Chapter Text
Tristan watched with a dangerously waning consciousness how Kyo corners the unfortunate pair-- him and Simon in the dark, dank, awfully stinking corners of the city like a predator to prey, and here he was, flat on the ground bleeding out from god knows how many open wounds that lit a blazing fire with each injury that scorched his nerves ablaze, his mind slowly numbing to the pain as he fought to stay awake.
His mind dwells to a certain man, one he was expecting, one who he hoped with all of the remaining life within him was alright, one he hoped to see before he unexpectedly bled out from a frankly risky move and yet silently hoped he wouldn't show up at all, in fear of the tears he expected would come, from the soft reprimands he softly missed since he...
The pain was distracting, yet that effect was quite welcome in the maelstrom of thoughts that brewed itself within the mind of the Citrusverse's temporary new god, all focused on the protagonist in the story he was now tied head to toe in with no way out of its intricate web. Tears mixed with blood, the salty liquid stung when it slid in contact with the open cut splitting his cheek that throbbed with heat of a thousand suns, him having to pray it wouldn’t get infected before he patched himself up later– or that he’d be long gone before that.
Tristan exhales, and waits, and wait he did, because not even minutes later, he heard something akin to footsteps at a jogging pace- felt a familiar presence from a distance away that he instinctively reached out to and grasped, and it reassuringly returns his affections in the form of a few moments of what seemed to be a scuffle- a clear signal in the blurry visage of his glassy eyes, before a clear-cut gunshot split his ears, and simultaneously split into his worries like a hot knife into butter, his mind blanking into a blissful yet unnerving quiet in the recoil, his ears still ringing unnervingly loud like a warbling siren.
A steady new yet oh-so familiar grip on his sides confirmed his suspicions, as through the blood that caked his face, he silently admires how ethreal Euterpe looked under the cheap, yellowed and fizzling streetlights of the dim and dingy environment, the yellows and the oranges of the aged glow emitted a sort of halo above his head, while he did recall his sunshine having one of his own, though it was only for a split moment, however the lighting in the present just made the protagonist look almost like a god-- his own god, because damn if he wouldn't be on his knees right now for his angel if his body wasn’t limp with exhaustion and hurt like hot hell.
He curls into himself more when a hand brushes over a wound he totally forgot about on his abdomen, him wincing in response to the pain that shot through his nerves like wildfire at the contact, and yet somehow, he was glad for the sudden accidental sting, because it meant…
It meant he finally wasn’t dreaming.
A sob caught his attention, and it seems like it caught the other off-guard too, with how he shook violently cowering above his battered shell of a mortal body, tears trailing down his face and mixing with blood he hoped wasn't his own that splattered across from his chin to the bridge of his nose, barely missing his silver-framed glasses that glinted like the stars in the dim lighting. Tristan had to hold his urges ashore to sit up and cradle the other's face as he cleared those stunningly gleaming pale silver-azulene eyes of tears and blood with whatever means possible, grab him by the bloodied hem of his shirt collar as he kissed him like the world would end again right after, and god, never EVER let go again of the other, if only his other didn’t immediately gently press one of his stray hands down with affection that Tristan guessed was hidden behind that loosely kept poker face from all the extra adrenaline that shot through his system– something preprogrammed, Euterpe told him one night.
Lord above, saying he missed Euterpe a lot would be an understatement to how he felt the indescribably painful, empty void that pervaded his soul that tormented him from the day his darling light was extinguished mended and filled itself almost instantly as the other held him close, heat from the bodily contact keeping him so, so warm .
It felt safe . If anything, he’d say he was in heaven right now, or some elysian realm of the afterlife. Tristan wasn’t a fan of religion, but the bliss that overtook him in the other’s steady and secure embrace was probably the nearest thing to God’s blessing, if that existed.
Tristan could vaguely register Euterpe directing something towards him,but he was simply too exhausted to listen, however, with Laverne gone, Kyo most likely ashes, and his dearest sunshine Euterpe right next to him again clutching onto him like a lifeline...
"It can wait until later." Tristan thought with a gravelly chuckle, as he gave the other's worried hand clasped in the bloody mess of his own a reassuring squeeze, before he finally let the darkness take over him into a deep, calm slumber.