Chase had been there in the thick of it all, he got there just in time to see Tristan pull the final plug on Arkin's life. Just in time for Arkin to look to him, to barely meet eyes with him, for the last time. He was in so much pain he didn't know where to put it all. The decision to whip his arm and shoot Vanessa in the head hadn't been a decision at all, just a knee-jerk reaction to keep him from shooting Tristan instead.
Her life hadn't gone in vain of course but even in his thralling agony he knew there could be no witnesses. No one could be alive to tell a story different than the story that would keep this Tristan... this... fucker out of trouble. That had been Arkin's last request... to keep Tristan out of trouble no matter what.
Even though Tristan had just taken the only goddamn thing in the world that Chase had left. His reason for living. He couldn't be more fucking livid towards anyone and he'd be a liar if he didn't say that he wanted to spit in the man's face instead of pledging allegiance to him.
Tristan didn't even seem to register that Chase was telling him he had been Arkin's hand and that now he was his. He could at least have the fucking decency to pay attention. Maybe Tristan had been caught off guard by the way Chase had so callously killed Vanessa and the way he dropped to his knees at Arkin's body and let his rage and anguish escape his mouth in a rattling scream of hatred at the futility of it all.
What was the fucking POINT of all of this?! No one could do the job they'd been doing as well as Arkin, not a single goddamn person in the world and definitely not this flower of a man. Powers over blood? What would that do to stop the end of the fucking world? They traded someone with the ability to see the future for this murderous asshole.
He shoved Tristan aggressively into the squad car and called back to the station. Everyone in the station would have heard his distraught voice say "We have an officer down, I repeat officer down. I need black and whites at the 68th street alley in Utopia. No EMS necessary." Arkin was dead. Vanessa was dead. No amount of mouth to mouth or shocks would change that. He made sure of it...because that was his job... that was his fucking job. To make the hard calls and live with them, not like that fucking coward in the alley that just left him here like this alone to carry on their banner.... to force Tristan to hold it.
The walk into the station with Tristan, who wasn't in handcuffs but being kindly escorted, was the worst of all. Everyone in this fucking building thought that he looked like he was a step away from a breakdown because his partner just got killed and not a single one of them knew it was actually Arkin that his heart pained for, and they never could know. That was his job.
To be alone.
---
Tristan was taken care of, he was considered a hero because of the lies Chase had spun and Arkin would go down in history as one of the worst enemies the city could have had. Someone they tried to rehabilitate and give a second chance to who fucked it all up and killed innocent people instead. Some kind of psychopath.... he wasn't. He wasn't any of those things.
When he came out from talking to the chief and getting everything sorted he was alone.
He went to sit at his desk, falling into the chair like a jacket tossed from across the room, and he let his face fall into his hands, rubbing at it and sighing. He wasn't going to show too much weakness here in the middle of the department... but exhaustion? No one judged a man for exhaustion.
Everyone seemed way too fucking quiet and no one walked within 10 feet of him, he could tell.