bakerstreet | WALK IT OFF

A swarm of darkness oozed out of him from nearly every direction. Every and any person that got in the way of him getting Tandy to safety suffered the wrath of said darkness. There was the saying that you didn't bring a knife to a gun fight but her powers didn't make it an average knife, especially having him as back up.

Only it had been because of him that someone got the upper hand on Tandy, shooting her through the side. At least, that was what Ty had thought when she went down and blood had splattered. She had managed to set something of a bomb off in the seedy establishment and Ty's shroud of darkness enveloped the rest when her body slumped to the ground. The wound wasn't a full gun shot but a little more than a scratch to the surface.

"This is all my fault," he lamented while carrying her and teleporting his way back to the church. Thanks to Bridget's prompting and Tandy's experience, they had stocked up on first aid supplies if anything went wrong. However, his experience was limited to icing and wrapping things--maybe putting a bandaid on a cut. Her white pants were soaked in red along her hip and Ty was going out of his mind, unapologetically making anyone who got in their way lose theirs in fear.

Minutes felt like hours as he traveled and carried her back. They were in the safety of their home base, Ty not thinking twice of laying her on the bed to try and render her aid.

"Don't do that." It wasn't, she was sure of that much. Really, that was about all she was sure of, between the pain and just... fog she had to fight through to even think. She couldn't even really remember clearly how it had happened, the moment before or the moment after, which was making her feel a little crazy.

No, that wasn't quite true. She was pretty sure this was inevitable, too, one of them getting injured at some point, not that she would ever say that out loud to him, and absolutely not that she was in a sense glad it had been her, even though she thought she had pretty good reason - how would she have gotten him out?

"Shit happens." That wasn't helpful. That was the opposite of helpful, and Tandy knew it. She couldn't bite her tongue on it quick enough, though, because hell, it hurt, and she was spending a fair bit of energy on not passing out. "Not going to die or anything."

Yeah, that was much better. Dammit.

His face fell to a pitiful sad look when Tandy objected. It took a second for Ty to realize that she was only reprimanding his guilt, not anything he had physically had done to her. He didn't argue and continued moving.

"Yeah, it always seems to happen to the people that I care about." There was no way to avoid commenting on the assurance she tried giving him. He didn't want to fight or be difficult while she was in pain but his heart ached while riddled with fear over possibly losing Tandy. She was set down with the most care but he moved the quickest he could to get the first aid supplies.

He found pads of gauze and immediately put them over the wound. "What am I doin'? I should take you to a hospital." Ty would go to jail than risk her life. His eyes were intensely focused, brow knit together while checking that she didn't completely drain of color. He kept pressure tight on her injury while the other dug for an antiseptic. "I can't lose you too." The words spoken were filled with emotion. Tears rolled down his cheeks.

She didn't look more than pained but there was so much blood. He quickly moved the gauze and doused the open wound with the antiseptic then scrambled for more clean gauze. The wound was more of a cut, like a bad scrape on his knees when he rode his bike or skateboard. It wasn't too deep but deep enough to need pressure applied. Once he had the gauze back in place, Ty leaned in and pressed his forehead against the side of her head.

She held back any real response to that (for now,) which she really only managed because she was already trying to just not make any sound at all. It was harder, now she was stationary and there was no adrenaline, no running, no trying so hard to focus on his face and make sure he didn't lose it - yet. She had known that was pretty inevitable, too.

"No, no hospital. You're doing alright." At least - it hurt, the pressure and the cleaning and the pressure again, but in a different way than the wound itself originally had, and she was taking that as a good sign. Really, what else was there? It wasn't a stitches situation so: clean, bandage. "You're not losing me, stop that. The whole thing. You didn't pull the trigger, or tell whoever-the-fuck to. And shit happened to me before you cared about me, shit happens to plenty of people you don't care about, so I don't think that's a cause."

She reached for his free hand without looking, moving as little as she could manage, and dragged it up over her heartbeat. "See? Still kicking."

Meanwhile, he thought maybe she did need stitches. Ty was desperate to get her the care she needed but Tandy didn't seem as shook as he felt. She laid into him, speaking truth that he needed to hear regardless of how frantic he felt. She reached for his hand and laid it over her heart. He wondered if she could feel his pounding through his hand the way it felt to him but didn't ask her.

"I think it stopped but it's a lot of blood, Tandy. I don't know if you should sleep or if I need to keep you up." Or maybe it just looked like a lot because she wore white pants and the red was a stark contrast. He tried to calm down the way she had inferred but continued to look at her with desperation. "Gotta change the gauze every time you bleed through them. I read that somewhere in something about dealing with gunshot wounds a while back, just in case..."

He wouldn't finish that sentence. If anyone knew, she knew how he kept ending up on the receiving end of a firing gun.

Tandy was perhaps a little too used to life threatening situations, even before they'd started this. She was definitely prone to being a little too cavalier about shit like this, but if he read her just as less shook right now, that was probably a good thing.

"It'll be fine. I don't feel that lightheaded." It wasn't like she was going to get up and walk around anytime soon, so that didn't really register as an issue to her. She'd have a cheeseburger at some point, or grab an iron supplement from a corner store or something. "I'm definitely not about to sleep. Do we have any like ibuprofen in there? Or booze? Cause this hurts."

She could feel it starting to give, that psuedo calm she'd been pulling off - that was part of being in shock, wasn't it? She thought she remembered that. Oh, this was gonna get bad.

"You are not allowed to get shot. Okay? Not permitted."

"It isn't fine," he protested. Tyrone had heard her correctly; Tandy had stated the future, not the present like he sulked about. Yet the complaint didn't linger. His stress level started to wane as she continued talking. It also helped that his methods started to keep her bleeding under control. He placed her hand over the patch and gave a nod before leaving her side. "The kit has pain killers. Morphine. Do you think you need that?"

He wasn't sure if she even heard him as he picked through the first aid kit. His focus remained but Tandy had gotten his attention. Ty leaned in and laid a tender kiss on her lips. "I won't. And don't exactly like you getting shot either," he shot back firmly but affectionately. As he spoke, he placed the dose of ibuprofen in her hand then grabbed her a nearby bottle of water and set it down within her grasp before taking over the wound care.

"Ibuprofen. Start with that. If you're still hurting in a few hours, I'll read up on what else you can take." One of the first things Ty knew he'd have to check was if mixing alcohol would help or hurt her further. He remained crouched along the floor by the bed, holding down the gauze as she took the pain killers.

"But it will be. It's a silver lining, take it." Sitting still was already irritating her, and watching him only just took the edge off, even though she was doing it much more closely than she needed to, now they were back here, but she was not doing well enough at fighting off the delayed panic to help it. "No. Morphine makes me nauseous anyways."

"Yeah, me either, but you can't. I can't get us out, if that happens." At least she knew she would've said that just as forcefully no matter when she said it - but normally she might not have said it at all, so that wasn't much comfort.

"Okay." Oh, she absolutely shouldn't drink, and she knew it, to be honest. After blood loss, even if she wasn't worried over that? No. But lacking anything else, she would have run that risk, and he could yell at her for it later.

Maybe he should have worried, Tandy trying to be hopeful and the voice of reason. It was a mean thing to think but Ty couldn't help his frame of mind. However, he had enough sense not to voice all his thoughts.

"Got it," he said at her explanation of the effect. There was a lot more studying up that it seemed he needed to do. He pushed that thought out of mind, not wanting to work himself up with worry again. Ty kept his hand firm over her injury without wavering in the pressure applied or changing his gaze. His eyes stayed fixed on hers, glancing to the gauze every so often.

His face contorted a little when she insisted that he couldn't get shot. "That's not an excuse for you to get shot again, just because I shouldn't. And no more splitting up somewhere we know they have guns at. I can't get shot and you cant either, okay?" he insisted when it sounded like Tandy was offering up to take a hit for him.

Hopefully it was just a misunderstanding.

"Not shouldn't - "

She sucked in a deep breath, winced a little and closed her mouth again, near about literally biting her tongue. She wasn't - she wasn't trying to start a fight, really, there was no way in hell she could take that right now, but it still took her a few minutes to be able to make eye contact again, to nod, "Okay. Okay."

Even then, she didn't really trust herself to say anything more than that.

"You ever get stitches before?" he asked once she had settled. "I think I'm gonna have to at least tape the cut. Or maybe wrap around? I don't think it should stay open how it is. And you should probably take an antibiotic just to be safe."

The word vomit came from her wincing and showing pain again. Ty couldn't be too sure about her color either, if she was growing pale and losing too much blood. It was better when she was the one rambling but he couldn't blame her for simmering down.

"Your mom's gonna kill me."

"No. Almost, once. I think probably wrapping it would be better? I don't know. Do we have antibiotics?"

Simmered down was not exactly accurate - she was just too likely to end up saying something she regretted later if she kept rambling. What filter she had managed to piece together, what ability to be careful she'd picked up, it was pretty deeply eroded at the moment from the pain and the shock and the... everything, really. Bizarrely, awfully, it had seemed easier when he was freaking out, and that had made sense to her earlier but now she couldn't think of why it had.

"Oh, no. No, she doesn't ever need to know about this. Like we're mostly honest now but this? No."

Cut? Abrasion? Laceration? --What little of first aid that Tyrone knew of all flooded his mind, prompting him to search for a cell phone that he could use to search for answers. He placed her hand back over the gauze once Tandy had taken the ibuprofen and teleported around the church until finding a phone then immediately returned to her side when he uttered the fear about her mother.

Ty would've preferred her filter gone than silence. At least, he thought that at the moment. He would prefer she punch him in the face than any thought of her slipping away from him. Fortunately, no physical violence or saying things she didn't mean ended up being necessary after he mentioned her mother knowing what happened. He looked at Tandy incredulously. "Tandy, this is going to take time to heal. You can't hide it or just disappear on her."

Never mind that he didn't know if her mother knew he was a criminal or not. He had thought the worst, believing that Tandy hadn't talked about it in an effort to be polite.

"Okay, you seriously have to stop moving away." Maybe not a request he could really keep, and she felt a little ridiculous making it because they were back on home ground now and relatively safe, and there wasn't even really a full moment he was out of sight but it was still getting to her.

"I'm not going to disappear," she reassured him, or at least tried for a second before she said more things that would keep that look on his face, "But I think I can hide it. It's not something she needs to worry about. How would I even explain it?"

"I wouldn't ever let her think it was you, though," Tandy softened, reaching for him, "That's really not ever an option."

What a stark contrast from once telling him she never wanted to see his face again. He couldn't help but think about that time at the moment, remembering that he had nearly shot her once. She was a stranger but he hated that feeling then without needing to know who she was. Now? Ty closed his eyes to will the thoughts away. Guilt threatened to suffocate him at the question of why he couldn't have saved her from being shot.

"I'm here. I'm here," he assured Tandy before leaving the phone in her reach then taking over the application of pressure again. "See if you can find what's the better method for this to heal fast." Giving her the phone to occupy herself with was not just productive but also gave her a distraction as he removed the gauze again for another change. Ty gave her a small smile at what she concluded with.

It easily could've been the worst timing but he couldn't help himself from asking. "Does she know? About me? Us?" Ty asked almost timidly. He didn't let his gaze linger, finding it made more sense to keep working rather than put Tandy on the spot. He used iodine to try and soak the gauze rather than rip any of the clotting off. A fresh one to clean up the area. Last was some antibiotic ointment before a fresh set of gauze (also the last pack of gauze) that he planned to tape down.

Evidently he did know the best method to care for her wound but hadn't trusted himself. The ointment had some pain relief to it which could only help. Ty busied using athletic tape to wrap around her ribs.

"Don't do that," she asked, again, reaching out to stroke his cheek, "I can see it, you know. It's not your fault. I don't wanna be one of the things you beat yourself up with."

Tandy fiddled with the phone for maybe a minute, and then set it aside again, watching him work instead. "I'd like to be helpful, but you're way overestimating my ability to focus right now. Seems like you got it, anyways."

Oh, there definitely could've been worse timing, but yeah, probably could've been better timing, too. That wasn't really how their deep conversations usually happened, though, was it? That probably wasn't going to change. "That's kind of a broad question. What do you want to know if she knows about you/us?"

She got through that time, getting him to lock eyes with her. Ty only gave her a nod but did let the guilt go for the moment.

He busied wrapping her wound and dropped the questions regarding her mom that Tandy seemed to need clarity on. Ty gave her a dubious look at first but cut her a break under the circumstances. "Does she know that you and I are a thing? That I'm wanted? What we can do? Any of that?" he elaborated on what he'd previously said. It wasn't super specific but she had to know what he meant.

There were a lot of questions to choose from. He waited to see which she'd start off with and what all would Tandy answer.

She'll take that win, even if it was temporary.

Alright, so maybe Tandy was more buying herself time than needing clarification, but it was kind of a big question, for her at least. On the plus side, after everything, she was more likely to answer all of those questions. "Just a little curious, huh? Alright, in order, I guess."

She took a deep breath before she continued. "I haven't flat out told her we're a thing, but I would assume she's put that together. I mean she's met you, that's not small, and she knows I crash with you and there's no way she thinks we're sat round playing monopoly or some shit. And obviously she doesn't think I'm staying at Liam's anymore - that's where I'd told her I was, mostly, and it's definitely obvious he's not in the picture at all anymore, so. 2, I haven't directly told her what the charges are either, since they're bullshit, just that you're getting shit from the police. She may have seen more on the news but she hasn't said anything, so."

"And no, I haven't told her what we can do. I used it in front of her that one time, but I don't think she saw. I don't even know how I'd start that conversation. And it's your decision if you want to share your half, that's not up to me."

That was a lot more information than Ty expected to get. Sure, they promised to be honest with each other yet neither readily gave up information. No real lies but still plenty of secrets. Maybe not as many secrets since opting to take what they had to the next level. And that was where the questions stemmed from for him: Did Tandy see what they had as something real or something for right now?

It physically stung to know that her mom knew about Liam. His parents didn't even know about Evita who he'd been more serious over than Tandy made it sound she was over her ex. He could feel the edges of his ears get hot, the way they would if he were embarrassed. He was... jealous? No. There was no question about it. Ty stretched his neck from one side to the other for something to do rather than look at her eyes.

"So you just assume she thinks there's something going on between us?" He didn't mean to downplay what she said about having met her mother. Tandy had met his parents and he'd told her that he's never had a girl over, not to meet them. She had. Yet he didn't think his parents automatically assumed he was with her. His own flaws shouldn't taint Tandy. He sat there worried, tending to her wounds but possibly inflicting emotional ones. "I mean, it's cool if you don't want her to know."

It wasn't. That was a lie. He tried to be casual about it but peered up with an intensity. "Probably better that way, to be real. She thinks you're trying to clean up and so is she. I'm not the company you should be keeping."

See, she had known he would mind up making that face. "Ty..."

"No, stop that. That's not what you're really thinking, and if you're going to ask me questions like that, especially now, you can at least tell me what you actually think. I still feel like I'm about to have a panic attack or fuck knows, I don't- Never mind."

"Don't assign reasons for me, either. Please. I don't mean to sound harsh, but that's not - you should know that's not it. We're just not there yet. Not you and me, me and her. We've never really talked about that stuff, and honestly just telling her about my day still feels weird half the time."

"It's not that I don't want her to know. It's - trust is a thing that's happening, but it's slow, and I don't trust her with you yet. And you know damn well you're better company than I've ever kept."

No. This wasn't a time they should argue. Really, he didn't like when they fought at all but Ty wasn't one who could kick someone when they were down, and she meant more to him than most. Yet there were feelings raging inside of him that were hard to subdue. He also owed her the truth. He'd want the same.

"I know," he submitted. His brow knit upward together, looking at her with concern than the frustrated furrowed brow of when he spoke. Tandy deserved more than a two word assurance so he tried. "I just..." Ty swallowed thickly, glancing away to collect his thoughts before speaking. "...Didn't think you and Liam were something your mom knew about at all. Mine don't know about anyone. I wasn't lyin' when I said I never had a girl over."

That his parents knew about. He wasn't going to open that can of worms unless she specifically asked. "I got jealous. It's stupid. I'm sorry," he apologized in a hushed voice.

"That's what - Ty." Well, that was some level of relief, to be honest. She could think of so many other things, of varying degrees of possibility, so many worse things that could've been going through his mind, that he could have said.

And she was going to think about absolutely none of them right now. "She knew his name, that's all. I wasn't going to tell her I was staying here. They never met, we never talked about it beyond that. He was just part of a lie to her, cause it was easier to use a real name. She might not even believe he ever really existed, honestly."

"Come here. It is a little stupid, you could not have less reason to be jealous, but I'll forgive it if you come hold me."

It was probably pathetic, how much he looked like an eager puppy as she refuted there being anything meaningful between her and Liam. Or maybe the look was easier to see the moment she told him to hold her. Ty lived for that. It wasn't just forgiveness but seeing his stupid actions for what they were. He wanted to be with her. His limited experience nagged at him that he'd never be enough for Tandy.

Ty put together the first aid kit and pushed it to a side then cleaned up where he'd worked on Tandy at. He carefully helped her out of the blood soaked pants she had on then climbed into the bed with her, scooping her carefully close to him.

Tandy Bowen | Cloak & Dagger | OTA

...feel free to ignore if we have too many threads going <3

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