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"Walt," Henry gasped, swallowing so hard Walt could hear the dry click in his throat. "I'm cold."
The fire beside them crackled, and Walt threw a few more sticks on it before reaching over to check Henry's wound. It was still oozing dark, black blood and the makeshift bandage was soaked through. Walt had long ago used the last remnants of Henry's shirt and instead, opted for taking his own off and ripping it into strips. He knew it was a useless endeavor; the blood beneath Henry's body was saturated from the slow bleeding. This was Henry's death wound and they both knew it.
There was only three of them left in the arena: Henry from District 11 and Walt and Vic from District 12. Vic had been giving them a wide breath since her arrow had collapsed Henry's lung. She was a shrewd player and knew that she was safe so long as her two opponents were incapacitated. She wasn't cruel, either, and had not attacked Walt despite the fact he had set up camp in the wide open plains of the arena, a fire burning like a beacon of their location day and night. She would swing by twice a day - Walt could see her out of the corner of his eye, hiding in the long grass - and would fade back to her own safe haven when she saw Henry was still alive.
Walt pressed the new, dry bandage against the wound and felt his heart clench painfully as the warm ooze began to soak through again.
"Do you remember..." Henry began, laboring heavily to breathe. "When we met?"
Walt's lips turned up in a small smile, and he nodded. "We were thirteen-"
"You were thirteen, I was fourteen."
"My mistake. And I was playing out too close to the border. A kindly little boy with long black braids down his back told me to take my ass the fuck back home. After he punched me in the jaw."
"We all couldn't have been charmers like you, Walt. Besides, I thought you were coming to steal from our fields."
"I was just overly curious about what it was like. Crossing the border had been forbidden as long as I could remember."
"And if there's one thing to never tell Walt Longmire, it's that he can't do something. Just makes him want it all the more."
"Worked with you, didn't it?" Walt smiled again, a little bit bigger than ever before, and carded his fingers through Henry's hair.
"Don't, Walt, the cameras. Martha, the baby-"
"Deserve to know."
Henry went silent. Walt had brought Martha to the edge of the district, to meet Henry, when they had first began courting a year ago. She smiled blandly at him and tugged insistently on Walt's arm, scared to be this close to the border. Now Martha was seventeen, and six months pregnant, and scared.
She'd been scared on that day too, standing in a row with all of the other young girls in their best clothes. She had been afraid of what they would do to her, to the baby, if her name had been drawn, and when Vic's had been called instead, she had looked over at Walt and smiled so brightly. Walt hadn't had it in him to smile back. He had been watching the newsreel and had seen Henry volunteer.
They had always said that if Henry's name had been drawn, Walt would volunteer, but they had never spoken about what would happen if Henry volunteered. Henry had never talked about volunteering.
Walt could still the shock on Martha's face when he stepped out of the crowd, her bird-thin arms wrapped around their baby laying inside of her. The Capitol escort, in all her finery, had gone all excited, talking about two volunteers in one day, and she gripped Walt's arm roughly, quizzing him on his age and his family.
When they let Martha back to see him before boarding him up on the train, she had merely asked, "why?" Walt struggled with the words to tell her and failed to find a good way to explain it.
Instead, he simply said, "I made a promise" and didn't elaborate. He could see it in her eyes - the want to throw his words back at him and ask him about the promise he had made her - but she didn't even pretend to understand and nodded dumbly, tears in streaks down her soft, round cheeks.
"Do you remember the first time you kissed me?" Walt said, thumbs on Henry's cheekbones.
"You kissed me, stop trying to make it sound like you were the victim in all this. And we were, what? 15? Sleeping under the stars, ones of us always on the wrong side of the line, lying to our parents about where we were."
"They would always ask me in the mines why I looked like I had slept for weeks. I never told them it was because I hadn't, trying to keep up with you."
Another shiver ran through Henry and Walt gathered his body close, held him against his chest and let him bleed against Walt's bare chest. "Why did you volunteer?"
Henry's chest was a rattle against Walt's ribs and it vibrated sickly down into his own core. Henry raised a hand, slightly sticky with his own blood, and laid it gently on the side of Walt's neck. "I don't know."
Walt wanted to shake him and make him admit it, but he didn't. He held him closer and kissed the top of his head.
"Do you remember? Talking about building two little houses on the border so that we could throw rocks at each other's door?"
Henry sat up a little, propping his chest against Walt's, head cradled in Walt's shoulder. "Why did you volunteer?" Henry asked even though he knew the answer to that.
"I seem to remember telling you once or twice that I wouldn't leave you to go to the Games alone. I think my exact words were, 'Henry, you fucking son of a bitch, I'm always going to make sure you come home or we're going to die together trying'."
"Always a man of eloquent words," Henry laughed, the sound catching on his ribs and causing his whole body to seize up with pain. Walt stroked his back through it, kissing his cheeks and brow, and held on.
"Walter." Henry grabbed at Walt's shoulders, scrambling to touch him and get his attention. "Kiss me. One last time, before..."
Walt pulled the long, serrated knife from his belt and pushed it into Henry's hand. "Make me a new promise first."
"No, Walt. No. No. You could still go home. You could still- Don't make me die like this, begging you to go on without me."
"I'm not making you do anything. I can do it myself, but I'd rather it be you. One last promise, a better one than we've ever made before. This is one we can keep."
Henry struggled to breathe, hand loosely wrapped around the hilt of Walt's knife. "Do you think they'll bury our bodies, Walter Longmire?"
Walt rubbed the back of his hand against the tears at the corners of his eyes and then used his fingertips to do the same for Henry. "I don't know. Why?"
"Because I hope they bury us like this. Together."
Walt couldn't help it. He kissed Henry there, with all of their world watching, and buried his fingers in his hair. "Have I ever told you I love you?"
Henry smiled, wide and victorious. "Every day, in a million different ways you never knew about."
Walt laid them both down gently, hand smoothing down Henry's hair, and Henry licked his lips. "We're just going to let Vic win?"
Walt seemed to mull over it for a moment, testing the words out inside his mouth before saying them. "She let me stay with you."
Henry nodded. He pulled Walt in for a kiss first, opening his mouth against Walt's lips, and kissing him for the second time in a year. He trailed his hand down Walt's chest, finding the perfect, soft spot just under his breastbone, and pointed the knife.
"I loved you before I knew what love was."
Walt grunted against the pain, the gut-punch of the knife slicing right into him. Blood bubbled out of the corners of his mouth and Henry licked it up, hid every part of Walt inside himself. Walt died first, his wound a geyser of blood where Henry's had been a trickling, and Henry held him close. He pushed Walt's hair off his brow, streaking fresh, red blood on their skin, and kissed his closed eyes.
He took a few more rattling breaths, each slower and more painful than the last, until it was over.