Ty Solomon (shadowbadge) wrote in shadows_rpg, @ 2021-10-13 13:50:00 |
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Entry tags: | #june 2018, grady, grady x ty, ty |
Who: Grady and Ty
When: afternoon, Thursday, June 21st
Where: the station
Status: complete
In spite of having a spate of nightmares once he and Jared had gone back to bed, Ty had woken up feeling pretty good and refreshed. Almost like his psyche had purged some stuff it had been holding onto. There was so much to do at the apartment with unpacking, but he knew that if he didn’t go see his mother soon she would track him down and make him hear about it, so he’d left in the morning to go visit her and his auntie. They had brunch together and Ty had fixed a couple of small things that had gone wrong in the house.
Once he was freed of family obligations, he decided kind of impulsively to go to the station and see if the sheriff was there. Ty wanted to say hello to a lot of people now that he was back -- and married, something he’d been convinced would never happen -- but he specifically wanted to check in with Grady. Ty walked in and breathed the place in, so much nostalgia hitting him in the face. He missed it, he could admit that. Maybe not the entire job, but a good bit of it.
There were a few unfamiliar faces as he walked past the desks on the way to Grady’s office, but Ty did get stopped by a couple of people to chat for a minute. He didn’t see Amelia or Bailey anywhere, two of the ones he would talk to the most, but that was okay, he would catch up with them too. Finally Ty was leaning into Grady’s doorway and rapping his knuckles against the open door, a smile on his face.
Looking up from his computer, an instant smile formed on Grady's face when he spotted Ty. "Hey there. I heard you were back in town," he said, standing to come around the desk so he could offer Ty his hand. "How's it going? Come on in." He had figured he would be seeing Ty and Jared sooner or later, though he wasn't sure if either of them planned on coming back to work or not. He certainly didn't want to pressure them to but it was nice to see Ty again. It had been a while.
It was surprisingly good to see him. Ty had always liked Grady, even when he had to be a hard ass boss. He felt like he’d been gone a long time, like that brief interlude between coming back from Over There and flying down to Texas hadn’t even happened. He stepped forward to give Grady a firm handshake. “Hey, it’s going good, yeah, thanks,” he said as he moved further into Grady’s office. Ty shut the door behind him and plunked down into one of the chairs in front of the sheriff’s desk, a spot he’d been in countless times before. It had almost always been in uniform, though. “Yeah we got back in sometime yesterday, got an apartment in Castle View for the time being while we house hunt ... How are you?”
Grady moved back to his own chair but his work was dismissed for the time being. There was a lot going on, as usual, but he was more than happy to take a break to catch up with Ty. Hearing that they had gotten back in town the day before didn't surprise Grady. News traveled fast in this town. "I'm doing good," Grady said, resisting the urge to start filling Ty in on some of the bizarre cases he had going on. "Jen and Hunter have both graduated and we got a bit of extra help around the station. Not dealing with Point Pleasant blizzards is always a plus too." He cocked a brow, his lips still twitched into a small smile. "How was Texas?"
Ty let out a small ‘aww’ and smiled at the news about Grady’s kids. He’d known they were seniors and graduation was coming, but he hadn’t given it much thought. He thought Grady must be proud, and it gave him a familiar pang in the chest to think about being a father. It was something he’d never thought would be in his future, but it seemed like it would become a reality down the line. “Texas was amazing,” Ty answered with a little laugh. “I mean, hot as balls, I won’t lie about that. I dunno how people live there, and it was only June. But other than that ... incredible. We uh, did the thing --” he lifted his left hand to wiggle his ring finger with its thick titanium band, “-- and it all went perfect. I’ve got video of Jared crying like a baby if you need a good laugh.” Ty was sure Grady would be touched instead, but they didn’t need to get too mushy right off the bat. “My mom actually flew down for it, it was a complete surprise. I didn’t think she was coming. And then the rest of the time was basically honeymoon road trip, which was ... great. A little strange in spots, but what in our lives isn’t, right?”
Grady's brows lifted at the sight of Ty's wedding ring but he was honestly thrilled for the both of them. They had each been through a lot so he was glad to see they had done something amazing for themselves. "Congratulations," Grady said, his smile widening. "I'm going to have to take you both out for drinks to celebrate. You can show me the video then so I can give Jared a good ribbing. I'm really happy for you both." Falling silent for a moment, Grady studied Ty, searching for any sign that he was still recovering from what had happened to him in January. "How're you feeling, by the way. Obviously the last few weeks sounded pretty great but... recovery wise, how are you?"
Drinks with Grady sounded like a lot of fun, and they had some funny stories from the road to share, and he was sure there was a lot to catch up on about how things had been going in Point Pleasant, in a more casual setting than at the station. Especially in this rare time when he wasn’t the boss of either of them. Ty wasn’t too shocked when Grady asked him how he really was -- there was that investigator that lived in all of them. He chuckled faintly and leaned back in his chair, taking a moment to consider his answer. “I’m ... not entirely sure,” he admitted, tilting his head back and forth. “It’s been an up and down thing. Some days I feel fine, other days I get kinda paranoid, flashbacks. There’s a lot of bad dreams. And something strange has happened to me, we discovered by accident ... I’ve lost my sense of pain. Like, all of it. I could slam my hand in that door right there and not feel anything but pressure.”
Most of what Ty said was pretty much what Grady expected to hear. Except for the last part. His brows shot up again and he stared for a moment or two to try and collect his thoughts. "You've lost your sense of pain," Grady repeated, not skeptically but just being sure that he heard Ty correctly. "Have you seen a doctor, Ty?" Maybe it had been a result of what happened to Ty wherever he had been for those months, but Grady couldn't help but think maybe Ty was suffering from a disease, or something horrible like cancer. He didn't want to voice that, but his heart had picked up speed a bit at the news.
Ty couldn’t help but chuckle softly. That question wasn’t a shocker either, and he could almost feel Jared in the back of his mind fretting right alongside Grady. “I made an appointment at Mercy earlier today,” Ty assured him. “I’m going in first thing Monday for tests. Believe me, anything you’re thinkin’ right now, we worried about the whole way home. Pretty sure Jared thinks I’m dying.” He shrugged and smiled a little. If it was brain cancer or spinal failure or some rare shit he’d never heard of, there wasn’t much he could do about it yet. “The thing was, though ... my leg got all scraped up, right? I slipped on some loose rocks while we were hiking, that’s how we found out about this. But the next morning it was all healed. And these were some pretty deep scrapes. So I don’t think it’s a brain tumor. Something else is going on.”
Ty didn't seem to be overly stressed about what he was going through and Grady's frown deepened. Not being a brain tumor was obviously a good thing, but it was still worrisome and he was glad Ty was getting it checked out, regardless. "So you can't feel pain and you've got... what, accelerated healing?" It sounded like some kind of superhero story. X-Men type stuff that Grady was pretty sure only existed in fiction. But then again, half of the stuff happening in his town shouldn't actually be happening. "Do you think it's a side effect from wherever you were for those four months?"
He lifted his shoulders a bit at the first question -- Ty didn’t know exactly what it was. Maybe it had only been a fluke, a one time thing, or maybe something had changed in his body and anytime he hurt himself for the rest of his life, he would heal faster than normal. Jared hadn’t let him experiment with it much yet. “I absolutely do,” Ty answered the last part. “I don’t know what else it could be. We were exposed to God-knows-what for months, it could have done anything to us. So I’m going to find some of the other survivors, see if they’ve had any similar experiences. If there’s some kind of pattern ... seems like something we should be aware of.” Ty almost mentioned the fact that he could sense the others in town too, but he didn’t want to sound too outlandish to Grady.
It also sounded like the potential for trouble. There had been quite a few people missing along with Ty, though he could never conclusively determine they had all disappeared with Ty. Most returned and not many have been willing to talk about their experience with him. Some who had gone missing remained missing. For those who had the same experience as Ty, Grady wondered if they would all have the same "side effect" as Ty, or if they had been infected with something else. Was infection the right word for it? He thought about Dahlia's niece, how she had been missing too, along with her mother. Elodie was back but her mother was not. Grady still hadn't spoken to her in an official manner but the pieces were starting to slide into place. "Did there happen to be a teenage girl over there with you?" he asked.
Ty watched Grady’s gears turn, familiar with that assessing look on his face when he was mentally chewing on something. He’d been a bit too traumatized by it all to sit down with the sheriff and go over the entire experience, but Ty felt more centered now, like he could fill Grady in on all the details with a clear head. He nodded when the question finally came. “Elodie Hunt, yes,” he answered. “I didn’t see her a lot, she was in and out of the Other Juniper, but I knew who she was. The Lucas kid was there too, Gavin Lucas’s son. They were the youngest. I can give you a whole list if you need it, boss. I tried to keep tabs on everybody, to keep as many of them alive as I could.” Not all of them had wanted -- or seemed to need -- his help, of course, but assuming some authority had been one of the few things keeping Ty sane over there. He’d needed the work.
Grady wasn't terribly surprised that Ty confirmed Elodie's presence there and he had already known Jasper Lucas had been missing thanks to Amelia, even though the family hadn't officially reported him missing. He had seen the kid out driving around town since his return too. "I could definitely use a list. Elodie and her mom had both been missing. I know Elodie is back but we still haven't been able to locate Mrs. Hunt. There are a few others who were reported missing who didn't return when the rest of you did." Grady scratched idly at the nape of his neck. "Elodie... I had to pick her up for shoplifting the other day. She mentioned that I had broken my arm, but she had no way of knowing that. I found it pretty odd at the time. I don't know if it has anything to do with what's going on with you or not. Do you think you could keep me in the loop while you talk to the others?" Ty was a cop, but he wasn't a cop right now and maybe the others would feel more comfortable talking to Ty than to the Sheriff.
Ty’s brow furrowed as he listened. That was interesting, and too specific to be a random off-handed comment from Elodie. He wasn’t sure if the girl specifically would talk to him, they hadn’t exactly connected on the other side, but if Ty talked to more of them and found they were having similar experiences, then that might bring a bit more light to it. Hell, for all he knew, they’d all already gotten together and figured it all out while he’d been out of state. “Yeah, I’ll keep you up to date,” he said as he sat forward. Ty reached for a pad of paper on Grady’s desk and a pen. He wasn’t technically a cop anymore, but he had no qualms about keeping Grady informed. Ty started to jot down the names of the people who’d suffered with him. “Mrs. Hunt wasn’t there, as far as I know,” he said as he wrote. “I think some people died right off the bat though, it was chaos at first with those things attacking us. So I might have missed her. ... I dunno this Vex guy’s last name, and Carson Durand was a wolf the whole time, but I know that was him.”
It was the first time Ty had really spoken to Grady about what had happened and he watched the man writing down names on the paper. There had been deaths, or so Ty thought, and that was something Grady definitely needed to know. He had so many questions but they were all put on pause as soon as Ty mentioned Carson Durand being a wolf. "I'm sorry, back up..." He held up a hand, his brows furrowed together curiously. "Did you just say Carson Durand was a wolf?" Maybe Ty was suffering from a brain injury, or Grady had heard him wrong. Either one of those things could be possible. Certainly more possible than someone in town being a wolf.
Ty looked up from where he was writing down Miriam D’Onofrio’s name, and let out a little huff of a laugh. “Yeah,” he said slowly, watching Grady’s expression. “So ... I know how crazy this sounds, but werewolves are real. And Carson Durand is one of ‘em. I dunno for how long or what his story is, but ... for some reason while we were over there, he was stuck as this ... giant fuck-off wolf. I saw the shift happen, and I saw that goddamn wolf traipse in and out of Juniper, acting like a loyal dog to this Vex guy. They were buddies, I dunno. But honestly man, compared to everything else that was happening, it seemed like small potatoes. There were giant fucking monsters in the never-ending fog all around us, I actually kinda slept easier when the wolf was in the building.” He snorted again and went back to his list. “Everybody saw it all, some of them will probably corroborate for you, if you think it’s just the brain tumor talking,” Ty added lightly.
Grady had the mind to look sheepish, even though he thought it was reasonable to think maybe Ty was suffering from a brain injury. "It's not every day you have someone come in, sit down and tell you werewolves are real," Grady said with a huff of amusement. It was hard to believe, but then again, everything in this town was fucking hard to believe. He was getting used to the thought process that if one strange thing was real, other strange things could be real too. He wanted to talk to Durand but the town was small enough for Grady to know that the guy had left town. It was still something he needed to think about. "How did this happen?" Grady asked after a moment. "I know where, and I maybe know a little bit about why, I just don't know how."
Ty didn’t hold the suspicion against him, he would have thought it was a brain injury too, in Grady’s shoes. There was also the legwork that Jared had done about werewolves, and they’d sort of come to the conclusion they were real before Ty ever disappeared, but he didn’t want to get into all that. It was too connected to Sadie’s death, and Ty didn’t want to think about Carson being responsible for that. It was too sad. Besides, Grady was asking him about other things now. Ty finished the list and nudged it toward Grady, sitting back in his chair again. He wet his lips and drummed his hands on the armrests briefly, debating how detailed he should be. “There was a group of people, only four, trying to stop us,” Ty said finally. “Carson was one of them ... one of the others was able to open a ... a portal to that place. I don’t really know how, and I don’t really know how they all came together to try, but ... we were all drawn out to Witcham Road. It was this undeniable pull in my brain, I can barely describe it. All to this one clearing, then she ... just opened this hole in reality around us with her hands, and we were there. It was a struggle, there was lightning and fire and lots of screaming and shit, but end result was we were shut away over there. Carson came with us by accident, I think, some struggle with the Lucas kid.”
Grady sat back in his chair, wondering what was more outlandish. The werewolf or the portal. It sounded like some sci-fi movie and Grady's brain was having difficulty connecting accepting it all as reality. Ty sounded so confident though, like this was all fact and not something that sounded unbelievably crazy. Four people trying to "stop" Ty and the others. Grady recalled Witcham Road and all of the cars they found abandoned there. Things had been spiraling around that time. People falling ill, some of them dying. It had been unexplainable to most and then it just... stopped. Grady pulled out another notepad and grabbed his pen to start writing his thoughts down. "Do you know who she is? Who the other three were besides Carson?"
Ty was aware of how crazy it sounded -- living through it had been even crazier. He knew that it was Grady’s nature and job to be skeptical, so he didn’t fault him for not swallowing it all straightaway. Ty wouldn’t have believed half of it if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, and had many other sets of eyes seeing it too. What had happened to them was real, even if nobody else ever believed it. Ty hesitated again in spitting out those names, even though he knew every single of the fog-infected people knew who they were too. If Ty didn’t tell Grady, someone else would. “Nic Castell, Neil Wainscott, and ... Jules Cooper,” he said, more reluctant on that last one. Jules was just a kid. “They were doing their best though, and they ... honestly Grady, they saved a lot of lives. Including Jared’s. I would’ve killed him without intervention.”
Grady wrote the names down, somewhat surprised, as it seemed that those three people had no obvious connection to one another. He knew who they were in a way that he knew who everyone was in Point Pleasant. Wainscott was the librarian. Castell had a criminal history. Jules Cooper was Margaret Cooper's daughter... whose stepdad went missing last winter. Grady looked up at Ty when he admitted he would have killed Jared. "So you're telling me that Durand and the other three... led you out to Witcham Road with the others and... opened a portal to some dimension. Do you remember how you got back? I know you couldn't remember much when it first happened. Has anything come back to you?"
Ty gave him a wan smile when their eyes met. He wasn’t sure if he would use the word ‘led,’ it had more been like they were somehow lured out to the woods, but Ty couldn’t explain how that happened, so the distinction probably didn’t matter. The way Grady said ‘portal’ made him want to cringe, but Ty couldn’t blame him for being skeptical. “No, I still don’t remember,” he said, shaking his head a bit. “I don’t even remember going to sleep over there, I just ... woke up back here, and didn’t know who I was or what the fuck had happened. Still haven’t got a clue what got us out. Of course, I’ve been gone a while, so if the others have figured anything out, I don’t know about it yet. That’s the gist of it though, yeah. And I can tell you, none of us were ourselves. Whatever it was ... infection, mind control, I don’t even know ... it was dangerous as hell. We were dangerous. It was like, feeding off of someone else’s life force, with no human empathy whatsoever. I was actually enjoying draining Jared. You know that’s not me in my right head. All that stopped as soon as we were on the other side, like a switch turned off. I didn’t know if I had killed the man I loved or not, for months. So those four, they did the right thing. Some of the others might be pissed about it ... but it was right.” Ty hadn’t meant to ramble so much, but now that he was actually talking about it, he couldn’t help himself.
Grady continued to scribble down notes, aware that this wasn't a straightforward answer about what happened in January but it was something. And he had names of people he could talk to in order to corroborate Ty's story. Not that he didn't believe his deputy, but Grady needed more verification. "I know that's not you," he said finally. "And I remember what was going on back then and how it all seemed to stop after you disappeared." He recalled Ty had stopped coming in to work and Jared had been too sick to do so himself. Grady exhaled, realizing how hard it must have been on Ty for those four months, having the memory of what he had been doing and not being able to find out if Jared was alive. And there had been others too. Some who never made it back. What was he supposed to do with that? Who could be held accountable? "This town is... not normal," Grady continued. "And I know that's an understatement. I don't mean to make you relive all of this, Ty, but I've been without real answers for months now. Have you spoken to Durand or any of the others since you've been back? Do you have any idea how they did what they did?"
He nodded somberly. They all remembered very well what kind of chaos they’d been wreaking on the town, Ty had talked to several of them about it during those long months. He was intensely grateful that it had all stopped when it had, and that Jared got to recover and go home to mourn. A faint smile crossed Ty’s face about calling the town not normal. That was definitely the understatement of the century. “No,” he answered Grady’s questions. “Not yet. Haven’t been back long yet, and you were high on my list of people to see.” Ty flashed him a bigger smile. “I’m going to though, talk to them. As many as will talk to me. I’ll keep you in the loop, like you said. I wanna put the whole picture together too, believe me.” So much of it was so impossible to believe, so brain-breaking, that collecting all of the facts he possibly could felt important. “And I don’t mind, I’ll tell you anything you want to know. I have nightmares either way.”
Grady nodded. "I appreciate it. People have been reluctant to speak to me." Which wasn't unusual and Ty was sure to understand it, given he had been an active duty cop in this town too. Setting his pen down, he studied Ty and thought about Amelia. Maybe the two ought to talk to each other. He was sure Amelia would be able to relate to Ty a hell of a lot more than Grady ever could. "You know, that woman at Mercy... Lettie Amari. She's been helping Amelia. She knows about... these things. Maybe you should give her a call. She might be able to help you, at least with the nightmares."
Ty definitely understood what he was talking about, with the way people’s mouths closed around cops. He hoped some of the others would be willing to talk to him since he’d been with them for that awful ride, but it wouldn’t surprise him if quite a few didn’t want to. Ty felt like he could predict which ones they would be, too. His brows quirked at Grady’s recommendation and he nodded slowly. “Yeah, maybe I’ll look into it,” he said. Ty didn’t honestly know if anybody could help him with the mess those four months had left in his head, but if the woman was helping Amelia after her ordeal, he was willing to give it a shot. “I want to say hey to Amelia anyway, I’ll get her contact info.” Ty paused, then gave Grady a crooked sort of smile. “I almost forgot to be nosy, who’s this hot date you took to the department fundraiser?”
Grady's brows rose swiftly at the question and before he could compose himself his cheeks burned. Ty and Jared hadn't been at the fundraiser and while Grady knew gossip traveled fast in this town, he hadn't really thought his love life was interesting enough to talk about. "Uh... her name is Dahlia," Grady said, embarrassed. Obviously not embarrassed by Dahlia, but from talking about dating at all. Grady's whole life used to be his kids and work and now he had something resembling a social life and it was a nice, but odd feeling. "She's an artist... and she's Elodie Hunt's aunt. With her mom missing and her dad MIA, she needed a guardian to keep from being turned over to the state." Grady paused and cocked a brow. "Where'd you hear about my hot date?"
The blush was adorable, and Ty tried not to smile wider to draw attention to it, but it kind of happened anyway. Dahlia was a lovely name, to suit a lovely lady. Ty was thoroughly gay, but he wasn’t blind, and he’d been impressed by the couple of pictures he’d seen of Grady’s date. The connection to Elodie was a little odd, but he’d long since accepted that there were going to be all kinds of coincidences in this town. “There were event pictures on the Facebook page, man,” he answered with a little laugh. “Jared spotted you two first, so blame him. But good for you, Grady, seriously. She’s beautiful. Hope it’s going well.” Ty wasn’t going to dwell there too long, since it clearly made Grady awkward, but he had to get used to talking about having a partner if he was going to date.
Oh, right. The damn Facebook page. He didn't use social media often so he hadn't seen them. He would have grimaced but Ty's words prompted a small smile instead. "Thanks, yeah it's going really well. I think I'm still a little rusty when it comes to dating. And I never had to do it in the era of social media." He chuckled softly. "I'm sure you'll meet her... which... I guess in a roundabout way reminds me... do you plan on coming back to the department? There's no rush, but if you want to, there's a place for you here."
Ty did hope to meet her, because Grady deserved to have some love in his life. The man worked his ass off constantly for this insane hellhole of a town they all called home, and Ty knew better than most how being in love could bring so much light into a tough existence. He wasn’t going to wax philosophic about it at the moment though, especially in light of the subject change. Ty looked pained for a moment, nodding slightly. “I haven’t decided yet,” he admitted. “I want to settle in more and make sure I’m all straight up here.” He gestured to his temple and gave a sheepish little chuckle. “I know you need the help, I’m just not sure yet that I’m up to the job anymore. ... Jared plans to come back though. He’ll be talking to you soon.”
Hearing that Ty may not come back to the force was a disappointment but there was some hope when he mentioned Jared. Grady wasn't as hard pressed for help as he had once been but they could always use one or two more bodies around the station. "No hard feelings if you decide the job's not for you anymore," Grady assured him. "Things had been a bit quiet over the past few months to be honest, but lately it seems like the craziness is starting up again. We're back to taking it one day at a time. You'll let me know if you need anything?"
He knew Grady wanted him back, and there was a part of Ty that wanted to return immediately, to just start his life up again where he’d left off. But he knew his mental state wasn’t the best, and it needed to at least improve before he could do the job again. Being a cop in this town exposed him to so much, he wanted to be sure he could handle it. Not to mention there was the whole lack of pain thing, and if he did have a brain tumor or something, he didn’t want to waste time working. “I’ll let you know,” Ty told Grady with a faint smile. “If I need anything, if I wanna be a cop again, what I find out from the others, all of it.” Ty moved to stand up and offered Grady his hand to shake again. “Good to see you, sheriff.”
"I appreciate it." Grady stood and took Ty's hand. "I'm really glad you're back. This place didn't really feel the same without you and Jared." And he didn't mean just the station. Point Pleasant was a small town and honestly, Grady didn't have a lot of close friends. The three of them had experienced a lot of crazy shit together. "Give Jared my best and I'm sure we'll talk soon."
Ty had no idea where his career was going, or if he should even try to have one anymore. His priorities felt all jumbled, and he hadn’t sorted it all out yet. It was good to know that he had a job if he wanted it, and he knew Grady truly did value him as a person, so it wasn’t like they would never speak again. He chuckled as they shook, then let Grady’s hand go to head for the door. “Will do,” he said. “You take care, okay? And tell Amelia I said hi.” Ty flashed a smile, patted the frame of Grady’s door, then slipped out.