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Reigen comes to feeling like he’d just been hit by a train.
He pushes himself up from the ground slowly, every bone in his body aching some way or another. The ground beneath him is hot and it trembles under his hands. The air had been knocked from his lungs and now he can’t find it again.
Distantly, he remembers. Even as his head spins and his vision goes dark for longer than it should, even as his consciousness wanes and his heart pounds feebly against his ribcage, he remembers.
“Mob!”
Mob is on the ground, both hands clutching his chest, the wind around him swirling and spinning with dark and white spirals. His eyes are wide and filled with tears, his knees dig into the dirt beneath him, and he’s grasping at his shirt as though it’s suffocating him.
Reigen stumbles to his feet. A dozen different pains shoot through his body at every angle; at his ribs, at his leg, worst of all in his head; but he grinds his teeth until he can’t grind any tighter and stumbles over.
He falls, actually. He doesn’t even make it.
He hits the ground with his body burning but then he opens his eyes and forces himself the rest of the way over, unable to get his feet underneath him again. The air crackles with energy. Mob’s demeanor hasn’t changed, but now his eyes bear into Reigen’s, and he sees horror.
“Sh-Shishou, st–st-stay–”
“It’s okay,” Reigen rasps, and when he’s inched close enough he reaches out, settling a hand on Mob’s shoulder. “It’s okay, Mob, it’s okay, just–just breathe, okay?”
It takes no small amount of courage, courage he doesn’t have, but he forces himself to ignore the burning energy surging through the air like electricity and looks into Mob’s wide, scared eyes.
“Sh-Shishou, I-I–” Mob chokes, clutches his chest tighter, lowers his head until his face is shrouded. “I c-can’t, y-you have to g-get away from m–”
The edges of his sight are collapsing in on him again. For a moment, he thinks he might throw up. He swallows hard, sets his jaw, squeezes Mob’s shoulder tighter.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he says, as firmly as he can manage. “I’m not gonna leave you here on your own. I’ll be okay, okay? We both will.”
But Mob’s breath comes in more ragged by the moment, and the energy around them reaches a crescendo until it’s too thick to breathe through.
“N-No,” Mob stammers, throat tight, voice choked. “No, no no no, I-I can’t stop it, I ca–I can’t stop, I don’t know h–”
Without thinking, Reigen moves his hand from Mob’s shoulder to the back of his neck, leans in until their foreheads touch and their eyes meet. He can see the tears very clearly, now. The lights reflected in them. The horror projected through them.
“It’s okay, Mob, it’s okay,” Reigen murmurs, trying (and failing) to keep the tremble from his voice. “I promise it’s okay. You aren’t going to hurt me, you aren’t going to hurt anyone. Just–close your eyes. Close your eyes… and breathe.”
Mob’s breathing is shaky, shuddering in and out, but Reigen feels him nod and he squeezes his eyes shut as tight as they go, jaw clenched and body tense. Reigen keeps his hand on the back of his neck, keeps their foreheads together, hoping that this will be enough to ground him, to bring him back, to keep him here.
“R-Reigen, I–I c–”
“Don’t say you can’t,” Reigen cuts in, and he shuts his eyes, too. The drowsiness is catching up to him faster than he can run from it and he doesn’t know for how much longer he can hold on, but. But.
He yanks Mob forward into his arms and holds him as tightly as he can. Mob’s skin burns and crackles like a bonfire, and the light swirling through the air is blinding, even through his eyelids and sends the pain in his head skyrocketing, but none of that matters.
“You can do it, Mob,” he whispers, a promise. “It’s okay. I’m here. Trust me, okay? It’ll be okay, we’ll both be okay.”
It takes time before Mob embraces him back, but once it does, it’s like pieces fall into place, reality clicks and spins like the inner-workings of a clock. Mob clings to him and Reigen clings back, squeezing his eyes shut against the pain, holding Mob closer against the nagging pull of unconsciousness.
But, he can do this. He can hold on just a little bit longer.
If it’s for Mob, he’ll hold on for as long as he needs to.