Work Text:
Heavy steps meet plaster. Each second time with a thud, the other with a squelch.
It would not take an observant bystander to notice that something was wrong with the figure staggering down the dimly-lit street.
But there is no bystander at all. The streets are desolate and dead this night.
Fortune favours him at least in this regard — or perhaps it doesn't truly.
If you asked him, it would. His friend, on the other hand... His friend would perhaps prefare there was someone to see, someone to help. Though if said someone would help...
Perhaps it is truly better this way; alone.
A lantern flickers, it's life reflected in the line of bootprints, a meandering line consisting of eachs econd step. The man flinches. The light expires with a hiss. All traces of his life are consumed by the shadows.
As is the man himself.
One right boot at a time, the trail follows his path to an alleyway, lacking even the light of grimy lantern fifteen yards away.
His right hand finds the rough concrete wall to steady himself as he stumbles. The man looks down, finding nothing but his own two booted feet.
He smiles. There is no joy in it, to tell the truth. It expresses a ceetain misery, a certain acceptance of the situation.
Where his fingertips meet the wall, they stain it's once-white pores dark. A change visible even with only the desperate moonlight above, where it fights to escape the clouds.
It falls. It surrenders.
The world is a dark place without it.
It is a world dark enough and grim that not even the slurred line of dragged blood — for that is what it is — can be seen on light wall.
The man, too, is losing his fight.
He looks through the narrow gap in the houses and at the toiling clouds where the moon once was.
Every blink of his eyes is longer than the one coming before and with every pulse of blood the side of his shredded costume grows wetter, overflows. It follows the curve of waist and beneath his soaked waistband, pooling around his feet.
With every pulse of blood leaving his veins, the man sways in place.
His arm slips from the wall, his shoulder meets it instead, then his back as the man slides down.
A grimace contorts the muscles of his face as the wound in his side is jostled.
He thinks he should learned his lesson by now, as he breathes through the pain. He should truly just bolt when Incense is in any way involved in the fight.
A soft thud sounds out as the man's head connects with the wall. His eyes stare upwards, a breath whistles sharp through his half-parted teeth.
He should get home, he should patch himself up.
Two steps.
'Two steps', the man repeats in his head.
Two steps to survive this.
And after that, he'll just have to wait until Incense's ability wears of.
He has one shot at this.
'Move!", the man's mind screams at him, but for all his mind's effort, his body is filled with lead.
'Would Feinberg understand?', The man wonders as his eyes droop and fall shut.
Feinberg was in a hero programm. He might arrest him. Would Fein break the law for him? But he isn't wearing his gear. Fenberg wouldn't have to know. But how would he explain his injuries?
His thoughts can't seem to get a grasp of things.
He missed their movie evening, the man realizes suddenly.
The fight had come upon him, hadn't even left him notice to put on his gear, not as if he had any with him to begin with.
Regret sting in his eyes.
He might never make it back.
Numbness has spread through his fingers, he fumbles as he pulls out his phone. It blinds him, brighter than the moon coukd ever hope to be.
It illuminates the bloody fingerprints he leaves on the display, mistyping his passcode with clumsy fingers once, twice, thrice, then stares at it until he is allowed to suceed on his first try.
His clumsy fingers find the phone app, Feinberg's name the last call and so too the six before that and perhaps more, filling up the entire screen.
All of them were missed.
Feinberg tried to call him.
The sudden stab of guilt makes his tears flow; they blurr the screen as he hits the call button.
He makes the futile attenpt to blink away his tears, eyes staying shut for longer and longer with every flutter of his lashes, with every ring of the phone.
Phone hanging limp in his grip, the man's head tips forward and onto his probbed-up knees.
A voice rings through the phone, that drops and clatters onto the stonefloor as the man flinches.
"Couri?", Feinberg's sleepy voice sounds quietly.
As he receives no answer, Feinberg tries again, more awake, almost angry, "Couri? It's —", Feinberg checks the time, "it's 3 am! Are you still not back?"
A note of concern mixes into his voice.
Couriway stares at the display beside him. Impossibly far away. He can't reach it, can't mive his arms to pick it up.
Like the phone before him, Couri falls, landing curled on his side, head resting on the floor beside the display.
"Couri!", Feinberg asks again, shouts, wide awake and worried even more.
The numbness has spread to Couriway's lips and tongue, quietening his words as he says, whispers, "I'm sorry."
"There you are!", Feinberg answers. Couri feels guilty hearing the relief in his voice.
He wonders if Feinberg knows that he is listening to Couri die.
"I'm really sorry", he has to take a pause and breathe, "for wakin' you up. An' sorry for missin' movie night."
Feinberg huffs on the other side of the line.
The apartment isn't that far away, a few blocks, four or three or two, or perhaps Couri is bleediing out beside his own apartment building.
"Yeah dude, that was really shitty of you", Feinberg says. "And like, why, anyway?"
Couri takes one moment to realize the question would take another to think about his answer, but his mouth decides for him.
"Got caught up with", he can't seem to get enough air into his lungs, "Incence'n Fros'bite'n stuff."
That seems to alert Feinberg in a way nothing else has. "Couri?", he asks, alarmed.
"Hm?"
"Couri, where are you?!"
"Mmm? Dunno...'m tired, Fein...", he's so sleepy. And cold. The floor is uncomfortable. He wants his bed, his blanket, to cuddle on the couch.
"Couri!", Fein shouts, ripping Couriway outnof his thoughts again.
"You're hurt, why didn't you say something?"
Feinberg is mad in the way that means he's really concerned, but he's still mad, and Couri flinches at the harshness of its words. Knowing that Feinberg just is like that doens't help, always.
There's a reason he never had many friends.
"Couri?", now he just sounds scared. "Couri? Answer me please?"
"I'm tracking your phone."
Rustling.
"I'm coming, okay? Just— just hold on for me. I'm coming, I'll be right there."
A door shuts.
"Stay awake, you hear me?", Feinberg order or pleads, Couri can't seem to make out Fein's voice.
He hums anyway, if only to calm Fein on the other side of the phone.
"Good. Stay— stay that way, Couri. Stay awake for me."
He hears that last part twice. Another trick of his imagination until a hand grabs him by the shoulder.
Couri startles, blinks. Finds Feinberg looking back, without his glasses, without shoes. Phone slowly lowering from his ear and first aid jit in the other.
"I'm here", Feinberg says, brushing hair away from Couri's face, "I've got you."
Couri passes out.