He had vague memories of waking up with the breath being crushed out of him, of flailing his way to freedom ready to berate his brother for the tight grip, and of the reproachful words dying on his tongue before he could speak them. The memory became clearer as he’d focused on his twin’s face, blood smeared across one cheek with tear tracks cleaving through it, looking like he’d seen a ghost who didn’t double as a light fixture.

It was with perfect clarity that he remembered starting upright and pawing at Ingo’s uniform, trying wildly to figure out what had happened-- where he was hurt and how to put things right-- stilling only when his twin took his face between bloodied hands and stared in something approaching awe. He hadn’t seemed to know whether to collapse against Emmet or trap him against his chest again, and had ended up freezing where he’d sat, taking back one hand to hide behind as his form heaved with stifled sobs.

Though Emmet had no way to recall those moments in which Ingo had gathered him up and let his limp head rest against a shoulder, he subconsciously mirrored it now. His twin drawn close, he could hear the labored breathing begin to falter, and forced himself to remain calm.

This could go down one of two tracks, and while he believed with his whole heart that they would be alright upon reaching the next station, he was currently staring down his greatest fear:

He had ridden alongside death, and they had departed at separate stops, but Emmet was horribly, horribly worried that Ingo wouldn’t be afforded that same grace. Since the day he’d failed to arrive at a final terminal, the thought had lingered in the back of his mind-- what was he supposed to do if they were so permanently separated? Emmet quite literally did not know life before his brother, and the thought that he might be left indefinitely as half of a whole was terrifying.

A feeble wheeze roused him from his spiral, and he carefully smoothed the hair away from where it stuck to Ingo’s face. It wasn’t what he’d hoped for when he’d finally made it to Hisui, but if this was it, it… would be enough? That was a ridiculous thought. It wouldn’t be enough, but it would have to be. Cloistered away in the back of the Pearl Clan’s medical tent, he’d taken every fleeting moment of consciousness to assure his twin that he wasn’t alone anymore, that, even torn apart, he’d been so immeasurably loved, that it would be okay, it would stop hurting soon.

There was no denying the fact that Ingo would die within the day. If his fate weren’t so uncertain, it might have been comforting-- one way or another, the poison-that-wasn’t-a-poison destroying his body would be forced to halt in its tracks. That he was sleeping now was a mercy, and if that clemency held out, he would still be asleep when his heart stopped.

The wound that had taken Emmet’s life was a blur at best, but it hadn’t so much as twinged when he’d rejoined the living world. Maybe he’d been distracted by his belief that the blood covering the both of them was Ingo’s, but that assumption had to have started somewhere, didn’t it? He hadn’t noticed that he’d been injured in the first place, and hadn’t been injured upon regaining consciousness, so when-- when-- Ingo woke back up, he logically wouldn’t be in any pain either.

One whistling breath wound down. There wasn’t another waiting beyond it.

Half out of sympathy and half from nerves, Emmet also held his breath.

He didn’t know how long he’d been dead. He’d never been that curious, and had known asking would disturb Ingo far more than the detail was worth, so Emmet had been content to leave it a mystery. While hindsight didn’t exactly make him regret the decision, the data would have been nice to have as a point of reference.

His heart pounded loud enough for the both of them as the minutes ticked by. In a morbid way, it made sense that the only time he’d ever been able to eclipse Ingo in volume was when his twin was quiet as the grave. When they were both awake and on the same playing field, he’d try harder-- he’d make it a proper competition. They had the same lungs; there was no reason that Ingo should possess the inherent ability to drown him out. He just had to believe that he’d get the opportunity to prove it.

Once Emmet could no longer bear the silence, he buried his face into the crook of his brother’s neck and told him that that was enough. It was time to wake up, now.

Ingo ignored him, but did helpfully snore against the top of his head.

Emmet didn’t consider himself a vindictive man. At no point in this process did he think to himself, ‘I hated waking up in a human vise grip, so I’d better pay it forward,’ but his arms hadn’t seemed to receive that bulletin. The next wheeze to reach him wasn’t a painful gasp for air, but a somewhat more comical, “’met. Can’tbreathe.”

Hm. What a conundrum. Someone really ought to do something about that.

Not Emmet, though. He was far too busy to even consider it.

There was a light bonk against his skull and, reluctantly, he relaxed his grip.

“You’re awake.” He said, and moved to retaliate.

 He caught a flash of upturned lips before their foreheads knocked together.

“I’m awake.” Ingo agreed, voice just shy of indulgent.

“I found you.”

“You found me.”

“I--” Voice cracking, Emmet gave a low keen, closing his eyes and collapsing forward. He’d been so scared, so scared, and now that the danger had passed, he wasn’t entirely what to do with the grief waiting in the wings. His breathing shuddered, and a warm, consoling hand laid over the back of his neck.

Finally, he gathered the willpower to gasp out, “I missed you.”

The day he’d died, Emmet lost one fear and gained another.

Today, he’d faced it and found another, smaller fear hiding beneath.

“I missed you.”

Never mind. His concern had been addressed.

Hisui had better watch out, because Emmet was officially fearless.