"Stop crying," Alasdair says uselessly, once more, hand pressed against Arthur's bleeding gut. There is no bite left in his tone because it's hard to stay angry when Arthur's chest keep heaving in great, ragged sobs and fuck, the idiot thought he was going to die for real wasn't he? "Stop crying Arthur, I swear to God."

It wasn't supposed to be like this. By all rights Alasdair shouldn't be the one trying to comfort Arthur because he had suffered through a fair share of his own deaths by now and even if the fear never lessened it got easier to deal with but Arthur - Arthur had never bled out like this, had he? So here he stands, on his knees in front of to his dying sort-of brother, trying to tell him not to cry as he bleeds out.

"Alasdair," Arthur swallows several times and then just repeats his name. "Alasdair."

This is going to be the death of him, Alasdair thinks and then has to bite back a bitter laugh at the irony. "I'm here, Arthur, you big idiot, getting yourself shot at. I'm here, stop crying, I won't go."

"Alasdair," Arthur repeats, like it's a prayer and Alasdair has some sort of answer. God damn, but he is tired.

"I'm here." He squeezes Arthur's bloodslicked hand and keeps his dark thoughts to himself. "Not leaving." At least not until Arthur is well and truly dead and the crows come - but that is another thought he keeps locked up.

"Can I - ?" And hell what else can Alasdair do but nod? Getting the answer to his unfinished question Arthur lets his head fall forward and rest on Alasdair's chest. They stay like that until Arthur has gone cold and Alasdair feels his own throat burn with the need to cry. Whoever wrote those poems Arthur was so obsessed with needed to take their head out of their asses and get out on a real battlefield.

The sky isn't always dark when you die. Sometimes the sun is shining and the birds are singing and you catch a stray bullet and just fall asleep. There's nothing pretty about it, nothing poetic about the screams of wounded and dying mingling with the sound of rapid gunfire.

Sometimes death is holding someone's hand and having them stay.