Aaron Lucas (thirdandlast) wrote in shadows_rpg, @ 2018-05-26 17:03:00 |
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Entry tags: | #october 2017, aaron, aaron x caden, caden |
Who: Aaron and Caden
When: Thursday, Oct 26, late, late evening
Where: Mercy Hospital, truck, Aaron's
Status: Complete
After Caden somehow managed to drive himself to the ER, he hadn’t had to wait very long to be seen, given the state of his face - and his hand. He had been numb, in ‘shock’, according to the doctor and then he had been pleasantly floating in the void after they pumped him full of morphine. He hadn’t been very talkative or responsive to the doctor other than to mumble that he’d been in an accident. He hadn’t wanted to talk to the cops, and he sure as shit wasn’t going to tell anyone the truth about what happened. But somewhere in the back of his brain, fuzzy and drunk and drugged up, Caden knew that wasn’t the end of it. Witches were a menace, and they deserved to be burned at the stake, or hung up on a tree. Isn’t that the way they used to do it here, back in the day? Times hadn’t changed that much, if you asked him.
With his hand taped up and his broken nose reset and bandaged, Caden had rested in the ER until he was deemed okay enough to go home. He was so doped up that they had to call someone to come pick him up and despite his mindset, Caden knew that he sure as shit didn’t need Roxy there, demanding answers and coddling him. Gavin was probably wasted out of his mind by now. So Caden had them call Aaron. Aaron, who was really to blame for all of this happening, if one really gave it a lot of thought. Caden wasn’t in the right state of mind to care at the moment though. He just needed a ride home. The doctor had written a couple prescriptions and handed them to Caden as he waited for Aaron to arrive. He hoped the pain meds were as strong as the morphine, because goddamn.
Aaron had been asleep with Mila when the hospital called him. He’d been kind of confused at first, slow to wake up because everything was so fucking tiring lately, but the woman on the other end had finally gotten the words ‘Caden’ and ‘accident’ through to him. She’d reassured his sudden frantic worries that Caden was alive and going to heal, he was just ready to go home and couldn’t drive. Aaron had hung up and told a sleepy Mila the gist of it, then gotten up and pulled on some sweatpants and a hoodie to go fetch his brother. Because their family needed more fucking problems.
It didn’t even occur to him to wonder why he was there instead of Roxy until he walked into the waiting room. He told the lady at the desk who he was, and someone went to go fetch Caden. When they wheeled him out, Aaron let out a low whistle. Caden’s nose had obviously been broken, both eyes dark with bruising, and his left hand was all bandaged up and looked ... a little misshapen. Aaron walked beside the wheelchair as the nurse escorted the two of them out the front door, then he offered his brother a hand up. “Can you walk?” he asked.
Caden hated being in that wheelchair. It made him feel weak and small, but some part of him was grateful for it. Those halls seemed so stark and long. He just wanted to get in the car and go home. Maybe. He didn't want to have to deal with Roxy tonight. Not tonight. More women, more problems. He blinked up at Aaron from where he sat, the cool air awakening some of his senses. "Yes, I can fucking walk," he mumbled, using his one good hand to grip the wheelchair armrest to push himself up. "I'm not an invalid." The world spun around him for a second and Caden let it pass before he exhaled and licked his lips. "It's the drugs," he told Aaron, because he refused to believe it might just be the shit that had been knocked out of him earlier. "Where'd you park?" Caden asked, ignoring the nurse as he began to walk away, toward the parking lot.
Caden looked a hell of a lot like an invalid at the moment, and Aaron watched him closely as he paused once he was standing. He didn’t look too steady on his feet. “Straight across, in the front,” Aaron murmured as they started to walk, gesturing toward his truck. He wanted to ask a bunch of questions -- what had Caden hit, had he been drinking, did he leave his truck behind, was it totaled, etc -- but he held his tongue for the moment. Caden didn’t like questions on the best day, and this definitely didn’t seem like the best day. He unlocked the truck doors so they could climb in, doing his best not to hover.
Caden managed to somehow get into Aaron's truck without completely losing his shit. His hand was throbbing a bit and it was too late in the night to stop at a pharmacy. His meds would have to wait until morning. Inside the truck, Caden flopped back against the seat and exhaled. He knew Aaron probably had questions, but at least he wasn't nagging him the way Roxy would have. He always felt more inclined to talk when he wasn't being pressed to. Instead of the white hot rage that had been flooding his body all night, Caden began to chuckle deep in his throat, his eyes closed and his head leaning back against the seat. "Pretty fucked up right now," Caden said, sounding more amused than anything. Amused and high. "Jesus Christ."
Once Caden was in on his side, Aaron circled around to climb into his own, glancing over at his slumped brother and his bandaged hand. Had he broken it? Cut it real bad on something? The laughter was a little weird as Aaron started up the truck and backed out of the parking space, but Caden had always been a weird guy about pain. “What happened, man?” he asked as he started out of the lot. “What’d you hit? Did you fuck your truck up?” There was only so much he could fix, and he knew with the bar having been closed for a while now because of Amelia, Caden would probably be hurting for money. Aaron would help him as much as he could, though. Maybe pull in some favors from Ruby’s dad.
Caden couldn't help but laugh a little harder. His truck. Still sitting in the hospital parking lot. It wasn't good as new, obviously, and had a few dents here and there, but none caused by any accident he'd had tonight. He had only told the doctor and nurses that he had been in an accident. It was the best way to keep the cops from getting involved, although he was sure the hospital staff had smelled the booze on his breath. What was he supposed to do though? Ram his truck deliberately into a tree to cover his ass? Fuck if he could afford to do that. "Truck's fine," Caden said, once his laughter died down into deep chuckles. "Just got into a fight. Dude didn't play fair, to say the least." He lifted his bandaged hand. "'s okay, though. I'll deal with it."
Aaron made an ‘ohhh’ sort of noise. “They told me it was an accident,” he muttered as he glanced over at Caden’s hand. He assumed Caden had told them that so they wouldn’t get the cops involved, which was pretty smart. Aaron noticed again that Caden’s bandaged hand looked ... off. Strange. The reason wasn’t registering yet, though. “What’d he do, like ... break your fingers? Who was it?” There was too much else going on for Aaron to muster up much anger on Caden’s behalf. He didn’t feel like kicking someone’s ass for fighting dirty with his brother -- hell, Caden probably started it. It wouldn’t be the first time.
Another laugh bubbled up inside of Caden's chest. God, Aaron could be such a dumbass sometimes. Most times. "Took 'em clean off," Caden said, and for a moment it sounded like he was boasting. Drugs were a hell of a thing. Shit, he didn't want to think about what he was going to feel like in the morning. "Two of 'em. Guy's a psychopath." Groaning, Caden closed his eyes and slammed his good hand against the dashboard in front of him. "Fuck, Aaron. Couldn't keep it in your pants for once. Fuck!" He didn't want to get angry. He didn't have the energy for it. But everything had spiraled out of control and his stupid shit of a brother was so fucking oblivious.
Aaron was still trying to process those shocking words when Caden punched the dash and changed subjects on him. “What the fuck are you talking about?” he asked, sounding too baffled to be defensive. What did his dick have to do with Caden’s fight? “And fucking ... what? He took your fingers off?” Aaron glanced away from the road again to look at Caden’s bandaged hand, the misshapen strangeness of it finally clicking into place. It did look like the first two fingers were missing now and that was ... well that was just goddamn crazy. How could a guy just do that in a fight? Maybe he’d had a knife too? “Jesus Christ, Caden,” he muttered.
"Yeah, Jesus Christ," Caden repeated, flopping back against the seat again now that the brief surge of temper had dissipated. "A whole lot of good Jesus Christ has done any of us." He lifted his hand again. "Least it's not my writing hand, huh? I can still jerk it." He snorted and looked out the window blearily. "Don't take me home. I can't fucking deal with Roxy tonight. I'm gonna crash on your couch." That sounded like a plan, if you asked him. Then he'd get up, drink a pot of coffee and go get his pain meds. Chase those back with a beer and then he would go to Roxy and try to explain what happened. He would have a story straight by then.
Part of Aaron wanted to push him, ask him again what the fuck he’d been talking about, why Aaron’s sex life had anything to do with anything. It gave him a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach, some instinct that something wasn’t quite right. But Aaron was still reeling over the idea that Caden had lost two fingers. In a fight, no less, not even from some accident like what had happened to Gavin’s arm. He still smelled of booze and they’d surely given him painkillers at the hospital, maybe he was just too doped up to really know what he was saying. Some lingering aggravation from Mila being pregnant was just ... coming out. Or something. Aaron didn’t fucking know. “All right,” he muttered, his brow furrowed as he let everything drop. “You can take the bed, I’m at Mila’s tonight.” He could ask more questions tomorrow, or whenever he saw him again. Aaron shut up and drove toward Seaview.
"What if I bleed out, man? You're gonna abandon me?" Caden was only half joking about it, his eyes closed and his head resting against the window. He was ignoring the way the truck bounced and hit parts of the street. He was feeling too numb to feel much of it. "Mila can sleep alone for a night. Family first." That's what it should be anyway. It would figure that his little brother would forget all the beatings Caden took for him when they were kids. He certainly took one tonight for Aaron, didn't he? Or maybe it was for Gavin. Both, probably. He'd lost two fucking fingers. One for each brother. Made sense.
“You’re not gonna bleed out,” Aaron said, glancing at the bandages on Caden’s hand again. They were clean, so he wasn’t even bleeding now. The doctors had done their job. “Mila’s my family too. I’m not gonna babysit you ‘cause you got yourself into a bad fight. I’m right down the street with my phone on if you need something.” Mila needed him more than Caden did, as far as Aaron was concerned. They’d both been pretty damn traumatized by what had happened in the tunnel, and he wanted to stay close to her. They almost needed to be clingy right now. If Caden wanted someone to keep checking on him, he could call his own woman.
Caden snorted. "Man, when you jump in, you really jump in, don't you?" His words were a bit more slurred now that exhaustion was seeping in through the lingering alcohol and medications. Maybe it was just the medications now. Caden was pretty sure he had sobered up as soon as he got to the hospital and saw his fingers were actually gone. Snapped off, like ice. It was ice, wasn't it? God, he was going to have fun murdering that asshole. Someday. "But fine, sure. Go back to bed with your lady. Enjoy it while you can, baby brother."
Aaron’s jaw clenched with ... something. Aggravation, anger, something that made his chest tight. He had been enjoying it, even the pregnancy, before his fucking older brothers had overstepped themselves and started talking shit about him and his ability to provide for a child. They’d meddled, and then Mila had lost the baby, and everything was sadness and stress, and now Amelia was gone, and he’d heard the ghost voice of his child in the creepy-ass fucking Cooperdale Tunnel, and there wasn’t much of anything left to enjoy. Still, guilt crept in after that feeling died down a bit. Caden had just been permanently maimed. Family first, right? Goddammit. Aaron didn’t say anything until he was parking the truck in front of his mobile home. He hadn’t really been in there for a while. He killed the engine and opened the door to get out.
Caden was fine with the silence. He had begun to doze off, caught somewhere between sleep and consciousness. He was seeing that guy, snapping off his other fingers. When the witch laughed, Caden jerked awake, blearily noting that they were parked outside of Aaron's. Grunting, Caden got the passenger side door open and tried not to tumble out. He used his hip to shut the door behind him and followed Aaron up to the door. "Can you text Roxy for me? Tell her I'm sleepin' off... I'm sleeping. She'll be fine, but she ought to know." He didn't want to wake up to a dozen or so texts from her in the morning.
Aaron unlocked the front door to let them in. He didn’t really want Roxy to text him a billion questions either, and thought Caden ought to do that himself, but if he was being cornered into taking care of his brother, he might as well go all in, right? “Sure, okay,” he murmured as they shuffled inside. It smelled kind of stale in there, he really needed to clean it up better. The last time he’d been there, Kat had been with him and he’d been horribly drunk. Maybe it was just time to pay that forward. Once Caden was in, Aaron locked the door behind him and toed out of his sneakers. “You can still take the bed, I got the couch,” he told Caden as he pulled his phone out to text both Roxy and Mila to let her know he wasn’t coming back tonight.
Caden had all but forgotten that Aaron planned to go back to Mila's. And he wasn't going to protest Aaron taking the couch, because sprawling out on a bed sounded a hell of a lot more comfortable right now. As carefully as he could, Caden pulled his jacket off on his way to Aaron's bedroom. He wasn't sure where it fell once he let go of it. His fingers, or lack thereof, throbbed a bit in protest of the movement. Caden mumbled a 'thanks' in Aaron's general direction. He knew his brother could come through. Aaron always did, didn't he? Pushing a bit of guilt always seemed to help, and Caden was pretty good at that. "Don't tell her what happened," Caden said, almost as an afterthought as he looked back at Aaron.
No shit. “I won’t,” Aaron muttered, turning away from Caden to go flop onto the couch. He could get himself settled, he knew where everything was in here. Not that Caden hung around his house much in general, but it wasn’t the first time he’d crashed with Aaron when he was trying to avoid Roxy. Not usually because he’d been maimed, but shit happened. Rubbing at his tired eyes, Aaron sent Mila a text first: staying w/ caden...hes ok, but just in case. we’re @ my place. see you in the am. love you sorry The text to Roxy took longer to compose, but he did his best to keep it vague but reassuring. He just hoped she wouldn’t even notice Caden was gone until the morning.