theodore walder & sterling matthews
#D85656 & #7B988B
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Before he knew it he was surrounded in a circle by the copies all alarmingly realistic and promising. However, the man was just as perplexed if not more so than Sterling which gave him the perfect distraction. The man clearly was more worried about the plethora of Skye's than himself and he began to creep up on the man as he began to take out the copies. Sterling made sure to make himself as quiet and as small as possible as the man whipped around, confused. It wasn't until the man had gotten down to three left that he was able to strike. He had his gun trained on the one directly in the middle, and although to practically anyone else they looked identical he just knew it was Skye. As the man placed his finger on the trigger Sterling jumped on him from behind causing the man to fire a round blindly into the ceiling. With one quick twist Sterling felt his neck snap and the two of them fell to the floor.
Theodore stared at the body blankly for a moment, then at his own hands his breaths coming out in nervous short pants. Switching back and forth was painful and nauseating which made it so easy to teeter the line of losing control due to his body being in fight-or-flight response. He wasn't pulled out of his shell-shocked state until he felt Ollie rest a hand on his shoulder. The touch caused him to jump slightly, as he wasn't expecting it but then he slowly relaxed. Even though it was simply a hand on his shoulder, it kept him grounded. Ollie sat across from him, eye-level, and calmly placed the bandages in his hand as if nothing truly horrible had just happened. The kind gesture was almost enough to make Theodore cry. No one ever looked at him the same after they had seen him in that state of mind but Oliver treated him as if nothing had happened. "All this blood might cause a bit of panic among the hostages. You do my shoulder, I'll check your hands, okay?" They locked gazes for a moment, and combined with his steady, calm words it was enough to bring Theo back to Earth. He felt like he could taker deeper breaths, rather than shallow, superficial ones. Theodore nodded in response as he was a bit lost for words and watched as Ollie removed his jacket, frowning slightly as he winced. Theo suddenly wished they had gotten a healer attached to their team, it was something he always felt like they should have but the Academy protected them dearly rarely ever letting them out into the field. Theodore grabbed the bandages from Ollie's hands and gently wrapped his shoulder and arm, making sure to secure it tightly to stop the bleeding. His hand lingered on the bandage as he glanced up at Ollie, "I-" he cleared his throat slightly before steadying his words, "thank you Oliver". While his sentence was short it was genuine. After Ollie cleaned up Theo's hands, both boys sitting in a sort of calming silence, he realized that they still had a job to do.
Theodore got up, feeling much better than he had a minute before. Granted he was still on edge, but being in Ollie's presence had almost brought him back down to Earth in a way. He glanced across the room, making sure to avoid eye contact with the body and grabbed Ollie's knife from the ground handing it back to him. "It might be best if you lead the way this time" He cracked a weak smile as he often used humor to escape from stress-related situations. Partly though, he meant it, it was safer if he didn't go at things head on in fear of losing control again.