train. It never took very long for Rengoku to return from whatever mission he was on, so Giyuu figured he’d hear all about it once they both returned to the mansion. 

The piercing cry of his crow nearly made him jump as he was turning to find his way back to the mansion. 

“Backup urgently requested! Backup urgently requested!” His crow was screeching as it fluttered down onto his shoulder. “Flame Hashira Kyojuro Rengoku requires urgent assistance in his pursuit of the Mugen Train demon!” Giyu leaned slightly away from its shrill voice directly in his ear. His eyes widened. 

“What happened?” He gripped his sword hilt with white knuckles. Rengoku never requested assistance, not in all the years they’d been Hashira together. His stomach clenched tightly, nearly painfully, Giyuu readied himself to run. 

“The train has crashed just north from here! An upper rank demon has appeared in the fight!” The crow reported. 

All at once Giyuu couldn’t breathe. His throat clamped shut, chest heaving, and all he could manage through the strangling grip of fear was three words: “Take me there.”

***

Giyuu could recall only one time he’d run so fast in all his life: nearly twenty years ago. Cold air had torn through his lungs but he hadn’t slowed. He couldn’t. The more distance he put between himself and the strangers he’d been left in the care of, the more likely he’d find someone who would listen to him. He couldn’t save his sister, but maybe if he kept running he’d find someone who could help him save someone else. The last thing he remembered that night was collapsing into the snow, exhausted, throat raw. In his exhaustion he remembered seeing her standing there, watching him with her sad eyes and raven-black hair. That was his last image of her. 

He couldn’t save his sister. All his life he’d never forgotten that helplessness. Now, following his crow toward the ever-growing plumes of smoke on the horizon, he felt it growing in his gut again. Not him. Anyone but him. 

The sun was beginning to rise as Giyuu came to the scene of the train crash. Aside from the murmur of survivors helping each other out of the wreckage, and the distant crackle of flames, it was eerily quiet. Whatever upper rank demon had been here would be long gone. The impending sunlight made sure of that. Perhaps Rengoku had simply defeated the upper rank before the sun rose, leaving the battlefield in silence. He certainly wouldn’t put it past him. And hoping was easier at the moment than despair. 

A surprising streak of pink caught his eye in the shadow of one of the train cars. Giyuu jogged toward it, picking up his speed when he realized what it was. 

“Nezuko.” he said stupidly, finding it to be the only thing he could think to say. The blond-haired kid that was always hanging around her was kneeling beside her with Tanjiro’s box open, ushering her inside. She looked up when she saw him, her magenta eyes glistening. The blond followed her gaze and gasped when he saw him. 

“Mr. Tomioka--”

“Where is Rengoku?” Giyuu interrupted. The blond just shook his head at him, eyes wide with fear, and pointed toward a grove of trees on the far end of the wreckage. Giyuu wordlessly followed his direction. 

He heard the sobs before he saw anything. The sky was thick and hazy with clearing smoke. Just over a small ridge he found a clearing before a large grove of trees. The ground was scarred with slashes from a sword, footprints in a fighting stance, trenches were a body had been blown back by some great force. The dirt glistened with blood, for a moment it was the only color in the gray-brown haze of smoke and dirt kicked up from battle.

Giyuu stumbled down the hill into the smoke. The sobs were getting louder, his chest was getting tighter, he doubted he’d be able to breathe even without the caustic cloud around him. After a few seconds of searching, Giyuu’s eyes fell on a flash of yellow, bright as the sun. Rengoku. 

“Kyojuro!” Giyuu managed. Hope and relief carried him forward through the smoke, but he slowed once again when the full scene appeared before him. 

Tanjiro, on his hands and knees, looked up at him as he appeared through the smog. Tears cut sharply through the grime and blood on his face. Behind him was the kid with the boar’s head, trembling violently, unable to look at him. Kneeling before them both was Rengoku himself. 

“Kyojuro.” Giyuu said, ignoring the look on Tanjiro’s face, the blood, the smoke. Rengoku didn’t move. His haori spilled out around him, soaked from the waist down with a halo of blood. There was a long beat of silence before Kyojuro abruptly, grotesquely slumped backwards, deadweight, hitting the dirty ground with a loud but hollow thump. 

“Mr. Rengoku…!” Tanjiro whimpered. “Please, Mr. Tomioka, help him!” 

Giyuu stared, disbelieving. It felt like he was in a dream. No, a nightmare. Any moment now he’d wake up screaming, heart pounding in his ears until it settled back to a normal pace. Any moment now he’d be back in the mansion gardens with Rengoku by his side, wisteria on the breeze, warm from the sun and the sound of Rengoku’s laughter. All he could hear now was his own heartbeat, all he could smell was the sharp copper scent of blood. His entire field of view had gone red. 

“Mr. Tomioka!” Tanjiro was shouting. Giyuu wasn’t listening. He was staring instead at his friend’s blasted-open abdomen, an ocean of red pouring out from the mangled flesh beneath his torn uniform. Something snapped inside of him, the fragile scaffolding he’d built around his heart shattering into pieces like Kyojuro’s body. Not him, not him, not him--

“Tomioka!” Tanjiro screamed. Giyuu blinked and found Tanjiro had stood and was tugging desperately on his haori. “Please!”

Giyuu looked at Tanjiro and inhaled. There he stood between his friend and oblivion. If he did nothing else for the rest of his life, he would reach into that oblivion and yank him back. Hands shaking, Giyuu finally moved. 

Quickly but gently, Giyuu took Kyojuro--Kyojuro’s body?--by the shoulders and lowered him to the ground, where he hit the blood soaked dirt with a heavy and sickening squelching sound. Long ago, when his hands were too small to hold a sword and his body too weak to swing it, Urokodaki had made sure to teach him how to force a heart to beat, how to fill another’s lungs with air. How to reach into oblivion and yank someone back. 

Back then he’d warned him it didn't often work, even when done perfectly. Back then he’d seen that firsthand, as he’d uselessly pumped the heart of a lifeless body crushed beyond repair. Giyuu remembered the blood soaking through the patterned robe and splattering onto the crushed kitsune mask beside him. 

He couldn’t save his sister. He couldn��t save Sabito and Makomo. Kyojuro now stared sightlessly up at him, his eyes half-open and splattered with blood. Giyuu knelt beside him, placed the heel of his pale hand against Kyojuro’s ruined chest, and pushed down with everything he had. 

Immediately he heard the crack of ribs snapping, felt them collapse inward like twigs beneath his hands. Giyuu sucked in a surprised and disgusted breath but continued anyway. He had to. He counted in his head the best he could but kept losing count as he watched blood flow up from Kyojuro’s chest and throat and onto his hands, soaking his uniform sleeves. Even counting took huge effort; all he could think about was his friend’s voice, his smile, the heat that came to his face whenever Kyojuro drew close to him. 

1, 2, 3, 4–Ah, Giyuu! My friend, how nice to see you again!—6, 7, 8, 9–Hah! You always know how to make me laugh. I always enjoy your company. 

Panting with effort, Giyuu found a rhythm, bending at the waist to throw his weight behind each artificial beat of Kyojuro’s heart. All those kind things Kyojuro had said to him and he’d never returned any of them. Not for lack of trying, and he knew Kyojuro understood…Each silent upward tilt of his lips, each time he drew a little closer, handed him something he was reaching for without him asking, remembered his order at their favorite Udon cart—I love you I love you I love you—but he’d never actually said it. 

It wasn’t as easy for him as it seemed to be for Kyojuro. That strangling grip around his throat seemed to never lessen, and the harder he tried to summon the words to express what he felt, the further they retreated back into his. The tighter the grip became. He swallowed.

“Come on, Kyo,” he spat through his teeth and the tightness in his throat, far beyond caring if the boys heard or noticed his use of the nickname he’d never said aloud. “Please…”

When he reached thirty, or felt like he’d gotten to thirty, Giyuu stopped and leaned down, tilting Kyojuro’s chin upward, pressing his lips to Kyojuro’s and breathing into him. Kyojuro’s chest—what was left of it—rose with the breath and fell again. The air escaped his cold lips in a loose gurgle. Another borrowed breath, another rush of blood, another long and frightening silence. Giyuu came away tasting blood and resumed pumping his chest again. 

He lost track of time. For that matter he’d lost track of space, too. The earth had fallen out beneath them. In that moment the only thing that could pull him back into orbit again was Kyojuro. He didn’t realize that the Kakushi had arrived and we’re taking over, not even when Tanjiro’s voice managed to reach him again.  

“Mr. Tomioka…?” He was calling. Giyuu ignored him and continued. His chest was beginning to heave with coming sobs; they became so intense he could barely move or breathe. Still he continued. Someone else was calling his name. Still he continued. I love you I love you I love you.

“Master Tomioka, we will take over from here.” A voice said. His shaking hands were so soaked with blood they were beginning to slide off of their position on Kyojuro’s sternum. “M-master Tomioka, please…” Someone was pulling on his arm, pulling him back and away from Kyojuro. Giyuu set his jaw and tried to continue but the hands continued pulling into finally they managed to get him off of Kyojuro, though his eyes did not move from Kyojuro’s face. 

“That’s enough, Mr. Tomioka.” Tanjiro was saying. The moment Giyuu stopped yanking against him in an attempt to get back to Kyojuro, Tanjiro released his arm and let him watch while Kakushi descended upon the scene, his vision blurred with tears he hadn’t realized had been falling from his eyes. The Kakushi swarmed him as they took over, their training clearly much fresher than Giyuu’s. 

His breath caught in his throat as it ripped in and out of his shattered chest. Giyuu felt faint, he felt his own heart stop, ears ringing as if he’d just been in an explosion. His own ribs were imploding too. The cliff edge of oblivion stretched out before him, the reality of the rest of his life without Kyojuro’s smile. It was everything he could do to keep himself upright.

Through the haze he heard one of the Kakushi speaking. 

“I have a pulse!”

Giyuu blinked. To his shock, Kyojuro’s chest was moving slowly up and down even without his intervention. Each exhale brought a small flow of blood from Kyojuro’s mouth, but he was breathing. His heart, somehow, was beating. The world resumed its spin. 

“You did it, Mr. Tomioka!” Tanjiro whispered in disbelief. He watched them load Rengoku onto a stretcher and take off toward the medical camp they were still setting up. Tanjiro pushed himself into a standing position, wavered, tried to remember how to breathe. Beside him, Tomioka remained motionless on his knees, his face even paler than usual. “Mr. Tomioka?” 

He was surprised into silence as Tomioka abruptly bent forward and vomited onto the bloody ground. Tanjiro’s hands hovered uselessly over Tomioka’s back, wanting to comfort him, too frightened to touch him, too worried he might vomit, too. Before he could decide what to do Tomioka jerked upright again and stood, shaking, blood dripping from his fingers.

Giyuu was not a praying man. It had never worked for him before. But for one moment, exhausted and faint and feeling the world tilt as it attempted to find its orbit again, Giyuu allowed himself to offer not a prayer, but a bargain. 

If you let him live, I swear, I’ll tell him everything.

#DIDN'T I TELL YOU ALL I WAS GOING INSANE #WELCOME TO FUCKING WEDNESDAY BAAAABES #sorry babykirara i keep tagging you in my nonsense but your headers are so pretty and i Must put my Man in Situations #rengiyuu #kny #demon slayer #rengoku #giyu #AT THE RATE MY INSANITY IS MOVING PART TWO COULD ALSO BE DONE TODAY LMFAO #is it good? no. did i proofread it? also no. did i even have a clear concept of where i was going with this? no. #but! it's done and it sure is unhinged #enjoy my descent into madness #and as always...welcome to fucking wednesday