A/N: This fic was inspired entirely by this fanart: i DOT imgur DOT com SLASH 5kbx7ax DOT jpg, which is not mine. If you have a source for the art please let me know so I can give credit where it is due!
Justin is screaming.
Justin is screaming and Giriko can feel it in his bones and Gopher is staring at the priest when he thinks Giriko's not looking. Giriko doesn't care. He doesn't. He has never cared. There is no reason to start now. But the weapon is shrieking, the sound rising in intensity as he continues, and Giriko can feel it all along his bones like his blood is vibrating in time with the kid's voice and he needs it to stop.
It is Gopher who moves first, who starts towards the priest, and Giriko doesn't mean to catch his shoulder but then his hand is there, and he is saying, "I'll handle it," like he has some sort of plan in mind. Gopher opens his mouth to protest but Noah calls his name, low, like he can't be bothered to increase his volume, and he goes to her, and there's just Giriko and that rising wail.
The kid's hands are at the sides of his head, maybe over his ears, but it's hard to tell from the way he is curled in on himself. His eyes are squeezed shut over the eerie blue in them, his whole body knotted into a ball against the corridor where he collapsed. Giriko has no idea what to do, where to start with this. It would be easy to kill him but Gopher could have done that, would have gotten more amusement out of it that Giriko would, and something about the fold of the priest's spine and the anguish in the lines of his face pulls at centuries-old memories, so far back in Giriko's head that they are impressions more than actual fact.
So instead of turning his leg into a saw and tearing skin wide and red with pain, he squats down in front of the priest. The screaming is worse, this close, not just sound but the pain of vision too. Whatever shattered empathy Giriko has left is pulled up by the terror in Justin's face, the flinching fright around his tight-shut eyes and the tension in his arms and the protective angle of his shoulders.
"Hey," he says, but Justin's screaming doesn't change in tone or volume. "Hey. Priest. You listening?"
Justin doesn't stop to speak, doesn't react at all. Giriko reaches out, careful of possible blades the other weapon might produce at a moment's notice.
"Justin?" he tries. He's never called the other weapon by his name before, but he can barely hear himself over the shrill wail of the kid's screams and he's not surprised when that doesn't get a response either.
He doesn't know what Justin is seeing. He's seen some horrible stuff himself since the Kishin's revival, nightmare scenes that rival anything he's put himself through over the centuries he's been alive. But he can remember the panic, the way he'd wake up in a cold sweat tangled in sweaty sheets and not remember his name, or who he was, or where he was, or what he had done. Sometimes that wore off by the morning. Sometimes it was days instead.
He touches Justin's shoulder. The priest flinches back like Giriko is threatening him with a knife, turns his face as from a blow, and Giriko feels the closest thing to sympathy he has felt in centuries. At least in his nightmares he's the monster, not the victim.
"Justin," he says again, and there's no one around, Noah and Gopher have left him here with the broken weapon, so he reaches with his other hand to grip the priest's shoulder. "Justin, hey, Justin, you're okay." The weapon chokes, sobs, tries to shove his hands away, cringes back. The irony isn't lost on Giriko, that when he intends to hurt people they stand their ground but now, when he tries to comfort, the recipient wants nothing to do with him.
"Fuck, man, breathe," he says, and Justin tries to kick him away so Giriko has to angle between his feet, get in close so the priest can't get a good shot at him. "It'll be okay." He rests one hand against the kid's sun-yellow hair, steadies his shoulder with the other. "Breathe, kid."
Justin gasps in so hard Giriko thinks he might be choking, and then he opens his eyes. They aren't focused on anything, just wide and sky-blue and raw panic, but he stops screaming, and even if it's just in confusion Giriko will take what he can get.
"Hey," he says, and then because the weapon's still not tracking, "Justin."
Those eyes come to his face, Justin blinks twice, and then they finally focus on Giriko instead of on something behind him. There's no recognition there, just the terror of a frightened animal, but at least he's quiet.
"Ssh," Giriko offers, and his hand against hair is stroking in a comforting rhythm he doesn't remember ever knowing. "You're okay."
Justin blinks. His hands fisted into his hair loosen, his lip trembles like he's going to cry, and when he reaches for Giriko with a sob the chainsaw knows the priest doesn't recognize him. But the weight of a body in his arms, warm and alive for once, is comforting, and Justin is sobbing into his shoulder and clinging to his shoulders like he's drowning, and Giriko feels the prickle of sympathetic tears against his own eyes for a moment before he swallows them back, settles his hands on the priest's back, and murmurs "Ssh," against blonde hair.