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When Callum Nova dies, the world goes out with a cosmic bang.
The knife doesn't clatter to the floor, like they do in films, rather it stays in Callum's chest, the chest that held peace and comfort in its rising waves and falling crests when its host complicatedly asked Tristan if he wanted a drink. Magic diffuses from him in effervescence, faint iridescent whiskey bubbles that faded away in cigarette-smoky wisps instead of popping in finite resolution. The mystical haze that was the supernova of him seemed to slowly seep into the ground and diffuse into the air, pale cerulean leaking from the eyes that had previously held faint amusement to abandon the deep-set muted grey that Tristan didn't know why Callum had ever tried to hide away because it was the most beautiful shade Tristan had ever seen.
He brushes his fingertips over the man's eyelids, before lowering his touch to Callum's lips. They had never kissed, and Tristan wasn't about to try, but he did wonder what he tasted like, if he had the flavour of alcohol or something just as addicting. He brushes against the knife handle, inserted into the flesh neatly if not for the blood flowing out of the wound. He adjusts the blonde strands on his head, smoothening the frizz until Callum almost looked like he was sleeping. It felt strangely domestic, as if he were waking up with a lover and watching as their eyes flutter in blurry dreams. He half expected Callum to blearily wake up, and smile softly as he placed a kiss on Tristan's cheek. Maybe they'd make breakfast together, and Tristan would wrap his hands around Callum's waist as he watched him pour coffee into their two favourite mugs.
Finally, when the clock begins to still and the lasts bouts of magic disappear from Callum, Tristan rises, wiping the smears of blood off his hands. He scoops Callum up, cradling his head gently as he imagines the future that can never be. He doesn't feel guilt, strangely, more of an everlasting longing for a fate not so final as betrayal. Callum was a phantom limb, a cancer Tristan had amputated away, a chronic itch of something meant to be lost. He's dead weight in Tristan's arms, and Tristan simply admires the complex that had been their relationship.
As he began to head out, towards a goal he does not know yet, Libby rushes into the room, her lips moving at rapid pace until she sees the body. Tristan does not hear what she is saying, still hearing faint whispers in the soothing tone Callum adopted as his. She smiles in contempt, and he's reminded of the blonde that used to occupy his every thought with his confident smirk and faked empathy when talking about the girl with horrendous bangs. His arms tighten around Callum's body instinctively, and Callum's body readjusts, a sleepy romance nuzzling closer to Tristan.
"I didn't know he had such a receding hairline," Libby comments, the attempt at snark made known to Tristan, the urge to brush against the subject of Libby's snide palpable, a dangling string he desperately wanted to yank. He allowed himself to look down at Callum, at the widow's peak that Callum sometimes combed platinum-blonde strands out of, disdainfully flicking them away to let them float to the ground. He'd known, he'd always known, and Callum had let him, showing himself only to play with Tristan's emotions because it made the pain of being known ever so slightly better.
Tristan's attention traveled slowly back to Callum, who stiffened in apprehension. He saw the clouds of magic smoke around Callum, the ones that he saw wisps and faint outlines of in others, but they were dense around the Nova, thick fog swirling around his face and wrapping around his body. Something had been done most definitely to his eyes, his hair, subtle changes flecking his limbs and torso. For the first time, he saw the fear in the man who had been mostly quiet until now, and Tristan subconsciously became aware that by the end of the year, whether they both made it or not, Callum Nova would destroy him in every shape and form, a tender brand on his heart where he belonged.
"I won't tell them if you won't," he said to Callum. This was the first of many mistakes, he came to realise, the turning point that had led to the downfall of the both of them. In those moments, the air in the room grew tense, Callum's eyes boring into Tristan's soul like he knew exactly what formed Tristan Caine.
Then abruptly, he laughed. It was melodic, a sound that Tristan was dying to know if it was a genuine spark of joy or just another heavy cloud passing over the six of them. "Let's keep it between us, then," he agreed, reaching out to clap a hand around Tristan's shoulder. The touch wasn't a spark like most people depicted it as, more of a warm fire that has started making the atoms of him buzz around in excitement. "Better to let them wonder."
The way Callum said it was sultry, a sticky-sweet honey glaze that Tristan couldn't escape. He felt pinned down under his attention, prey caught in the spider's web. It was addicting, the thrill engulfing his mind. A negging in his brain reminded him of the man's ability, warping his bitter doubt into the savoury fluttering he didn't want to call love.
He shrugs Libby off, still carrying the body. Tristan doesn't know where he's going, but does he need to? Trivial things like these didn't seem to matter when Callum was dead and Tristan was very much alive, and especially when what they had had been rare and difficult and was now gone. Tristan Caine doesn't regret murdering Callum Nova. It's what was meant to happen after all.
The story is pleased, and the Atlas Six do not meet the same end the batch with two boys who thought they could cheat death itself did. It does not make Tristan any happier to bury Callum, though, to place the body in a tomb and kiss it goodbye. He will place roses at Callum's grave every year, and fight tears as he remembers toxic nights in the painted room, fiery whiskey and tipsy musings. He will lie in bed with Parisa Kamali, and maybe later on Elizabeth Rhodes, as he stops himself from uttering Callum's name and pretending the woman he's next to was someone else he killed years ago. He will be forever tortured with the knowledge of what he'd ruined, of what could have been.
It hurts, but it was always meant to hurt.