Shin gives himself thirty seconds. Half a minute for his drug-addled brain to flood with adrenaline and reboot itself, half a minute to listen to the erratic hitch in Rui's breath; thirty seconds for his hand (out of Rui's line of sight and curled into the folds of his hospital gown) to spasm and shiver from the surge of fear that lodges itself in his throat.

The second his internal timer winds down to zero, he sucks in a sharp breath, polluted with the too-clean smell of antiseptic, forcibly relaxes the taut line of his shoulders, and lays a hand at the back of Rui's neck. She tenses at his touch, wide eyes straining to look at him while still keeping the presently vacant hallway in view. She's trembling, he can tell, and fighting hard to convince herself (or him) that she isn't. 

"When I say run--"

"Nomura-san, you can't run!" she sputters, cutting him off as she snaps her head around to stare incredulously at him. "And I... I'm not leaving you, that's..." 

Something complex happens with her expression: a myriad of emotions fighting for dominance, and he only catches flashes of each. Most of them he ignores; her concern is flattering, to a degree, considering the rocky start they'd gotten, but it's simple to dismiss. The indecision he could write off as a result of her fight-or-flight response going haywire, but when it's abruptly followed by what he can only describe as a hint of self-loathing, his rationale fails him. Wanting to run - even if it means abandoning him, a man she hardly knows and couldn't look in the eyes just weeks ago - isn't a crime, not by his standards. 

"Kitamura."

She shakes her head, lips a wobbling yet unyielding line.

"Kitamura, I'd like to remind you that only one of us is actually trained in subduing ghouls."

Her eyes harden as she gives him a pointed sweeping glance, lingering over the bandages across his torso, the gauze taped to his throat. She's skeptical and she's right to be. Realistically, weaponless and crippled as he is, he won't put up much of a fight. He'd be lucky to last longer than ten seconds - and that's factoring in the time it'd take for him to bleed out on the slick-smooth floors while the ghoul decides whether or not he's even worth devouring. 

But, much as he loathes the truth of it, this is what he signed up for when he fell in with the CCG. Like Emi, if he'd given a damn, he could have escaped the Academy, done something with his life that he had actual passion for. 

He didn't, though, and that's fine. It's alright. 

"Kitamura--"

"Nomura-san, we're wasting time--"

"Kitamura--"

"--and arguing with me isn't going to accomplish anything--"

"Rui."

Her jaw clamps shut with a rattling clack of teeth. He'd feel almost smug for having quieted her if not for the silvery shine to her eyes. Dammit. Crying isn't on the list of things he's capable of handling well. 

"We can't both make it, Kitamura. We've lost too much time as it is," he says, consciously rounding out the edges of his words; less likely to cut into her any further that way. "I'd rather it be you who gets out safely."

"Because I'm a civilian," she murmurs, mouth twisting into a guilt-ridden grimace.

Shin can't help but roll his eyes, even with the looming threat of a bloodthirsty ghoul haunting every passing second. 

"Yes, of course," he says dryly, "because you're a civilian and I'm doing my damn job. It has nothing to do with the fact that you have people who'd work themselves into hysterics if you died. Or," he adds, seeing the protest coming to life on her lips, "that I'm critically injured. Basically incapacitated and literally useless. The most I can do is give you a head start." He pauses, murmurs a quiet curse and squeezes the back of her neck lightly, hoping to emphasize his next point. "I was spared once, Kitamura - speaking from experience, my luck probably isn't going to hold the second time around."

She's giving him this look - a configuration of facial muscles and an underlying steely determination that don't align at all with that initial perception of her. 

"Has anyone ever told you what a self-sacrificing idiot you are?"

A wan smile twitches at the corner of Shin's mouth. Possibly it's more of a grimace in his current state, but the release of tension from his world-weary shoulders is unmistakable. 

"No, of all the things I've been called over the years, can't say that one's ever made the list."

Rui sniffs, affronted, and isn't that fascinating? She must think she's stumbled onto his deepest, darkest secret, that in all actuality Shin cares about people, that he would rather spend his own blood than anyone else's. It's almost cute, how naive she is, even after everything. Shin's not that noble; he's a realist, if anything. Death walks the halls of this hospital, and there isn't a damn thing he can do about it, so why not give Rui her best shot at making it out alive? There's no deeper sentiment than that, nothing righteous singing in his blood telling him to hustle all the women and children to safety. 

But Rui, of course she doesn't know that, couldn't. However much she's lost, whatever she's suffered, she apparently takes care to see the good in people. 

He'll give her credit for her tenacity, at least.

Rui digs trembling fingers into the crook of his arm, her meaning clear: I won't leave you behind. He's exasperated and admiring all at once, which is a combination he doesn't experience too often.

"Nomura-san... if we're being realistic... I won't make it very far either way. And... and" -- she hunches her shoulders, does her best to hide it, but Shin, even drug-addled and with exhaustion settling deep in the marrow of his bones, catches the shudder that ripples down her spine -- "I, um, I don't want to...."

She trails off, raising her eyes to meet his gaze helplessly, and it's there, plain as day. No need for her to say the words aloud when Shin can read the message in the hollow sheen of her watery eyes.

He can sympathize, honestly. He doesn't want to die alone, either. Not really. 

He can't imagine there's a person out there for actually does.

Sighing, Shin fumbles to clasp his hand over hers, squeezing just shy of too-tight because any less than that and he feels it won't register for her. The warmth that floods her gaze at the gesture makes him swallow, distinctly uncomfortable with the whole of her attention fixed upon him like that; but he forces the sentiment down and away, to be forgotten in due time, and subtly shakes himself free of the doubts clawing at his vibrating skin. 

"Nomura-san," she says again, biting hard into her lower lip when she pauses a moment later. "Shin. You can't make me leave you, and... I don't want to. It's not going to do either of us any good, you know? Even if I made it..." Another shudder seizes her spine, pinching her shoulders even tighter together; but then it's passed and she's finding his eyes again, equal parts pleading and rueful. "I can't live with another ghost haunting me. I... really don't want to mourn you, Shin."

And what can he say to that, really? He could be callous and crass, roll his eyes and remind her he isn't worth her tears, her grief; he could laugh outright at the idea of anyone mourning him. For fuck's sake, though, she's trying so damn hard for him, matching him for every tattered scrap of determination he can muster up - calling him Shin, of all things, to better plead her case. 

Rewarding courage with his usual indifference doesn't sit well with him, despite knowing logically that, most likely, the both of them are going to be splattered across the too-white walls of the vacant hospital hallway not too long from now.

He sighs, tightening his grip on her hand, as much to quell the visible trembling of her slender fingers as it is to steady himself.

"If you'd prefer to go out fighting, I can't exactly stop you, Rui."

It's a peace offering, self-deprecating and placating, and he isn't prepared for the burst of emotion that crosses her face at his reluctant acquiescence. It's like he's given her some unprecedented gift rather than sign her death sentence. Not for the first time, Shin wonders how it is that Rui's made it this far in her life without encountering some irrevocable personal tragedy; though, he supposes, it seems her number was up after all, given everything she's been through since the disappearance of her beloved mentor.

It's an irrelevant line of questioning that Shin dismisses quickly, shunting it off into a vacant corner of his mind and throwing closed the door behind it. It's a waste of time to dwell on the past when his present now has an expiration date to it.

He startles slightly when he feels Rui twist her hand in his grip to interlace their fingers, offering a reassuring squeeze of her own along with a blinding (albeit hesitant) smile. Something cold turns over in his stomach at the look of sheer resignation he sees beneath the veil of optimism shadowing her eyes, but he curls his own lips up into a matching grin, more for her benefit than his, and she squares her shoulders, nods jerkily, and steps out into the hallway.

Shin pointedly ignores the gruesome trail of blood-splattered footprints that races past the door to his room. He saw the nurse, knows she's alive if eternally traumatized, and they tell him nothing apart from which direction they ought to avoid - which the nurse accomplished all on her lonesome, quite without the additional theatrics. Rui seems to be thinking the same, as she tilts her head up as she tucks herself against his side, fitting herself under his shoulder to leverage some of his weight and keep him vaguely upright so that they can shuffle-limp down the corridor at a pace that Shin is sure beats along to his personal death knell. 

 They don't even round the corner before they're dragged back into the hellfire that's been licking at their heels.

There's the rustling of fabric, a screech akin to nails dragging on a chalkboard, and then there's a hot, cloying breath ghosting across the back of Shin's neck, and in an instant he's ripped from Rui's hold and bodily slammed into the ground. His back arches on impact, a gasp punched out of him, wet and ragged, as pain flares from every point of contact, zipping like lightning across his skin. Someone's screaming, himself or Rui he can't be sure, the sound rising and falling in time with the rapid-fire beat of his heart, and with every dip the darkness that's been creeping about the edges of his visions engulfs him entirely. Ice seeps into his veins as he thinks, all too calmly, So this is it, huh.

The ghoul hovering above him like some ghastly specter bears its reddened teeth in an approximation of a smile, its lips pulled back too sharply over their teeth to lend the expression any sort of warmth or genuine cheer. Shin fights to hold onto consciousness, the sudden agony beating in his chest threatening to overwhelm him, and scowls upwards, curling his hands around the ghoul's wrists where it's pressing down against his shoulders. It's a futile move, as even in peak condition Shin wouldn't have a sliver of a chance at overpowering the ghoul, but he digs his nails in nonetheless, instinct warring with his mounting fear and prompting him to lash out in some last-ditch ploy for survival.

He thinks, briefly, that in another reality he'd be laughing at his own pathetic scrabbling, and isn't that a sobering thought.

It's the panic, probably, bubbling up beneath his breastbone, that snatches time from him. 

Flashes of lucidity leave him with discordant sensations: the ungentle tearing of the bandage from his throat; Rui, undoubtedly, screaming herself hoarse from the sidelines and assaulting Shin's eardrums with a vengeance; fingers digging into his wound, causing his body to recoil and writhe as though there's high voltage electricity coursing through him; the pressure of saliva-slick teeth at his flesh; and then - disturbingly - an absence of weight, and the rush of air back into his abused lungs.

Shin bolts upright with a muffled hiss, clamping a trembling hand over the mutilated flesh of his throat. Rui's there, somehow, her hands fluttering uncertainty over him, before she shakes her head viciously, hair flying, and cups her hands around his cheeks, forcing him to meet her searching gaze.

"Again?" he croaks, nonsensical and half-unintelligible.

Rui, bless her, takes his lapse in sanity without breaking stride, flexing her fingers at the hinges of his jaw and nodding once, sharply. Her attention is divided, though, flickering between him and whatever scene is playing out at his back, but he doesn't have the energy nor the motivation to twist and catch sight of it for himself. Perhaps sensing this, Rui focuses for a moment on his face and says, "S-Skinner's... distracted. We... we need to run, Shin, we need to run now...!" 

 And yet she makes no move to pull herself to her feet, or to get Shin upright. Her expression is tight, brow pinched with what he can only assume is concern, and for once he can tell it isn't directed at him; no, it's intended for whoever, or whatever, is gasping out curses in response to the ghoul's cackled taunts. It's a fight, he realizes, made obvious from the slam of what can only be a body against the wall further down the hallway, the erratic splattering of viscous liquids on the floor, the walls. 

Now he does try to look, to make sense of the absurdity of someone taking on a ghoul (and thinks wildly that it may be Amon, stupid, righteous, too-much-heart-for-this-line-of-work Amon).

"Rui-chan! Ah, shit, you-- run, Rui-chan, run!"

But, no -- not Amon. Because -- even disoriented and hobbled as he it -- Shin knows that voice.

He breathes out shakily, grasping weakly at Rui's hands, drawing her attention again, and he can see the dawning realization that spreads across her features, her jaw going slack and her eyes widening in horror. Because he knows and she doesn't want him to. 

 In that moment, he can't say he blames her.

But the moment passes and Rui springs into action, hauling him to his feet (it's the adrenaline lending her strength, he'd bet his life on it if that wasn't already the case) and resuming their earlier position, with him taking entirely too much of his weight. He doesn't, can't speak again as Rui practically drags him away from the fight, because of the searing pain in his throat and the fracture in his world view.

Impossibly, they might live through this, and if they do, Shin is going to murder Rui. 

Just FYI I kinda hate this chapter but I wanted to finally finish it, so here we are.