Someday Maybe

Ty had gotten up, the physical act of doing so had been nearly as painful as falling down the stairs. His left knee, which had been smashes several times had nearly buckled then and he’d had to lock his elbows to keep from falling. He didn’t think he could have gotten up again had he fallen that second time. He’d slowly limped down the stairs, not an easy feat when one of your knees doesn’t want to hold your weight never mind actually bend.

He was almost to the second floor when the guards recovered from the memory he’d forced on them. He had planned to reinforce it as necessary until he was safely away far enough but at the moment he couldn’t concentrate on such a large projection. Instead he reached out toward them, one-by-one starting with those nearest, and one-by-one he killed them.

He tried to muster up some kind of feeling of.... something. Guilt? Remorse? Regret? Something? Anything other than... tired? In pain? Anything? But he felt nothing. They would have killed him so he killed them first. He could have done something different, put them to sleep or some other action that would have prevented them from pursuing and hurting him but in the past that kind of mercy had come back to bite him. Cripplingly. And so what if it might not have this time? What if it had?

He just.... he didn’t care. He didn’t care if he’d screwed up the mission by killing them all. He didn’t care if they wouldn’t have hurt him. He didn’t care what Aiden thought. Self defense. Self defense. They were going to kill him. He remembered thinking that. Funny what the brain chooses to hold onto when he couldn’t remember how he’d exited the house or made his way back to Aiden even when he concentrated on trying to recall.

He must have made it in the half an hour the younger male had prescribed and he had to wonder what exactly Aiden’s vision had shown him. Of course, he hadn’t thought anything of it at the time. It hadn’t mattered. Nothing had mattered. He was alive. Aiden was alive. He dully noted that the dark-haired little girl was also still alive. Mission accomplished.

He was still tired when he woke up. He still hurt. Not surprising, really. For all that his powers or Aiden’s seemed much like the magic in the books he read there wasn’t anyone who could wave a wand or force a potion down his throat that healed his injuries over night. So, not surprising that he still hurt. But- He couldn’t move. Did he- no- no that wasn’t right! He couldn’t have injured himself that badly. He wouldn’t have been able to walk before if he’d given himself a spinal injury and he remembered all those stairs and he just couldn’t have imagined that, could he? Of course he could have.

“Mmmn.” Something warm and soft brushed against his throat while scritchy bristles scraped his chin. “You still smell pretty nice for someone who hasn’t showered in like four days.” Warm arms hugged him gently and Ty peeled his eyes open in time to see Aiden peeking up at him from below his chin. Was it strange that Aiden always laid down like that? He was almost certain the younger male wasn’t really much shorter than he was if he was shorter at all.

“Shouldn’t you not lay on the grievously injured and make them think they’ve broken their spine?” Ty murmured now that he’d calmed down about his inability to move. Obviously he could move he was just being laid on top of.

“So next time you scream bloody murder in your sleep I shouldn’t climb into bed to cuddle and comfort you?” He sniped back. Ty smiled wearily. Nightmares. Of course. And that, well, it wasn’t surprising either. “Aren’t you hungry?” Aiden asked, distracting him from thoughts of his nightmares. His stomach decided to growl an affirmative. “Good, maybe if you say something your lady friend will cook some real food. Every time I set foot in the kitchen she hovers about and takes over whatever I’m doing. I can’t cook anything and she wont cook anything with meat in it because she’s some kind of crazy vegetarian.”

“Pesca-vegetarian.” Ty responded calmly. It was... it was nice to know that Cheryl was here. Obviously she was here because he was injured. But that was fine. Where were they anyway? Aiden blinked at him slowly. Ty wondered if he actually didn’t understand or if it was intentional. He shook his head a bit. “Ask her to make chili and lasagna for me.” Not because he thought that Cheryl would make an exception for him and make them with meat but because he thought Aiden wouldn’t notice they didn’t contain any meat.

Aiden flashed a grin. “Great.” He said brightly and went to go and presumably inform Cheryl of his desire. Ty spent the time he was gone slowly sitting up. Everything hurt. And despite Aiden’s assertion that he didn’t smell too bad he knew he needed a bath and badly. He also needed to pee. How long had he been asleep? Had he woken up before and just not remembered it? He made a face as he levered himself to his feet and shuffled awkwardly toward the bathroom. There was nothing conveniently near the toilet to hold onto or lean against so he sat down on it. He was not too proud for that. Besides, how exactly was it more macho or manly to fall in a puddle of your own piss?

“Ty, Lady friend said-” He heard Aiden call from the other room. “Hey- where did you go?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “You know, you were supposed to wait until I could help you instead of trying to kill yourself.” The younger male berated him as Ty leaned awkwardly on the sink to wash his hands.

“I’m fine. Can you leave me alone so I can take a bath?” Aiden scowled at him.

“You need help.” He said firmly. “Besides, you don’t have anything I haven’t got.” He said dismissively, flicking his eyes over the older male.

“Aside from a sense of shame?” Ty asked wearily.

“Yeah. Besides that.” Aiden confirmed and started water filling up the bathtub before turning back to Ty. “You’ve got those parts everyone has. You know, a head and eyes and ears and all. And you’ve got a scrawny ass and bony hips. A whole mess of crazy stuff going on inside your brain. And a cock and balls and interesting stuff like that. But I’m sure you can wash those yourself and I doubt seeing them will physically blind me or scar me forever.” He shrugged. He put the cover down on the toilet and offered Ty his arm so he could sit down on it while the water filled up higher in the tub.

The blond sighed but reluctantly let Aiden help him to sit down. He hadn’t been up for that long but he was already hurting more and trembling a little with fatigue. And he was starving. He was going to complain about that but Aiden was already starting to peel up his t-shirt and give him something new to complain about. He tried to bat Aiden’s hands away but it was a hard thing to do since he couldn’t see Aiden with his shirt half-way over his head and his arms got angled in the shirt. “Jerk.” he muttered when the blue-haired male successfully wrestled his shirt off.

“You look like crap.” Aiden informed him, running his eyes over the many bruises and abrasions that covered his torso. “The fuck did you do to get like this anyway?” He asked angrily. “You were just supposed to distract them not fucking try to get yourself killed! You could have died. Internal injuries and shit and Lady Friend said you were really lucky you didn’t bruise your fucking kidneys or damage your liver or something fucking important to your survival never mind the fact that you you had a nice fucking conk on your head that could have been a concussion or worse. You can’t just fucking- you’re not a fighter! You told me that yourself.” Aiden ranted, growing steadily more angry and frustrated. He looked like he might have hit Ty except for the fact that he was already thoroughly beat up.

“I fell down the stairs.” He responded calmly and Aiden looked at him incredulously.

“Are you fucking serious?” Aiden didn’t look like he believed him in the slightest.

“Yes.” He sighed. “I was distracting them. I made them think there was someone every which way to confuse them and then I made them think there was a giant explosion. And then I stupidly started to walk past all of them. I expected the effects to totally incapacitate them in a way that was easy for me to facilitate to a whole bunch of people at the same time but one of them must have heard me or something. He grabbed my ankle and I panicked and yanked out of his grip and sent myself headlong down the stairs. There weren’t any- I couldn’t- I wasn’t walking down the stairs so I couldn’t catch myself on the railing or anything. I just covered my head.” He shook his head at the memory and then squinted his eyes shut when the action hurt too much and made him feel nauseous.

“I don’t know... I don’t know how I got out of there without being killed.” Aiden looked like he believed what he said up until the last part.

“She said you killed everyone.” The younger male said flatly. And Ty felt like nothing more or less than a failure. He had killed everyone. Every last guard in the whole place. He could have done something else. He could have put them to sleep like he’d done to the little girl or he could have induced the same kind of mind-numbing agoraphobia he suffered from that left him curled up in his bed under the covers for hours upon hours on the not so good days or he could have blinded them or paralyzed them or any of a dozen other things that wouldn’t have killed them when he was done. But he’d been hurt and afraid. He’d been scared that whatever he did would be as ineffective as the explosion and they’d come after him and shoot him. So he’d killed them.

He hadn’t considered the fact that a moral person wouldn’t just kill them. Not really. He had considered it to be self-defense because they were going to kill him. That didn’t make it okay. Not really. But he just hadn’t cared. Killing wasn’t something that had ever really bothered him even though intellectually he knew he should. He finally nodded in answer to Aiden’s accusation.

“Why?” Aiden asked. Apparently his vision hadn’t showed him how they would meet up in half an hour just that it would happen. What was he supposed to say to that? Was he supposed to have some justification for why he had done it? Was he supposed to feel remorse? He still didn’t think he was capable of that. He didn’t really feel bad about what he had done except that it made him a monster and really... who would ever want to be with a monster?

“I was scared.” He answered with the truth. “I could hear them. They were going to kill me. I couldn’t- I know I should have- You would have done something different. Something more humane. But all I could think of was another time when I wish I had killed someone instead of just incapacitating them.” He shook his head. “I was hurt and I was scared.”

Ty didn’t want to know how Aiden was going to react. He didn’t want him to look at him with horror or pity or... anything. He couldn’t stand the idea that they wouldn’t be friends anymore now. It had never really bothered him before but only because he had never let it. He had just assumed that he was as content with his life as he could be and that was all he should want.

That was all he should want, he thought to himself firmly but knew that if he’d said it aloud it wouldn’t have rung of the truth.