Yeah, he only got my thigh a-and I'm bruised... f-fucking thing was trying to... to....I-I was gonna bite h-his throat out!" Ceata babbled down at him, all formality and proper speech thrown out the window in his amazement at simply being alive. That the damn angel was alive and that he hadn't abandoned him. He could have. Ceata knew he could have, that he probably should have. The beast was busy with him and Urius would have had all the time in the world to get to safety. Yet here he was. The boy scrubbed at his flushed, tear stained face and smeared the beast's blood further across his mouth. Covered in dirt and dust and blood the boy was just as messy as the angel. Urius had substained the worst of it. "Are you okay?"

Urius found reason to smile and laugh, though it came out as something hoarse and wet. He'd likely punctured a lung in the descent. Luckily there were all those lovely trees to catch him. Hard, painful, scratching, stabbing trees.
"Do I….look….okay?" Urius stared up at Ceata with such a sense of relief that he almost felt jovial in his little joke. However, the words only served to make Ceata that much more nervous. The sun was peeking over the rise and the first white glints of morning came breaking over them. Urius did look quite a mess, but somehow he had never seemed more beautiful to Ceata. His heat quite forgotten, he just sat and reveled in the idea that this Angel - no, this man had risked his life to protect him.

"N-no you don't." The shadowshifter sobbed out, bursting into a crying fit that he just couldn't stop. He felt remarkably silly sitting here by the angel crying like a child, but after all of that the well of emotions, exhaustion and upset burst. Shaking hands pressed lightly against the angel's torso, touched his face and the boy hiccuped. "How do I fix you? Are you going to d-die?" He could not stand it if the angel died. Not when for the first time it seemed Urius was actually looking at him like an equal - someone worth saving. Urius had further risked his life coming back to aid him; that was not something you did for a monster.

Ceata then felt the soft touch of a hand against his cheek, Urius raising it to caress against those features smeared with dust and blood. But still beautiful. Nothing could mar or mark that resplendid loveliness now cast in the warm glow of a new dawn. Urius didn't know if it was the blood loss or perhaps the near death experience - or perhaps he was listening to his own conscience for once - but Ceata looked more precious to him than a diamond. Glittered like one too. Though that was clearly the blood loss. He smiled ever so softly.

"It's going to be alright," the breathed to a tearful Ceata, who blinked down at him. So rare was a smile like that. Genuine.

~ ~ ~

Ceata (c) Anoki
Urius (c) Me

Done in FireAlpaca and Photoshop elements

~ Repsychus