A/N: Okay, I really need to write something happy and sunshiny for this pairing. This ship is killing me.

Kougami had watched the crash take everything from Ginoza.

It had taken his mother, his father's arm, his father's sanity… until it finally took too much. His father had snapped, killed the man responsible, and then he was gone, too. Ginoza was all that survived. Just a small boy buried under the weight of grief.

He had yelled at Kougami, in a burning rage and choked agony, that he didn't understand. He couldn't understand what it felt like to lose everything. To feel left behind.

Kougami had pulled him into his arms and didn't let go until Ginoza stopped struggling, stopped screaming at everything and nothing. Hours later, in the quiet stillness of twilight, arms around his exhausted best friend, Kougami found himself wishing that he knew what it was like. He had two loving parents, a best friend that meant the world to him. He had what he needed, right there on that couch.

Ginoza was right. He didn't understand. He didn't know what it was like to have everything taken from him and still have to find the courage to live on. But he wished that he did - only to know how to guide Ginoza through the chaos his loss had left him in.

Apparently his wish had been granted. Years too late.

The blaring of a horn roused him from his sleep. He awoke to screams and cries, the air thick with smoke and confusion. He blinked slowly, the haze lifting from his vision to reveal the havoc the collision had caused. There were flipped and destroyed cars all around him, panicked people running this way and that as flames consumed a good portion of the vehicles. A strong urge to help the throng of wounded civilians coiled in his gut, but something in the back of his mind told him that he was needed elsewhere.

Kougami brought his mind back to himself, to his own car fixed in the middle of the madness. He was exposed, the air on his face and the cold metal beneath him letting him know that he was no longer within his car, but on top of it, the shards of his windshield sparkling in his periphery. He'd landed none too gracefully on the hood.

Ginoza had always nagged him to utilize his seatbelt more.

It took too long for realization to set in, his mind as encompassed in fog as the rest of the world around him. He wasn't alone. He'd picked up Ginoza after his shift. Ginoza had been right there beside him.

It was more of a struggle to pick himself up than he thought it would be, as if his body was feeling the full weight of gravity for the first time. The pain of the accident wasn't registering, that much he knew. The fact that he couldn't feel the pipe sticking out of his stomach was enough of a clue. His blood seeped from the wound and he slipped in it in his haste to get himself up. He had to find Ginoza. He had to see him.

By the time he managed to slide himself off of his perch, Kougami was immensely winded and he scoffed at the exhaustion that bore down upon his being. The metal within his gut was a nuisance he couldn't afford. He knew pulling it out wasn't the best option, but he couldn't leave it there. Gripping his hands around it, he tugged at the thing, trying to tear it free. After a few false starts, he managed to yank it out with a groan. It bled heavily, but he couldn't stop. He could manage, the hole wasn't too deep. He'd made it through worse. His numerous shoot outs and fist fights had led to countless random wounds, the number only surpassed by the number of arguments he'd had with his lover due to those incidents and his reckless behavior.

Dread filled him, but he ignored it as he finally lifted his gaze to check the rest of his car. It was mangled, especially in the back where an SUV had plowed into him and now practically resided in his backseat. But his worry lied not with his car, but with his partner that was in the passenger seat.

His limbs became paralyzed by the sight, even as his entire being screamed at him to run to Ginoza's side. The sight drew the worst from Kougami and he had to actively suppress the sob that attempted to wrench itself up from the depths of his soul.

The door wouldn't open, no matter how much he pulled on it, no matter how much he yelled at it. His own wouldn't either and it took him too long to find the solution to his problem. He climbed into the car through the busted windshield, ignoring the new cuts and scrapes that the action earned him. Ginoza wasn't moving, but he was breathing. He had to get to him.

The man that he loved wasn't gone. He couldn't die. That was what he told himself as he looked upon him up close, evaluating the obstacles in his way of pulling Ginoza free of the wreck. The passenger seat had been slammed forward, pushed in by the car behind him. Ginoza's head was smashed against the dash, his airbag having failed to deploy. He was glittered with glass and an alarmingly large piece of bone stuck out from the bicep of his left arm. The blood dripping from the dash lit a fury inside of him, but it was tamed by guilt.

When he finally succeeded in heaving the seat back, Ginoza let out a guttural groan and Kougami found that he could breathe again. "Gino, you okay? Say something."

"I told you that truck looked like trouble," he mumbled as he attempted to pick himself up from the dash.

Kougami chuckled lightly at the comment before helping him sit back to rest in the seat. It was broken, stuck reclined all the way back now, but the younger man didn't seem to mind. Kougami eyed the wound on his head, hating how severe the gash was and wondering how Ginoza had managed to rouse himself into consciousness, but he knew better than to question such things.

"That looks deep," Ginoza commented, his gaze zeroed in on the hole in Kougami's stomach. "You need-" he wheezed in a breath, coughing up a worrisome amount of blood that dripped down his chin, "a m-med…"

Kougami shook his head as Ginoza faltered, the latter's eyes rolling back as his breathing only grew more and more labored. "Hey, stay with me. I'm fine. We're going to be fine." Faintly, he could hear the sirens. Help was coming, but it would be too late. They were too far in. Ginoza would be lost by the time anyone reached them.

With immense difficulty, Kougami lifted his partner from his seat and dragged him out of the car. He got Ginoza settled beside the least damaged part of the vehicle before nearly collapsing to the ground beside him, the concrete yielding no mercy on his aching limbs. An extreme fatigue began to set in, sitting at the edges of his consciousness, but he couldn't fade yet. He propped himself up against the wheel of the car and gently pulled Ginoza's back firmly against his chest as he tried to let the man's proximity bring him comfort.

Tears crept into his vision as he felt Ginoza begin to lose his weight in the world. Kougami held his fingers to his pulse, desperate to cling to the life that he cherished more than his own. Ginoza's heartbeat was still present, but it was wrong, as unsteady as the flickering flame of a candle that had shown through too much darkness.

A cough jolted Kougami out of his worries as his hand was tugged from the other man's throat. Ginoza encased that hand with his own, squeezing it tiredly. "And here I thought I was done with car accidents. How stupidly optimistic of me." He gave a weak laugh as he held Kougami's hand to his chest.

Kougami found his voice, although he wasn't sure how. "Don't scare me like that." A beat of silence passed, stretched long until it was taut with the reality surrounding them.

"I don't want to lose you, t-too. I can't."

"And you won't," Kougami spoke, holding him closer. "We're partners, right? On and off duty, we stick together. We'll be alright." The tips of his fingers felt uncomfortably cold, but he cut the feeling off as he shoved his face into his lover's hair, nuzzling into his presence.

"I know I don't s-say it… enough, but… I love you, Kou…"

Kougami kissed the top of his head, a rare occurrence, since the other was taller than him. "And I love you." He laughed even if he found it terribly hard to scrounge up the weak, strangled sound. "Don't make it seem like a goodbye. We've made it through worse than this. And help will be here soon."

There was no reply and Kougami scrambled to feel his pulse, to hear a breath, to find that he had simply fallen asleep. When he failed at all three, he didn't dare restrain the grief that tore its way out of him. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. Ginoza wasn't supposed to die first. Kougami was the one that liked to play coy with death, that toed the fine line between dangerous and deadly. Ginoza was smart. Ginoza was strong. Ginoza was a survivor.

Nobuchika was his love, his life. He couldn't live without him. He couldn't breathe. His earlier fury burned into a rage. He wanted to find who was responsible and rip their throat out. But he couldn't leave Ginoza, he would never.

He could only sit there in his regret, soaking up his mistakes. If only he hadn't taken the expressway. If only he hadn't been late to their lunch date. If only he had spent less time at the station, and more with Ginoza.

If only he hadn't made that stupid wish.

He continued to hold Ginoza even as his own body began to shake and a slow, torturous numbness seeped into his veins. Through the haze, he vaguely heard help making its way to them, but it didn't matter. There was no surviving an agony of such depth. He wasn't as strong as his partner. He never was.

When sleep finally claimed him, it was haunted, as it always would be. He dreamed of whispered comforts and light touches. Of unspoken confessions and nights entwined.

Of unfulfilled wishes and steady heartbeats.