Who: Reagan and Caius When: Late evening, Sunday, November 19th Where: Reagan’s home Status: Complete
Reagan was having problems. Since realizing she, or they meaning she and Zania, somehow fucked up the love spell for Lana Caldwell, she had been in her work room, trying to remember exactly what they had done and what steps had been missed or messed up. Being slightly hungover certainly didn’t help anything and more than once Reagan mentally, and sometimes verbally, berated herself for drinking before performing magic, especially something so complex as a love spell. She knew better. But wine had been the only appropriate buffer between she and Zania, and in a way, it had been things easier. Only now she was dealing with her own fuck up and it was beyond irritating. She spent several hours poring over her spell book and then recreating the spell without actually casting. When she couldn’t quite figure out where she had misstepped, Reagan called her mom for a counter spell to dissolve it completely. Ideally she would have isolated the spell solely for Lana, but given the woman’s frantic phone call that morning, and the fact that the police were now involved, it made more sense to try and break the entire thing.
Unfortunately her mother was not home, nor was she answering her cell phone. According to Jeannie, her mother’s housekeeper, Veronica had gotten the sudden urge to fly to Boston that morning to visit Reagan’s father who was there for a four day business trip. With her cell phone to her ear, Reagan had stared, dumbfounded, before realizing that Veronica had apparently been affected by Reagan’s love spell as well. Which meant Reagan would have some explaining to do later, because Veronica was not exactly the type of wife to drop everything and run after her husband in another state for a Sunday tryst. Fantastic.
Zania would have no clue how to reverse the spell, given she hadn’t worked with love spells at all before today. Nic was useless as well. Reagan considered calling Nate, but these spells were not exactly his area of expertise either and she had no desire to be lectured by her older brother about the dangers of magic. Finally, as the sun set and Reagan tossed her spell book in frustration, she finally picked up her phone to send a text to Caius.
need your help. Can you come over asap? Door is unlocked. Just come in.
It would have probably been more appropriate to call him, and he wasn’t likely to appreciate being bossed around, but she didn’t want to answer a dozen questions over the phone. He needed to be there to see everything for himself. If Caius didn’t know how to fix this, then they would have to wait for the spell to run its course, and who knew how long that could take, not to mention how bloody things could get.
Caius had spent Sunday blissfully ignorant of what was happening around town. He’d taken it easy, lounging around his house and watching this and that on TV. It was a nice change of pace, and he didn’t feel any guilt in doing it either, now that he had a more solid plan on what to do about his predicament. He was going to contact Brianna McCarthy the next day to try and set up a meeting with her before the holiday, under the guise of selling his house. He just needed to get her alone so he could work his influence over her mind and convince her to give him the Baron family grimoire. Caius was sure it wouldn’t be that simple, there would be some wrench in the gears, but it more than he’d had a week ago. So he deserved a break.
He was considering jerking off and going to bed early when his phone lit up with a text message. Caius saw with some interest that it was Reagan. Reagan needing help, which was even more interesting. He almost answered it with some questions about what she actually needed help with, but decided it didn’t really matter. What else was he doing? Caius sent her back a quick omw, then got up to change into something more decent and get his jacket on.
It didn’t take him long to get to Reagan’s house, and when he arrived, he did as instructed and just walked inside. “Reagan?” he called, closing and locking the deadbolt behind him. He got a little shiver of something strange as he took a few steps into the house, and headed toward Reagan’s workroom, his curiosity growing.
Reagan was relieved that he didn't pepper her with questions over the phone and she picked her book up off of the floor, leaving it on her work table as she waited for Caius to arrive. She honestly hated asking him for help with this, but at this point, she needed someone a bit more skilled in dark magic to do whatever it took to break what she had apparently sent out into the universe. Or rather, Point Pleasant, but that was bad enough. When she heard Caius's voice in her house, Reagan exhaled and stepped out of the work room to greet him. She hadn't bothered with makeup that morning, or changing out of the dark red shirt and black leggings she wore. Her hair had been tied up into an impatient ponytail a few hours earlier. Some dark strands had come loose by now and fell against her neck. She was exhausted, to say the least, but there was still work to be done, and she knew she couldn't exactly brush this off to take a hot bath and eat an actual meal.
"Hi," she said, once he came into view in the living room. Reagan waved at him to follow her and she stepped back into the workroom. With her hands on her hips, Reagan stood in front of her table, a few supplies and ingredients spread out all over. It was chaos, and not the kind she enjoyed. "In the simplest terms, I had someone pay for a love spell, which I performed last night. Only I had a guest and some wine, and there was a misstep somewhere and rather than isolating the spell around her, it seems to have spread over the entire town." Reagan exhaled and looked over from the mess on her table to Caius. "I have tried everything I know how to do to break it, but nothing is working. I can still... feel it."
Reagan seemed to always be beautiful no matter what, but she was on the lower end of that spectrum tonight, looking drawn and tired and kind of pale. Caius wasn’t terribly concerned until he stepped into the workroom and glanced around at the mess in there, then listened as Reagan gave him the rundown of what had happened. He frowned vaguely as he glanced between her face and her work table. “You did a love spell drunk?” he asked doubtfully. That sounded like a horrible idea, and lo and behold, it had been. Without waiting for Reagan’s answer, Caius shrugged out of his jacket and set it aside, then approached the work table to look over what she had there. “What have the effects been?”
"I wasn't drunk," Reagan corrected, although she kind of had been. Not slap happy giggly drunk. Just... a little hazy and buzzed. Enough to fuck up, apparently. Maybe she had been drunk. It was hard to really remember the details. "It was a unique situation. And I couldn't have missed a step, or it wouldn't have worked. I just... made a mistake somewhere." With her hands on her hips, she observed the work table, the melted red candle, the crushed lavender and verbena littered across the wood. "As for the effects... intense infatuation, extreme declarations of love, obsessive stalking compulsion... maybe murder." Reagan twitched her lips to the side thoughtfully before adding, "I haven't followed up on that possibility just yet."
The word ‘murder’ made Caius raise an eyebrow at her. It sounded like she’d been drunk, or at least drunk enough to be reckless, and that was never a good thing when it came to working magic. Caius had always approached his magic with an obsessive eye for detail, holding himself to the highest standards, because he knew how bad the consequences could be. For himself and others. Such as people going crazy and stalkery and possibly homicidal. “Unique situations are no excuse for carelessness,” he said before he thought better of it. It was something his father would’ve said to him, but Anthony would’ve been right. It was risky enough to manipulate people’s emotions, obviously, and to fuck up badly enough to make it a scattershot spell instead of focused? “I hate love spells,” Caius added in a mutter. He picked up the spell book and started reading what the spell actually consisted of.
The exhaustion and stress of the day had already been weighing on her, so Caius's tone caused her spine to stiffen, her fingertips pressing hard into her hips. "Yes, I'm well aware of that, thank you," Reagan said tightly. "But believe it or not, I am human and I do, occasionally, make mistakes, like everyone else." Including you was there on the tip of her tongue but she didn't want to start bickering, not when she needed his help. Reagan ignored his comment about love spells because she already knew he hated them. Reagan wasn't fond of them either, but she wasn't above doing them for a paying customer. She could have been doing way worse magic, like Caius, but she held back on that as well. "I recreated the spell earlier to walk through the steps, but nothing really triggered what I might have done wrong. I decided to try and just break the spell completely, but... I've never done anything that wide scale before. I thought you might be able to."
Caius ignored Reagan’s own tone, his eyes scanning down over the spell in front of him. Yes yes, she was human, and mistakes happened, but that was why you had to carefully plan out your magic, do your homework, be meticulous. He rarely made magical mistakes, and didn’t think he’d fucked anything up badly in a very long time. Unless one counted his current situation, but he couldn’t exactly be blamed for that, could he? How could he have predicted that Baron’s curse was so intricate? “I might be able to,” he murmured in confirmation. Caius studied the ingredients listed, then turned to the shelves that housed Reagan’s supplies. Tucking the book under his arm, he started gathering jars -- barberry, belladonna, snakeweed, fennel, a few others. Muttering to himself, his brow furrowed as his gears turned, Caius moved back to the table. He swept his arm across the surface of it a bit to make some room, though he was careful not to knock anything off completely. “Do you have a black glass mirror?” he asked.
The issue was that Reagan had done this spell before. Quite a few times. But never with company. Ugh, she shouldn't have let Zania help. It wasn't that Zania wasn't capable, but Reagan should have probably started with something smaller, something Zania would have been more familiar with. Reagan had just been trying to build some kind of bridge there, and now this happens. She watched Caius gather supplies, feeling the first slivers of relief seep into her bones. She had faith he could figure this out, and she was going to watch closely so that next time, if there was one, she could clean up her own mess.It stung her pride that she'd had to ask him for anything at the moment. "I do," she said, walking to the other side of the room and crouching down in front of a cabinet. She pulled the mirror from inside of it and carried it to Caius, biting back any lingering annoyance at what he pushed aside on her table. It wasn't like she's was actively using any of it. "What can I do?" Reagan asked, feeling a tad bit useless standing there.
Caius took the mirror from her almost absently, more focused on what he was doing than Reagan. He was sure that she’d tried a simple counter spell already and it hadn’t worked, but he had the resources to dive a little deeper and put the power of blood magic behind it. Caius got busy crushing up herbs with Reagan’s mortar and pestle, glancing up only when she asked for something to do. “Uh ... I’m going to need your blood in a minute,” he answered, nodding down at the mix he was making. It was dry now, but he needed to wet it with the blood of the caster. “Meanwhile, you can set the circle up with twelve black candles. Have you done any other spells lately having to do with love at all? This might negate all of them.” Caius’s guess was no, but it was worth asking anyway. If Reagan had any other spells lingering out in the world, it would change the balance of what he needed to do to wipe this particular one out.
Her blood. Reagan wasn't squeamish, so it didn't bother her, but she hadn't thought to even delve into blood magic to try and reverse this. She turned away from the table to gather the proper candles and set up the circle. "I haven't," Reagan said. "Not in the past six months anyway." The last time Reagan had created a circle to cast from was the day they broke the Baron curse. It hadn't been that long ago but it felt like ages had passed since. For her, anyway. Reagan was silent as she got the circle drawn and the candles in place. When she finished, she straightened and turned to Caius. "Are you ready for me?" She wasn't thrilled about cutting into her arm, but if it helped to fix this problem, she would deal with it.
Caius just gave a short nod that Reagan likely didn’t even see while she set up the candles. He was glad to hear that, as some paranoid part of him had considered whether or not Reagan had tried to work some love magic on him. He had been extremely drawn to her that past Wednesday, almost beyond what was rational, and while the sex had been incredible, hadn’t that been a little strange? Reagan seemed smarter than to try and cast spells on him, but she’d also seemed smarter than to mix too much alcohol and magic. He was sure he would’ve felt the attempted effects, though. He crushed and mixed a few things together into a little silver bowl, then nodded again at Reagan’s question. “Yes,” he said, gesturing her over. “You cut, I’ll say the words. It shouldn’t take much, just a teaspoon or so.”
The mere idea of casting a love spell on Caius, or trying to, was laughable to Reagan. Never in her wildest dreams would she have considered it. She'd never needed to, and despite their circumstances, she doubted she ever would. They had always been drawn together by forces greater than themselves, and she had no desire to risk fucking around with it. Besides, skilled and powerful witches tended to know when they were being messed with, magically, and Reagan respected him far too much to do something so silly. She took her athamé from case she kept it in and approached the table to cut into her arm over the bowl. It wasn't a pleasant experience, but when was it ever? She let the blood ooze and drip down her arm, stepping back as soon as she decided there was the equivalent of a teaspoon there. For a brief second she wondered if they would need Zania, but Reagan had been the one to cast the actual spell, so she opted against asking. Explaining that in the middle of all of this would be just as distracting as Zania having been there in the first place. Reagan set the knife down and covered the small slice in her arm with her hand, still watching Caius. He would tell her if he needed her again, but he looked in control at the moment.
He was focused and ready to work this magic, but the sight of Reagan drawing her own blood appealed to something dark and primal in Caius. It made him want to lean in and lick that trickle up off of her pale, lovely arm. The contrast between blood and skin was beautiful, and it made his insides feel stirred up -- how much of that was him and how much was the Obscurities, he didn’t know. It was getting more and more impossible to tell. He murmured the Latin binding words as Reagan’s blood hit the herb mixture, ensuring that this spell would search out her magic to destroy. The original spell had been too broad, this one had to be narrow and seek out only Reagan’s magic. He plucked up the bowl once she was done and took it toward the circle. Caius lit the candles all at once with a wave of his hand, then glanced back at Reagan. “This might take a while,” he told her. “Go take a break, you look exhausted.” Time was of the essence, if people were actually dying, but Reagan looked dead on her feet and Caius didn’t have any use for her at the moment.
Her fingers were coated with the blood she was pressing them against, and once Caius was finished binding the blood and herbs she turned to pull open a drawer to find a small bandage for her arm. "I'm fine. I'm going to stay," Reagan told him, though she was sure to stay out of his way. This was her fuck up, and she wasn't going to go relax while Caius fixed it. Who knew, she might actually learn something new watching him. Honestly she didn't care how long it took. It certainly wouldn't take an entire day like it had take her just to get to this point. Reagan could sleep later, if the backlash from her mistake didn't kick in before then. Her ring would take a hit, but something of this magnitude wouldn't go unnoticed. "I'll stay out of your way," she added, opening one of the bandages to place it against the inside of her arm.
As it turned out, ‘a while’ turned into hours. And then some more hours. Caius could feel every failure and it got increasingly frustrating, trying to fix Reagan’s mistake. She was feeling it too though, he could tell. He made adjustment after adjustment, trying time and time again to get it right. He changed tactics, ingredients, words, closed and re-cast the circle four or five times. It was a stubborn spell, having spread so far already and for so long. If it had been easy to break, Reagan could’ve done it herself, but it ended up taking both of them casting the right counter-measures at the same time. Finally, in the wee hours of the morning, on the verge of giving up for the night, Caius felt it break. Since it hadn’t been his spell to start with, to him it just felt kind of like the relief of finally popping a stubborn joint, a release of pressure and a small wave of relief. He looked over at Reagan, sure she felt it even more than he did. “Think that was it,” he murmured softly.
Reagan was reminded of the night they finally managed to break the protective spell over Baron's bones. It had taken the blood of both of them to do so, proving they were more powerful together than apart. Reagan hadn't considered trying such a thing until Caius suggested it after several hours had passed. Of course it worked then and Reagan felt a chill rush through her body followed by an immense sense of relief. All she could do was hope that there hadn't been too much damage done, beyond what had already occurred. It was a few minutes past three in the morning now and Reagan closed her eyes, her head leaning back for a moment as she exhaled softly. "That was it," she agreed. "I'll have to call Zania and tell her." Texting might be more welcome at this hour. Reagan opened her eyes to look at Caius. "Thank you."
The confirmation was nice but unnecessary, Caius could read the relief on Reagan’s face. He might not know her very well yet, but he kept getting senses of her moods better than most other people. That had to be some long-standing buried instinct, didn’t it? It was curious. He had rolled his neck to release some of the tension there, and was starting to prepare to dismiss the circle when Reagan mentioned Zania. His brow creased briefly. “Zania?” he asked. “Why? Was she affected?” He wondered if that was how Reagan knew the spell had gone awry ... or if Zan was the one who’d asked her to cast it in the first place. Caius hoped not, because Zan ought to know better too. Witches who knew their shit knew how messy and dangerous love spells could be, and Zan had always seemed to know her shit.
"A bit," Reagan said, kneeling down to close the circle herself. She murmured the proper words quickly, the action coming to her much easier and faster than anything else had that day. She thought of the Earth witch sending Zania animals. It was more amusing now than the spell had been broken but she was still too exhausted to laugh about it. "But Zania was here with me last night. She wanted to see a love spell cast, so she helped." Reagan began to pluck the candles from their place around the circle. "She called me this morning, or rather, yesterday morning, when she realized something was amiss." Reagan straightened, her arm full of melted, black candles. "She had an admirer, so to speak."
Caius’s brows crept up further at the news that Zania was there the night before, when Reagan did the casting. That was a detail she’d left out of the telling. “I thought you two couldn’t stand each other,” he commented, doing his best to sound neutral about it. He didn’t have the full context, of course, and he didn’t want to upset Reagan by dwelling on it -- especially considering what he’d tried and failed to do with Zan, and what he’d very much succeeded at doing with Reagan -- he was just curious. That explained the wine, he supposed. Caius moved to help pick up the rest of the magical tools that were scattered around; he wasn’t going to leave her with a mess, even when he’d completed the favor that had turned out to be pretty damn big.
Reagan knew there would be questions, which was why she had left out Zania's name when Caius arrived. Now it didn't seem to be such a big deal. "We can't." Reagan paused a beat. "We couldn't. But she came to me after you lost your memories and offered to help. I know the two of you are friends, and whatever happened between the two of you happened... a long time ago, so I felt like maybe it was time for it to be water under the bridge instead of burning the whole damn thing down. She's a talented witch, so she could be useful." Reagan placed the items in her arms on her table. There was a lot of cleaning to do but she was starting to think it would be better to do it later when she was well rested. "Despite all that, it was strange having her here, and I'm sure it was strange for her being here. So we drank wine. A lot of it. I'm never that reckless with magic otherwise."
Caius had also been unaware of Zania offering to help fix his memory problems. Which meant that Zan had told Reagan that he’d turned up at her house. He had to wonder if that had upset her, considering their past and all that ... and he had to wonder if Zan had told her Caius had been aiming to sleep with her. Fuck. He felt like he had his head on much straighter now than he had that night, so he could defend himself if he had to, but he sort of hoped Reagan would just leave it alone. It did make her drinking before the spell more understandable to him, though. Caius nodded a bit and cleared his throat. “She can be a powerful ally, I’m glad to hear you’re attempting to bury the hatchet,” he said, walking some things back to the table himself. “And I appreciate her wanting to help. I did make a bit of progress myself, I have an appointment set up with Brianna McCarthy this week.”
Reagan was attempting to bury the hatchet, yes, but that didn't mean she wouldn't remember exactly where said hatchet was buried. Old resentments were hard to shake completely, but she was trying. If she had known Caius had tried to sleep with Zania again, it might have been more difficult, but no doubt her ire would have directed at Caius more than Zania. As it probably should have been for the past however many years. Reagan hummed an acknowledgement in her throat and looked over at Caius. "So under the guise of wanting to finally sell your house? Are you meeting with her there or in her office?" It was likely safer to be somewhere without anyone else around, if he was going to attempt to mess with her mind like he'd planned. "You're sure she won't realize what you're doing?"
“We’re meeting at the house,” Caius confirmed with a small nod. He’d had that same thought, that it was safer to meet with Brianna somewhere private, on his own turf. He’d even gotten a small spell together to block out cell phone signals within the confines of his walls so they wouldn’t be interrupted by a stray notification. Caius had no idea what might happen if something external interfered while he was attempting to influence someone’s thoughts, and he didn’t want to accidentally turn Brianna into a vegetable or something. Not to mention if it didn’t work at all. “I’m not sure of anything, honestly,” he admitted with a faint chuckle. “I’m sure she has incredible untapped potential, but Dad said that non-magical practitioners shouldn’t be able to detect the tampering. So far that’s held true, but I don’t know any non-practicing witches to experiment on. If it doesn’t work, we’ll just ... go from there. But I think it will.”
Reagan felt like the last month or so had been nothing more than a guessing game. Trying one thing and then another until something worked, and then encountering a new problem. It was beyond frustrating. The holidays were coming up, the weather was getting colder and they were still dealing with all of this. Anguilla felt like ages ago. Reagan turned away from Caius to start cleaning the circle from the floor. She knew it was the hour, but she was suddenly feeling the heavy weight of their situation. She missed Caius and hated that the only reason he was even there was to fix a problem she created. "I'll wait to hear from you then," Reagan said. "After you meet with her. I don't know what else I can do at this point."
That sounded reasonable to Caius, because there wasn’t much that Reagan could do. He understood that was probably frustrating for her, but it was what it was. They would just keep throwing stuff at the wall until something stuck and worked. He had a good feeling about this plan though. If the McCarthys couldn’t be influenced, perhaps they could be bribed. Reasoned with. Or threatened. James was no slouch, but Caius never forgot that he had Anthony D’Onofrio behind him, and he would pull out big guns if necessary. “I’ll let you know,” he murmured to Reagan, watching her back for a moment. He sensed that something was off, but he didn’t really know what or what to do about it. Fingers fiddling with the edge of her work table, he wet his lips and glanced around. He might as well ask, he decided. “Would you like me to stay?”
The question annoyed her, even if rationally Reagan knew it shouldn't. Over the past couple of weeks she had been determined to be present in his life, but not push him. She had gone to his office and he had come home with her, but he had also left in the morning and hadn't returned. Not that Reagan had expected him to. But it was a frustrating situation, to say the least. She wasn't used to feeling so helpless in any aspect of her life, let alone her relationship. Reagan never wanted to be placated, especially by Caius. Settling on her knees with a rag in her hand, Reagan brushed some stray strands of hair from her face and looked up at Caius. "Do you want to stay, Caius?" If he didn't, then he needed to leave. She certainly wasn't going to ask him to stay.
The annoyance was present in her tone, however subtly, and Caius’s instinct was to say no, not if she was going to have that attitude. She’d been the one calling him for help, and now it was the wee hours of Monday morning and he still had to go to work in four or five. It made more sense time-wise to nap there before he had to be at the office, but he also didn’t want to be in Reagan’s way or making her uncomfortable or pissed or whatever was happening now. “Not if you don’t want me here,” he replied, fully aware that would probably be even more frustrating to hear. Reagan had to remember that he barely knew her though, he didn’t know how to navigate her moods yet, or read all those subtle cues that people in relationships knew the language of. He didn’t know how to support her, and it was frustrating for him as well, feeling like he was fumbling around at a dance he didn’t know the steps to. He could barely hear the music, even.
Had she been well rested and clear headed, had it not been three o'clock in the morning, Reagan would have likely snapped at that point. He couldn't be this dense. But then again, even though he was Caius, he was still a man, and men could be fucking stupid sometimes. As it was, she wasn't well rested, and her head was throbbing and all she could do was stare at him for a few silent moments as she tried to find the right words that wouldn't betray just how irritated he had succeeded in making her in such a short amount of time. Yes, Reagan knew he couldn't read her the way he once could, but she refused to keep giving him a pass just because he couldn't remember her before they broke Baron's spell. He had been around her enough times now to at least get some feel for who she was, and what she was like. Christ, they had spent an entire day and night fucking each other's brains out, and that couldn't have been purely physical. She left the rag on the floor and got to her feet. "Have I ever given you the impression that I don't want you here?" she asked. "Have I ever kicked you out before, or asked you not to come over? Are all your things still hanging in the closet and folded in the dresser? It's never going to be my decision as to whether or not you should stay."
She was angry now, great. Caius took a slow, deep breath and held it for a second so he wouldn’t sigh outright. He was tired too, and he really didn’t know how to feel about Reagan after their ... well, their recent wonderful and hot day together. She was intelligent and headstrong and beautiful and full of pride that appealed to his own, and he could definitely see himself falling in love with her. He’d apparently had good taste in the past and that hadn’t changed. But all of that also made her difficult, and even though he’d seen peeks of it here and there so far, he didn’t know how to handle it. There was so much history he didn’t know. Did Reagan like to fight? Or have space to cool off? Where were the tender spots in the emotional minefield? How did he even begin to navigate this shit? “Well don’t you think it should be?” he asked, his tone a bit terse. “You’re waiting for the full me to come back, and I’m not there yet. I’m not him right now, I’m just ... scraps of him. And I don’t know if you want scraps here, especially when you’re tired and upset. I can’t read your mind. How do I learn these things if I don’t ask?”
Reagan's dark brows drew together in brief confusion as she shook her head. "You're not scraps, Caius. You're missing pieces of who you are but that doesn't mean the way I feel about you is diminished. I love the parts that you're missing but I also love the parts that are still intact. I still love you. The problem is you don't love me, so when you ask me if I want you to stay, I feel as though you're trying to placate me. I can't stand the thought of you staying the night and then being eager to leave when the sun comes up. If you ask to stay, I want it to be because you want to be here. I'm trying to give you the right amount of space, I'm trying to be mindful of the fact that we're not on the same page. I know this isn't easy for you, but it hasn't been very fucking easy for me either."
That was part of the rub, wasn’t it? Reagan loved him, even though he was fractured, because she knew him. From Caius’s end, they were barely acquaintances so he couldn’t love her, even though he wanted to. He knew she was probably trying not to, but he didn’t know how she could avoid feeling resentful because of that. He ran a hand through his hair, agitated and frustrated much more by the continuing situation than her. “I’m not ... it’s not me trying to placate you,” he said. “And I wasn’t eager to leave the last time. And I know -- as much as I can know -- that it’s not fucking easy for you, at all. In the slightest. I’m just trying to be sensitive to that. I don’t want to be here if I’m going to upset you or rub it in your face or cause you more grief or whatever. I don’t want to hurt you just by existing this way, Reagan. And I’m trying hard to fix it, I really am. I hate it too. But in the meantime, I’m painfully aware of how little I know you, and I’m trying to learn how to get acquainted again when I’m at such a disadvantage.”
"Your being here doesn't upset me," Reagan said, trying her hardest not to sound frustrated and failing. She was physically and mentally exhausted from the day, and this wasn't the right time for this kind of conversation. Of course she knew that, but it wasn't like she could just press pause until she felt prepared for it again. "If you want to know what upsets me, Caius, it's that you don't wear your wedding ring. That you spend your nights in Overlook. That you're painfully aware of how little you know me, yet we barely spend any time together that doesn't involve formulating a plan that will lead to you getting your memories back. I came to visit you at your office, I came to see you at the tree lightning. I'm trying to stay present in your life in the ways that should count beyond magic. If you want to know me then stop worrying so damn much about hurting me in the process and get to know me. I'm a hell of a lot stronger than you think I am."
He didn’t like hearing that, and his jaw tightened, lips pressing tighter together, but Caius couldn’t exactly argue with it. He had been isolating himself pretty regularly, focused on work or the magic to get his full self back. The moments he wasn’t doing either were often spent wracking his brain and looking over old pictures and trying to piece his life back together in his mind. Caius didn’t feel quite like he was going as crazy as he had in the beginning, but things were still unstable and difficult to deal with. His own frustration was growing, and he didn’t know how to respond to what she obviously wanted him to do. “I can’t be your husband right now,” he said finally, his voice low and with a touch of gravel in it. “I know him only slightly better than I know you. I just ... need your patience. Please.”
That wasn't what she was asking of him and Reagan's breath escaped her in a sharp, exasperated exhale before she brought her hand up to her temple before pushing her hair away from her face again. She didn't feel like she was asking him to be her husband, but she was asking for something. Anything, really. Did he want to get to know her or not? At the moment she just felt like part of the problem, an inconvenience to what he knew his life to be. It was uncomfortably reminiscent to all the fights they'd had in the past when Reagan had wanted more than Caius had been ready to give her. Maybe the best thing to do would just be to leave him alone. Talk when either one of them discovered something that might help him, but leave it at that. Clearly what she had been doing so far wasn't helping, and it wasn't enough. She rubbed both hands over her face and then nodded. "You're right. That's fair." Reagan lowered her hands and slipped her wedding and engagement rings off, placing them on the work table. She just needed a break, probably as much as he did. If she couldn't count on him, she would just have to count on herself and deal with this. "Just... be safe driving home, Caius. Let me know how it goes with Brianna, and if you need any help after."
The was nothing wrong with what Reagan said, but watching her take those rings off and put them down stung Caius in an unexpected way. He couldn’t be her husband right then, but that version of Caius still existed somewhere, he had to keep believing that. But it wasn’t very fair to expect her to keep acting like a wife when he wasn’t who she married. There was just such an air of giving up to it, he could feel the defeat in the air, and that was sad. It was the middle of the night after an obviously exhausting day, however, so maybe now wasn’t the best time to hash it all out anyway. “I’m sorry, Reagan. I’ll talk to you soon,” he murmured. He almost told her to get some rest too, but it sounded too condescending in his head, so he just nodded a bit and turned to head toward the door. “Goodnight.”
There was no defeat in Reagan. Just exhaustion. Taking her rings off was all she could do for her own mental health, and admittedly it was a bit humiliating to wear them around town when he wouldn't wear his own. It gave her the uncomfortable feeling that he was okay with people believing he was single and available. Would he turn another woman away? It was a horribly jealous thing to feel, given the circumstances, but she couldn't help how she felt. And Reagan didn't feel like she was asking him to pretend, just to try. But it didn't seem as though he could. Maybe it was unfair of her to expect him to want to. Reagan didn't really know anymore. She had always believed that they were meant to be together no matter what tried to keep them apart, and she still wanted Caius to regain his memories, but it was jarring to feel that pull towards him and know he didn't feel it back. It was probably best to just focus on fixing the curse he was suffering from and leave everything else alone. It wasn't like this would be the first time she and Caius were apart. It was just harder than the rest. Knowing there was nothing more to say, Reagan went back to her knees and picked up the rag to continue clearing off the circle. "Goodnight, Caius."