Chapter Text
The celestial being growled at them, the sound causing Teo's feathers to rise on end and stretch his wings out defensively. It was injured- down on the ground and dying, but that didn't mean it wasn't terrifying.
Teo sighed and turned around to face Aurelio and Niya, beginning to walk over to where they were standing. He didn't want to be near this creature any longer. Aurelio was bleeding from a few gashes along his arms and Niya had a slash across her face- thankfully missing her eyes.
They were both breathing heavily, the fight having just ended, but they looked to be in good enough spirits.
Until Aurelio's eyes widened and Niya got a scared look on her face, opening her mouth to yell something, causing Teo to turn and look behind him and-
An instant, searing, agony ripped through his body.
He could barely even register the claw being ripped out of him through the pain.
“TEO-”
He gasped in a breath, doubling over as his arms wrapped around his stomach and he looked down and oh he shouldn't have because his blood was already staining his clothes and dripping down his body past his arms and it hadn't even been more than a few seconds. Nausea crept up his throat when he realized he was holding in his guts, the warmth of his own intestines against his hands sickening.
The slick feeling of his insides trying to spill out- through the gash in his stomach that he was pretty sure had pierced through it as well- he was going to vomit. If there was anything left of his stomach to vomit from.
Teo couldn't get in enough air, he felt like he was suffocating- even as his breathing picked up- and suddenly Niya and Aurelio were on either side of him, both saying something that he couldn't understand past the ringing in his ears. They led him away from the creature and lowered him to the ground.
He felt cold, that was weird because it hadn't been cold- right?
He hears a faint clink and one of them tries to pull a hand away from his stomach and he whines because he needs to keep his guts in.
Teo eventually gives in and something is shoved into his hands and brought to his lips and he thinks he's supposed to start drinking but as soon as he tries to he begins coughing and then there's his jade blood covering the cup and dying the liquid inside green and he can't stop and it's too much it's too much-
He wheezes and leans over, the pain nearly too much to handle as the other two continue to panic. Teo flinches when he feels warm hands on his shoulders and he looks up, vision blurring, to see Aurelio. And he has this scared look on his face that the Jade semi-dios doesn't think he's seen before and when he turns his head to see Niya, she's crying.
There's this feeling he gets in his chest- beyond the agony, beyond the fuzziness growing in his head- that tells him he's going to die.
And he can't help but feel guilty. Because what was the point of all of this- everything he caused by refusing to sacrifice Auristela- if he was just going to die before they even fixed it? What was the point if he was always going to die? It would've been better if he had just sacrificed himself.
It would've saved everyone the trouble of having to go through this. Of having to deal with the mess he caused.
Teo can feel his eyes grow heavy and even with the pain he leans forward and sets his head against Aurelio's chest, dropping the cup and wrapping one arm around him.
He thinks- no, knows the two Golds are saying something, but he can't get himself to try and listen.
Even as he's shaken and the cup is pushed back into his hand again. Even as Aurelio's hands shift, one slipping under his armpit to wrap around him and the other moving to clutch the back of his head.
Even as he feels Niya shift closer and wrap her arms around him to hug him too.
He's not quite sure how he's tired when he's in this much pain but he thinks that maybe he should sleep.
Maybe he'll wake up and he won't be in as much pain as before, maybe Niya and Aurelio will have calmed down and he can tell them that he's fine, really. They'd surely understand. They've gotten onto him for not sleeping when tired before, this is- they'll understand.
Teo opens his mouth to say something, maybe tell them that he's going to sleep, or maybe that he's sorry. He's not quite sure what it is he ends up saying, if anything, before he's gone and closed his eyes.
It's the quickest he's fallen asleep in years.