*I don't own Jane and the Dragon or its characters

This was written as a request for SkyeElf. Not sure if it fit the prompt properly, but I tried.

Lying unconscious, I kick him.

"If you don't get up, I swear I'll just leave you there"

With my head over his chest, I look for that sound which comes natural to all, a heartbeat. I shake and slap him, trying to wake him.

"This better not be another sick joke"

Listening to his chest, his breathing slowed.

"Have you been drinking again?"

Pounding on his chest, I try to imitate that sound that comes so naturally.

"If you are drunk, I'm not dragging you home"

Listening to his chest again, Gunther's heart stopped beating, no longer taunting me with its sound.

"Don't tell me your dead"

His voice didn't ring through my ears, with a whiney voice he spoke of useless things with.

"Wow, you didn't tell me. For once you listened"

Those arms no longer swinging that wooden sword that had managed to smack my bum on to many occasion.

"Get up! We're not done sparring!"

Those eyes didn't look back at me challenging me to fight.

"This of getting boring! If you're going to play a joke, at least let it be something I can enjoy"

I sat there, waiting for them to flash open, telling me this was all a cruel joke, but after an hour I knew it wasn't.

"You know, I think you really are dead. Do to know? Well you must not since you're dead"

An hour earlier, we got into am argument like always, except the subject different. His foolish mouth happened to mention the word love, and I called him a liar. He called me all sorts of things like beautiful and pretty and more mention of love. I yelled, calling him a monster for saying such things vainly. Then he was about to say something when he clutched his chest and fell.

Thinking of it now, I don't see where all those foolish words came from, but what surprised me was that once he was quiet, he didn't look so bad. If he never spoke, perhaps we could have been friends. Or that he even looked handsome when not spouting out a flood of taunts, or that he looked like a prince waiting for true loves kiss.

Touching those cold lips, I kissed them, not knowing why.

"Here's that kiss you never deserved"

Perhaps it was once you don't have something it's like an emptiness takes its place.

"Now I have to find a good place to bury you"

Holding a limp body over my shoulder, I look for a good spot to bury it.

"You're heavy! I told you to stop eating all those red meats and drinking too much cider"

Burying his body, I walk back to the castle thinking it a dream.

"I'll wake up soon, and he'll be there waiting to spar"

Waking up a day later, then two, then thirty days later. It was no dream, he was gone. Going to the spot he was buried, I said "The truth was, part of me wanted to believe that what you tried to say was true"

I'll never know, he's dead to me, and dead to everyone.