Gungrave, its characters and settings, are property of RED Entertainment and Yashiro Nightow. They’re being used here without their permission. This story is rated PG, and is set in Overdose.

A Test

By the time Juji returned to the inside of the truck there was only an hour or two of the night left. Soon the horizon would begin to warm the side of his face. He was beginning to forget what the sunrise looked like. He thought he remembered that it was softer than sunset, but he was having trouble recalling that, too. All that was left was the smell. When he was alive, he never would have imagined that something like the thinning of night could have an odor, but it did, just like everything else he’d had to relearn.

Everyone was asleep; even the guitar he’d carried in with him was silent. Juji didn’t know what happened to RB’s spirit when he wasn’t about but it didn’t matter much. He placed the guitar aside and moved down the vehicle towards its front. Mika and Spike lay sprawled out across the floor beneath worn blankets, and the sounds of their quiet breaths were enough to guide him away from stepping on them.

The scent of blood was still thick. It clung to the back of Juji’s throat as he continued, forcing him instead to trust his ears. They led him to the last member of their small party, still seated in the transfusion chair. Juji moved closer, not sure what he was intending by it. He was only…curious.

“Hey, Grave,” Juji murmured quietly so as to not wake the children. He stopped just before the man, tilting his head to the side as if he might be able to draw some more information from Grave’s smell or sound. “Are you awake?” He chuckled a little as he slid the points of two fingers across the cold metal armrest. “Well, I’m sure you are. Deadmen don’t sleep, right? Not really.”

Grave didn’t reply, not that he was expected to. But when Juji’s fingers encountered the man’s wide, gloved palm it twitched a little. Juji smirked, tracing the long bones of Grave’s hand up to his wrist, slipping beneath the cuff of his jacket. The skin was cold, but it pulsed with fresh blood.

“You know, something’s been bothering me lately,” Juji continued thoughtfully. He moved around the side of the chair, following Grave’s hand to his elbow, his elbow to his shoulder. His footsteps were slow and even. “You, mostly. I think I’ve…lost a little perspective. Do you know why?”

Juji stopped just behind Grave, and with his hand still against his shoulder he felt Grave’s head tilt back a little. He was listening. So he went on. “It’s you. I can’t tell myself anymore that I’m the saddest mother fucker around. Because you, man…you are downright pathetic.”

Grave still didn’t answer, but that didn’t stop Juji from resuming his slow pace around the chair. “I mean, look at you,” he muttered. “You’re a tool. A convenient little science experiment. You’ve got no soul left—hell, you probably can’t even understand everything I’m saying. And because of that you let yourself get used. Do you really think that girl gives a shit about you?”

There was a shift of movement, and Juji tensed as thick fingers curled around his wrist. The grip was tight, though not nearly enough to bruise a Deadman. He didn’t try to fight it; only stopped, just at Grave’s right. “You know I’m right,” he muttered, and if there had been bitter humor in his tone before, it was gone now. “She doesn’t know you—what you are. You’re just a means to her end. You’re not the one she’s giving her blood to.”

The hand loosened. Usually the sound of twisting muscles would give Juji clues to a man’s expression, but not with Grave. There was no point in trying to determine any kind of emotion from him. And it was precisely that which drew him another step closer. “You know it’s true, but I wonder if you even care. A man without a soul like you…”

Juji moved closer until his knees bumped against Grave’s; they were facing each other now, neither really seeing the other. “You see, I remember how you used to be. Brandon.” The name raised another stirring of movement from Grave that Juji considered a victory. “I know you don’t remember me—we never really met. But I heard all about you, Brandon Heat. You were a legend. I wish…” Juji faltered a moment, the sincerity in his words getting the better of him. “I wish you wouldn’t have come to this.”

He could just barely feel a soft breath of air against his cheek, like a sigh. “Yeah. I bet you wish you hadn’t come to this, either,” he muttered. He was surprised, though; Grave was actually responding to his words, and he was getting easier to read. If only by a little. He leaned forward and braced his hands against the armrests, just inside Grave’s elbows. Had Juji been able to see he might have considered it uncomfortably close. “Your syndicate is dead. There shouldn’t be anything left for you in this rotten world. That girl…she must be really worth something for you to come back like this, again and again. Did you know her when she was alive, maybe? Her family? Or is she yours?”

This time, Grave flinched; Juji felt it clearly, and then a hand wrapped around his left bicep. He turned his attention to the tight grip, waiting. Grave’s fingers were tense, tightening in spasms as if he were trying to convey through them all his thoughts and intentions. Juji frowned, and when he leaned closer still—awkwardly given their bumping knees—he felt the hiss of Grave’s breath against his face again. His lips were moving, but the only sound that fell from them was a thin, unintelligible murmur.

“Grave…” Juji’s shoulders sagged. He wasn’t sure now what had motivated him to speak to Grave at all. Maybe idle curiosity. Maybe even he’d wanted to berate and patronize him just to feel better himself. But the sincere, anxious desperation clenched around his arm had come unexpectedly, and he didn’t know how to react.

Juji tilted his head, touching their faces together so that he could feel the subtle movements of Grave’s jaw against his own. Still he could make nothing out, and he wondered if enough of Grave’s mind was really intact to have any real words in mind. He sighed. “Do you have a soul after all?” he murmured. He climbed suddenly up onto the chair with Grave, straddling his thighs so there would be room for them both. Grave tensed, as did his grip on Juji’s arm.

“Maybe we really are alike,” Juji went on in a harsh whisper, his lips brushing against Grave’s ear and tasting his hair as he spoke. “We’re dead, but we’re not soulless. We’re still men, right? Even a pathetic walking corpse like you can still feel. Can’t you?” He pressed his palm flat against Grave’s chest, feeling for the uncommonly slow pulse of his heart. “RB can’t anymore, but men like us…”

Grave shuddered, and his breath sputtered thickly from his lips until he was able to finally utter, “Kabane…”

Juji stiffened; of all the things he imagined Grave could say he hadn’t expected to hear his own name. In all likelihood it was nothing more than a simple, instinctual response from a man little more than a beast; but the quiet rasp of Grave’s voice dove deep into his chest and spread a quiver out to his fingertips. With a quiet murmur in his throat he pressed his mouth clumsily against the point of Grave’s jaw. His hand, still pressed against Grave’s wide chest, twisted to take up a handful of coarse fabric, and a moment later he felt Grave’s thick fingers clench similarly against his shoulder and hip.

Their bodies shuddered against each other. There was nothing smooth or romantic about the way Juji drew Grave’s face toward him, sealing their mouths in a protested kiss. Grave fought him, but not enough—not with enough of his strength that Juji could consider it sincere. He fastened his hands around the back of Grave’s chair, using the leverage to press them tightly as he sucked at his mouth like a hungry animal.

The sensations of skin and saliva meeting were not the same as they had been in life. Even when he felt Grave shudder and give in—when the man’s arms twisted in a pawing embrace against his back—Juji couldn’t help but groan in frustration. There was no surge of heated, guilty pleasure as they tightened and panted against each other. No stirring of flesh. Only two pale corpses, pressing together in a desperate and pathetic recreation of the excitement they might have felt when they were alive.

Juji pulled back with a gasp and turned his face against Grave’s broad shoulder. After only a moment of catching his breath he swore, and pounded his fist against Grave’s chest. “It’s not fair!” he raged weakly, beginning to shake. “Damn him—damn that Garino bastard!”

He drew his hand back but Grave caught his wrist before he could strike again. He growled and fought, but when he heard Grave’s raspy voice hiss his name again he stopped, slumping in defeat. A hand touched the back of his neck to hold him still.

“Sorry,” Grave uttered against his ear. “Sorry.”

Juji couldn’t cry anymore. But his shoulders spasmed and his breath choked as he sobbed dryly into Grave’s bloodstained collar.