Who: Caden and Roxy Where: Home in Seaview When: Monday, October 23rd, late evening Status: Complete
Caden was having a difficult time with Amelia being gone. Not exactly in the same sense as Gavin and Ollie, but there had been a horrible, rusty ball of discomfort in his gut ever since yesterday, when they realized Amelia was legitimately missing, and not just fucking around at a friend’s house to piss off her mom. He had closed down the bar and helped search the woods the night before, trying to mentally prepare himself for the very real possibility that they might come across his niece’s body. Caden had no idea what had happened beyond Ollie’s frustrating ramblings about Amelia having vanished from the backyard, and personally, he blamed her shitty parenting for allowing it to happen in the first place. Where had she been? Why hadn’t the fence been locked? How fucking long had it taken her to even figure out Amelia was gone? It was a lot easier to blame it all on Ollie, because she had been fucking up Gavin’s life since he was fifteen years old. Why did they expect anything to change just because Ollie was pregnant? And did everyone know that? Did the cops? Caden didn’t trust the PPPD anymore than Gavin did, but still. Was no one considering the possibility that maybe Ollie had done something to her daughter?
Caden had been thinking that over the night before, standing at the edge of the woods with some of the other members of the search party, when Aaron and Mila had joined them, both looking pretty miserable. Something had clicked in Caden’s head in that moment, and thus, the rusty ball of discomfort had taken form in his stomach and had yet to fuck off. He hadn’t been able to corner Gavin to talk to him privately, but as the second day of searching came to a close without any sign of Amelia, Caden was beginning to wonder how long they could go before needing to acknowledge the possibility that Amelia’s disappearance could be related to what they’d done to Aaron and Mila. Maybe it was crazy and paranoid, but once the thought had surfaced in Caden’s mind, it took root and began to fester.
Once he and Roxy had gotten home this evening, Caden went right for the liquor under the cabinet in the kitchen, feeling tense and uncertain. The last thing Gavin probably wanted to do was talk about Reagan Kelly and her warning about backlash. The darker the magic, the worse the backlash. Wasn’t that what she’d said to them? Fuck. He poured himself a glass of the whiskey and took a drink as he tried to decide how to proceed.
The past couple of days had been hard on all of them. Roxy couldn’t even imagine what Gavin and Olivia must have been feeling. She herself felt awful and scared, and it wasn’t even her kid. But the whole family adored Amelia, she was just a little ray of sunshine in the Lucas world, and now she was missing. Endangered. Possibly dead. It was too awful to imagine, but Roxy was cynical enough to know that the likelihood the girl was still alive was slim.
She’d been right out there searching with the rest of them, combing through the woods and around town, calling her name, but eventually it was too dark to keep searching. Roxy hated thinking of Amelia out there somewhere alone, suffering through these chillier nights. If she was still alive, she must’ve been terrified. All of this was taking a toll on Caden too, Roxy could see it plain as day. And feel it in the vibes he was giving off as they made their way home and then inside.
He went straight for the liquor for the second night in a row, but Roxy couldn’t blame him for it. Once she had her jacket and shoes off, she padded over next to him. Roxy pulled another glass down and set it next to where Caden still had his hand on the bottle. “Pour me one?” she asked in a murmur, brushing her hand down his back and leaning in to lightly kiss the curve of his shoulder.
Caden was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he nearly forgotten Roxy was there and he jumped a bit when she touched him. Still, he poured her a glass before setting the bottle back down and taking a drink. He didn't want to be coddled or petted tonight. He just wanted to get drunk and try to figure out how to deal with this potential problem. He wanted them to find Amelia before something terrible happened to her. For as much as he and Gavin butted heads, Caden knew him well enough to know that his brother wouldn't be able to handle losing his daughter.
He knocked back the whiskey in his glass and moved to pour himself another. "Gotta figure out what to do," he muttered, glancing at Roxy. "All this searchin' isn't going to do shit. Fucking Ollie."
Roxy wasn’t going to be clingy with him, she knew him better than that, but she couldn’t help but want to comfort him somehow, and she didn’t really know how to do that without touching him at all. Roxy picked up her drink with a murmured thanks and moved to the fridge to put some ice in it. She could handle whiskey, just not warm. Roxy glanced back over at Caden when he spoke, a bit of wariness in her expression. “What else can we do?” she asked. Their options were to keep searching or to sit and wait, as far as she could see. Roxy didn’t suspect that Ollie or Gavin had done anything to Amelia in the slightest. Roxy leaned her ass against the counter and took a sip of the liquor, trying to focus more on the burn as it went down than that hopeless feeling in her chest.
"We can't do shit," Caden muttered, leaning forward to rest his elbows against the counter. He ducked his head and closed his eyes, wanting the whiskey to work its magic faster. No way could he tell Roxy about that witch, or anything he and Gavin had done. They were taking that to their graves. But fuck, what if they were responsible for Amelia going missing? If Reagan Kelly could fix this, or give them any answers, they needed to ask. Or he did. Caden wasn't sure Gavin would even entertain the idea. "Bad things happen here," he murmured, his eyes still closed as his hand wrapped around his glass. "All the fucking time."
Roxy’s brows drew further together as she watched his face. Bad things did happen there, all the fucking time, but she wasn’t sure what he meant by that in the moment. Something about what Caden said made her think he had an idea of someone who could do shit. She sipped at her drink, the burn of it going down a bit easier now. “Do you know someone who can do shit?” she asked. The question was probing, but not accusatory or anything. Maybe Caden knew a psychic or something who was good at finding lost kids. Roxy believed in that kind of stuff, people with gifts from God.
Caden snorted loudly, opening his eyes to look over at her before he straightened and downed the second glass of whiskey. It burned in the best kind of way and he set the glass down sharply on the countertop. "Maybe I do. I don't fucking know." Rather than refill his glass, Caden just reached for the bottle to carry it out of the kitchen and into the living room. It felt kind of shitty, sitting down to drink, taking off his shoes and realizing that Amelia could be out there, scared and cold while he was fucking comfortable in his own home. What could they do now? The possibility of her being alive at this point felt so slim, it made him want to vomit. Caden sat down and ran a hand over his face before he took a pull directly from the bottle. "You believe in karma, Rox?" he asked her. "Like, real fucking karma?"
That was a bullshit answer, and Roxy frowned over it, trailing after him into the living room. He’d sounded like he knew, and she wanted to push him on it, but Roxy knew how quickly things could escalate when they were both already on edge. It had been a goddamn awful forty-eight hours, and there was no sign of anything getting any better, so she didn’t need to poke the bear. Roxy could sense that Caden didn’t really want to be touched, so she went and sat in the recliner instead, pulling one foot up under her other leg and nursing her drink some more. “I dunno,” she murmured after a moment. “Some people seem to get away with all kinds of shit scot-free, while good people get fucked over in this world. Why do you ask?”
"I don't know. It doesn't matter." Caden shook his head, not drunk enough to admit to anything. Roxy would have been the worst person to tell, given her relationship with Mila. "People with good intentions get fucked over. Seems to be a part of life." And sure, maybe Reagan had warned them about backlash, but Caden hadn't imagined it would be something like this. And maybe the two things weren't even connected, but deep in his gut, Caden couldn't help but think that they were. Maybe he just needed an explanation and he was trying to find one. "Did you know Ollie's pregnant?" Caden asked Roxy. It wasn't his news to tell but fuck if he cared.
Roxy’s lips pressed more firmly together, because that was a dodgy answer. Caden wasn’t a man who said things for no reason, he skimped on his words almost as much as Gavin did, and he wasn’t big on just musing about philosophical questions. She got the sense that there was something he wasn’t telling her. She’d been about to call him out on it when he dropped that news bomb on her, and her brows shot up. “What? ... oh fuck, it’s not Gavin’s, is it?” she asked. Roxy was fairly sure they weren’t still sleeping together, but it had been a long time of separation and people did stupid shit sometimes.
Caden barked out a laugh and shook his head. "Nah, not Gavin's." He had almost explained about Gavin's vasectomy, but that could potentially open another can of worms that Caden didn't want to deal with, so he let it be. Shrugging, Caden took another quick pull from the bottle in his hand. "I think he said it's some younger guy who wants to marry her, or whatever. But the upside is, they're finally getting a divorce. And I really fucking hope Amelia's disappearance has nothing to do with that bullshit. Gavin was finally going to get free of her and now his daughter's gone."
While that was stupid news, it wasn’t really surprising. Roxy would have been surprised if Olivia hadn’t been fucking somebody else. It kind of baffled her that Gavin wasn’t. Or didn’t seem to be, anyway. She hadn’t been able to follow up on him and Charlie Harris, too much had been happening elsewhere. Roxy wondered vaguely if she would hear from Spence about all of this, and then instantly felt guilty for even thinking of him. She smothered that and eyed her boyfriend instead. “You’re not thinking that like, Ollie did something to Amelia, do you?” she asked, sounding a bit wary about that idea. “That seems way beyond her.”
Better Ollie than to think Caden and Gavin were somehow responsible, even indirectly. "I don't know what I'm thinking, Roxy," Caden told her, sounding tired and resigned now as his head fell back against the couch. "If we lived anywhere but here, I'd say it was a possibility, but I don't know. For what it's worth, I don't think anything is beyond Ollie. She's a crazy ass bitch. Who knows what she's capable of." He had enough self awareness to know that he was probably being a hypocrite, considering what he and Gavin had done. But that had been different in all kinds of ways.
Ollie was a crazy ass bitch, but Roxy didn’t think she was capable of hurting her daughter. Or selling her off into sex slavery or whatever else Caden was thinking. It was much more likely that Amelia had gotten snatched up by something evil, human or otherwise. Maybe she’d run away and was hiding somewhere they just hadn’t found yet. Roxy stared off into the middle distance for a few long moments, lifting her glass for another swallow of whiskey. She didn’t know what to say to him anymore. There were no words to comfort this kind of fear and loss, and she knew Caden wouldn’t pray with her. Roxy would have to do that on her own. Or maybe she could talk Gavin into going to church with her the next day to do some of that. Or Aaron. First Mila’s baby, and now this.
The whiskey was settling comfortably in his stomach now and Caden thought maybe he would actually be able to sleep that night. He was grateful for Roxy's silence, not sure he was in the mood to keep up a conversation when he had so many thoughts warring in his head. He wanted to blame Ollie. She either hurt Amelia, or she neglected her long enough for Amelia to get taken. But then his brain shifted to that non-monetary price of magic, and how Gavin had wanted to know what could happen before agreeing to Reagan Kelly's spell, or whatever the fuck she had done. What had the witch said? Something about whatever the universe felt you deserved, or some shit. And didn't it make sense? A child for a child. Fuck. He wasn't drunk enough for this. "Jesus," Caden murmured, sounding darkly amused. "This fucking family."
That wasn’t a comment that warranted an answer either, really. Roxy couldn’t dispute it, either. “This fucking family,” she echoed softly. The family she would never be an official part of, even though she was out there trudging the woods with the rest of them, and she would worry over that little girl just like she was blood kin. It was a selfish, bitter thought, and Roxy tried to put it out of her mind. A lovely soul was missing, and that was the important thing. Roxy sat forward and tipped her glass back to drain the rest of it in one swallow, then stood up. She was worn the fuck out in all ways. “I’m going to take a shower,” she muttered to Caden, sure he wouldn’t give a shit either way.
Caden could never fully comprehend why Roxy even wanted to be a part of this family. They were horrible people, probably cursed on some level. Fucked up. Even Kat, though she tried to mask it with her nice house and her froo froo jewelry. They fucking paid witches to terminate pregnancies when they proved to be inconvenient. Fucked. Up. Caden lifted the bottle of whiskey in salute to Roxy when she stood up. "And I'm going to drink the rest of this and hope when I wake up, this day will have been nothing more than a shitty, fucked up nightmare. So we've both got a fun evening planned, Rox."
Roxy had known for a long time that Caden dealt with problems with sarcasm and cynicism more than anything else, and sometimes it drove her crazy with frustration. Tonight, it just made her sadder for him. She paused by the couch on her way out of the room, putting a light hand on his shoulder and leaning over to kiss his temple. Roxy gave him a gentle headbutt, whispered “I love you,” and then pulled back, knowing better than to linger. As much as it went against her nature, it was better to just leave him be at times like this. She shuffled away, hoping that a hot shower would make her feel better. It would give her a chance to cry in private, at least, because she knew Caden wanted her to keep that shit to herself.
Caden let her go, knowing he ought to respond to her, but he was too tired from the day, and too caught up in his thoughts. Roxy couldn't help him. He wasn't even the one who needed the help. The whole situation felt hopeless and now it felt like Amelia was doomed to become just another part of Point Pleasant's tragic statistics. But he would figure something out. If this was the result of magic, then magic ought to be able to fix it. He sure as shit would find out. Just not tonight. Tonight he was going to get wasted and try to forget the day had even happened.