***Content Warning: Blood and Gore***

Velvety darkness gave way to crimson tides swirling in fast, angry torrents. They bite at Logan's hands, ripping him off of any purchase he manages to find. Swallowing him beneath their caliginous depths.

Every breath was a struggle. A battle against the suffocating, viscous liquid filling his lungs. Familiar bone-white claws gripped his hips. Flesh tore in canyon stripes over his pale skin. Logan tries to fight off the unseen aggressors to no avail. Fear killing off his willpower like a virus suffocating cells.

He chanced a look below, those skeletal hands writhing in irritation after every successful evasion. Every wriggle that brought him away from their grasping claws. Keeping them out of reach brought tremendous aches bearing down upon his chest. Lungs wheezed for oxygen they were deprived of. Over time, his body numbed. Muscles grew limp, weighted with the struggle he could only endure for so long. Exhaustion swept over him, pulling Logan beneath the bloody current.

Iron rode the liquid filling Logan's nose, his mouth. Slicking over his exposed eyes. He couldn't hear anything. Couldn't feel anything aside from the thick muck slowly seeping down his throat and up into his nasal cavity. Burning his eyes. His voice was absent, smoldered to forced silence.

It seemed to last an eternity before smokey tones paired with metallic ones. Unpleasantly burning Logan's throat, his nostrils, his eyes. Gunshots echoed through his ears, growing clearer and more precise as he regained his hearing. Bright dancing flames not far off scored his sensitive eyes. He blinked rapidly, trying to adjust to whatever hellscape he's just been thrown into.

Without warning, a large hand wrapped around Logan's bicep. A vice-like grip cutting off his circulation. It dragged him to his feet, forcing him to move as quickly as he could while weighed down by unfamiliar heavy boots.

"Come on, Thomas! If we get too far behind, we'll be sitting ducks!"

The man's voice was familiar, urgent. He surged forward, unflinching against the sounds of gunfire and explosions. Corpses being passed without a second glance.

Unlike him, Logan was coming undone. Each glassy set of eyes sank their opaque gazes into his skin like vibrating needles. Bloodstained the ground in copious splashes, reflecting the full moon ahead. Trees felled by explosives sent splintered shards in every direction. A last-ditch attack of the giants thrown unwillingly into human warfare.

Air barely came through Logan's windpipes, painfully frigid air digging its fangs into his throat. Harsh gasps produced brief puffs of gray in front of him.

"I-I can't! It's t-too…cold," Logan huffed with aching lungs. Everything hurt.

"I know it's hard, Thomas, I know. But you have to keep mov—"

Another explosion nearby interrupted him as shrapnel hurtled through the air. He shielded Logan from possible debris before the agonized wails of men sliced through the cold night air. Knocking against his skull in deafening tones.

"Fuck," the man hissed under his breath. He unfurled Logan from his embrace and continued forward. "Come on!"

Tripping over feet not willing to move, Logan followed. Despite his breath falling to stuttered wheezing and his body trembling, the man dragged him out of the light cast by angry flames and into the comforting darkness of the looming forest surrounding them. A few soldiers—comrades, rather—looked at them with confusion. Brows pinched at the duo heading away from the firefight. Actions towards their apparent desertion never came, enemy gunfire nailing the troops against the fallen tree they glued themselves to.

"Christopher," Logan wheezed with a familiarity unknown to him, "where-where are we…." He paused, a wracking cough shaking him to the bones. "The others….they-they—"

Agonized screams punctured the air, a misguided suture shouting prolonged misery. Entrails decorated the moonlit snow. That familiar face now twitching as death made its slow descent upon him. Another writhed as steamed blood spit from the remaining stub at his shoulder. He lasted only moments before leveling his pistol between his eyes. Logan sharply looked away right as the ringing of the shot echoed through the night.

Slime-drenched snakes writhed in the pitted depths of Logan's stomach. Reaching the backside of his throat and sending nauseous waves surging from below. Logan didn't know how he knew them all. Why he was acquainted with them. And, though Robert wasn't necessarily the nicest kid on the block, he wasn't bad enough to warrant obliterating his skull and the brain that now leaked from the cracks and crevices. It made Logan stumble away from Christopher, expunging contents so eagerly awaiting their escape.

Having lost his hold, Christopher doubled back, frantic hands gathering Logan into the multiple layers padding his embrace. "I don't give a flyin' shit 'bout the others. You're all that matters, Thomas. Everything else-it can all burn to hell, s'far as I'm concerned," he hissed, casting a cursory glance over his shoulder. His soft brown gaze turned a burning amber in the tones cast by the fires. "I'm not letting you die out here. We're going the fuck home, you hear me?"

Logan—or rather, Thomas—nodded his head, his tongue drying at Christopher's increasingly climbing tone. Instead, he focused his attention on moving his cold feet forward as quickly as he could. Scintillating hues danced on the snow as the fires grew distant. Looming firs cut out the stars and allowed only fractured moonlight through their voluminous canopy. It was dark. Quiet. Comforting closeness sheltered the duo from the battlefield lingering just barely out of sight.

Shattered at the piercing sound of a gunshot. It came from a nearby tree, the trunk at least seven feet in diameter. Perfectly concealing the assailant. But Christopher was quicker, dropping his grasp on Thomas and whipping his rifle out. An echoed shot fired in mere seconds after the first. Rewarded by the muffled cry and a body falling to the ground. Violently jerking before lying entirely still in the snow's frigid hold.

"Thomas," Christopher said, his tone softer, more gentle, as he helped Thomas to his feet. "We really have to move now. Try to run, okay? I-I know it's hard. I know that you're cold-scared. But, I need-you gotta try, okay?"

There was still an urgent spike lying beneath the smooth surface of his words. But tender warmth swam alongside it. Logan knew immediately that Christopher loved this Thomas. That Thomas loved him just as much. Jarring agony vibrating against his chest at the pain woven into those few words.

Thomas remained silent as he forced his legs to work properly. Step by hellacious step through pristine white snow. Gunshots from afar cried out behind them, though none came as close as that of earlier. He doesn't know how long they walk in silence, but faint light breached the horizon. Dawn announcing her arrival with creamy yellows and soft oranges.

Christopher stopped several times, considering their direction. Thomas could only concentrate on moving forward. Driving effort into ignoring the chomping aches devouring his feet and gorging on his calves. Sharp bites where the cold was punching through his heavy boots and freezing his toes. Still, he moved as swiftly as he could, forcing quick serrated breaths down his windpipes, stabbing his lungs.

Thomas's breaths grew easier to catch as the sun breached the horizon. Christopher was stopping more often. Leaning against the nearest tree and tossing handfuls of snow into his mouth. Was he getting tired, perhaps? Or were they lost? Thomas shivered at the latter thought.

His eyes wandered over the ground in an attempt to steady himself. That's when he noticed it. Specs of crimson flicked out against the snow. He knew at that moment that it hadn't come from him.

"Chris-you-you're injured!" he stammered, tears collecting upon his lids and threatening to pour over at the knife twisting in his heart. Dots connected quickly, kicking him in the gut.

Christopher sighed. "Just a-a scratch, Thomas. Leave it be."

"Where did he shoot you? WHERE?!" Tears cascaded without permission. Freezing in the thin streams they made down Thomas's cheeks.

Heavy shoulders drooped in defeat as Christopher turned to face him. He tried smiling, but it was weak and filled with exhausted torment. Light seen so clearly only hours before had been thoroughly smoldered, dark circles forming around them. Then, there it was. Blood blossomed from a potentially fatal blow to his abdomen. He'd been bleeding out this entire time, the heavy, winter-issued militant clothing the only thing staunching the wound.

"We have-have to take care of it," Thomas sobbed, lifting his hands to the soaked fabric. "Y-You're gonna die—" he choked on his words. "I can't lose you," he whispered, clutching the dryer clothing away from the horrific wound.

Christopher's lips tilted up in a sorrowful smile. A smile Thomas couldn't help but love with a vicious warmth despite the dire situation. Familiar, though Logan himself had never seen it. Home. Love. Life. It was everything to Thomas.

Christopher gently pulled Thomas's hands away, brushing his cheeks with a gloved thumb. "I have to get-we halfta find refuge first, you got that? Then, I promise-I swear we can take care of it."

Something in Thomas's gut told him that finding refuge would come only after Christopher fell to his wounds. Maybe it was the weakening of his voice as he spoke. Or the flames in his sweet amber eyes smoldering to barely lit embers.

"Jeez. You've always been such a crybaby," Christopher tacked on with a delicate smile. Ruffling Thomas's short hair.

"Nngh." Thomas couldn't muster anything past that hideous sound. Sobs catching in his sore throat. Choking him as fear devoured his heart.

They trudged through the snow-laden forest as dawn broke over their heads. It was hard to tell time with so much of the light being stopped by the monstrous trees of the ancient forest. But, eventually, a familiar base came into sight. It was theirs. An allied camp with medics at the ready. Finally.

Thomas couldn't stop himself from grinning ear to ear. His relief ran far ahead of him. "Christopher!" he shouted, elated at the sight sprawled out before them. "There it is, we made it! It's right there! Let's find a medic. Get you patched up and then hit the—"

A thump behind him stops his words on an arid tongue. Thomas slowly turned to see Christopher laying face-down in a mixed slush of snow and his own blood. Standing out clearly in the morning sunlight was a sickeningly thick trail of crimson. A groove cut into the heaped snow.

"No…" The syllable came out as a broken whimper as Thomas trembled. "NO!" he shrieked, running over to Christopher's still body. Skidding the second his boots hit the grotesque mush. Blood creeping into the fabric of his padded jeans and splotching his brown boots.

Thomas ignored all of that as he carefully took Christopher's limp head, setting it to rest in his lap. An action done so often in affection now in gut-wrenching horror. He grunted softly at the motion, giving Thomas a weak smile that froze on his lips. Thin streams of blood trailed down the corners of his lips, dripping off of his chin and seeping into the fabric of his jacket. A cloudy glaze slicked over his eyes, killing what was left of the embers that glimmered only a moment ago.

"Chris?" Thomas gently brushed his thumb beneath his dull, still eyes. "Hey, come on. Don't-you can't do this. You-you promised," he sobbed, his voice breaking into a sorrowful mewl. "It's right there, Chris. Right—" A choking wail sliced through his words as Thomas rocked back and forth, cradling Christopher's head. "Please…no, no, no…. Don't-don't…." he trailed off, tears raking down his cheeks in fast, grief-stricken torrents. "CHRISTOPHER!!!"