Aaron Lucas (thirdandlast) wrote in shadows_rpg, @ 2019-04-07 21:17:00 |
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Entry tags: | #december 2017, aaron, aaron x caden, caden |
Who: Caden and Aaron
When: late evening, Sunday, Dec 10th
Where: Caden’s house
Status: complete
The spare bedroom at Caden’s was decent and comfortable, but Aaron hardly saw it. Gavin and Jasper and Amelia had helped him get settled earlier that morning, already having picked up some clothes and stuff for him from Mila's. Aaron had tried to go straight to sleep, but he'd ended up lying in bed and trying to listen to them talk about him while he stared out the window. He’d been doing a lot of that, and it had carried over from the hospital stay. It kept raining, and that reflected how he felt pretty well.
After they’d left, he slept for a while. Roxy gently checked in on him and brought him some water, but other than that and the painkillers, Aaron didn’t eat. He just slept, uncomfortably flat on his back, but too tired to care. He just wanted to keep doing that, but eventually his bodily functions got insistent, and Aaron had to get up. It was a painful process, but he managed on his own, hand pressed against the bandaged wound on his stomach. He stood, waited for the dizziness to pass, then grabbed his pills off the nightstand to shuffle down the hall to the bathroom. It was dark outside now, not just from the rain, but he didn’t care what time it was. He needed to piss and then put something in his stomach to quell the hunger-nausea.
Caden had worked for the majority of the day, but he knew Aaron would be 'moved in' to the spare bedroom by the time he got home. He had spent most of the day at the bar dodging questions about Aaron and kicking people out who became too nosy or said shit he didn't appreciate. Caden had a short fuse about most things, but he had zero tolerance for outsiders talking shit about his family, especially when they had no clue what was really going on.
When he got home, Roxy slipped out to run to the grocery store and Caden left Aaron be, assuming his brother was sleeping. He sat in the living room with a beer, his phone in his hand as he looked up whatever he could find on Cooperdale. Living in Point Pleasant for his entire life, Caden knew the history and the stories, but he needed to find out more. Wanted to, now that it had directly affected his family.
When he heard the footsteps down the hall, Caden set his phone down and stood, walking over to see Aaron. "You need help?" he asked, instinctively glancing over his brother to make sure there wasn't any obvious injury or blood.
Spotting a figure coming toward him out of the corner of his eye made Aaron flinch, but his brain was quick enough to catch on that it was Caden. Not some zombie-Mila come to finish the job. The words sounded a bit blurred to Aaron’s ears, but everything felt kind of fuzzy currently. “To piss? No,” he muttered, stepping halfway into the bathroom. Aaron knew he should be nothing but grateful to be there at all, especially to have Caden offering assistance, of all people ... but everything hurt and he was miserable. Hopefully everyone would cut him some slack. “I am pretty thirsty though,” he added in a gentler murmur. “If you don’t mind.”
"Yeah, no problem." Caden left Aaron to do his business and walked into the kitchen to grab a glass of ice water. He set it on the counter for Aaron to drink when he was finished in the bathroom, and Caden grabbed a pot to heat up some of the canned soup they had in the cabinets. He wasn't sure what Aaron was allowed to eat, or if he had any kind of dietary restrictions, but he knew from Roxy that Aaron hadn't had much of an appetite. Understandable, considering, but the guy needed to eat something. Caden wasn't going to feed his brother like a baby, but he was going to make sure he got healthy again. A part of him still felt like this whole thing had been his fault. His fault and Gavin's.
Aaron took a few extra minutes in the bathroom. Every movement now felt slower and more laborious, and it was frustrating already. His body was weaker, he could feel it, and there was some essential part of him that was draining away. It made everything feel harder and look more dim. He peed, washed his hands and face, and swished some mouthwash around, not finding the energy to actually brush his teeth. He swallowed a painkiller down with a cupped hand of water, hesitated a beat, then took another one. They at least softened the edges of everything. Aaron left the bathroom and went to the kitchen, making a slow beeline for the water glass. He gulped down half of it, winced when the brain freeze kicked in, and looked at what Caden was doing. “Don’t think I’ve ever seen you cook,” he said. It was meant to be a joke, but it came out a bit too rusty for that.
Caden glanced over when Aaron appeared, but he didn't say anything at first, focused now on opening the can of beef stew to dump into the pot. "You don't come around much," he pointed out with a wry grin. His brother was definitely looking pale and tired. He was fucking lucky to be alive, really. Caden could already tell he was going to lose some muscle mass until he was fully healed and could start working out again, if that's what he wanted to do. "You need to eat something," he told Aaron, motioning to the kitchen table. "You want to sit? Or you can take the recliner. Might be more comfortable." He was deliberately not talking about what he felt like they needed to talk about. Caden knew it was probably unlike him not to poke the bear, but he didn't want to agitate Aaron at the moment. Not until he had some food in him, at least.
Even though he had no appetite, Aaron knew what Caden said was true. He had to give his body fuel to heal itself and fight off infection if one started and all that. The thought of actually eating was just tiring all by itself. “Yeah, I’ll take the chair,” he murmured. Aaron moved to the sink to refill his water, then shuffled toward the living room. He settled in the recliner and put the footrest up so he could lean back a bit. He’d neglected to pick up the remote control for the TV, but that was all right. Aaron just gazed blankly into the dark screen and waited. It felt a little strange to be taken care of by his brothers like this, Caden especially. It wasn’t that they’d never done anything for him -- they’d gotten in the way of their father’s drunken rage more times than Aaron probably even remembered -- but this sort of nurturing when he was sick or hurt had always fallen to the women in his life, mom and girlfriends. It was a nice kind of strange.
Caden was not one to nurture. He wasn't any good at it, and in a way it made him feel uncomfortable. He had been taught at an early age to handle his own shit and no one was going to be around to help him to his feet so that mentality had stuck and he applied it to nearly everyone in his life. But in this case, Aaron had nearly died and Caden felt partly responsible for it, even if he couldn't explain that to Aaron. Or anyone, really. He and Gavin had promised each other they wouldn't talk about Reagan Kelly and Caden was sticking to that. With the soup heating, Caden grabbed a bowl and a spoon, occasionally glancing into the living room where Aaron was sitting. Finally the soup was hot enough for consumption and Caden poured it into the bowl before carrying it to Aaron with some paper towels. "You getting any sleep?" he asked, moving to sit down on the couch while Aaron ate.
Aaron murmured a ‘thanks’ as he accepted the bowl from Caden. The soup smelled good and kind of made his stomach turn at the same time. The pills were starting to kick in though, taking the sharpness out of his pain and gradually loosening the rest of him. He had the feeling it would be easy to go back to sleep before too long. That was just fine with Aaron -- the more often he could be unconscious, the better. “Yeah,” he answered, cradling the bowl to his chest with one hand and getting a spoonful with the other. “S’all I wanna be doing.” Aaron took the first bite a little cautiously, making it mostly broth. The hospital had cleared him for solid foods, but the idea of eating anything heavy really did make him queasy. Small steps.
"Can't blame you," Caden said. "It's the best way for your body to heal, at least." He wasn't sure about the rest of his brother. Caden had to imagine it would be hard recovering from this shit mentally. He leaned back against the couch. "I know you're still recovering, but we ought to start thinking about what you want to do once you're feeling better." He wasn't going to touch on what they would do when and if Mila was found. That would be up to the cops, but attempted murder was attempted murder, wasn't it?
Aaron’s spoon paused for a few seconds before he dipped it back into the stew. “You can kick me out anytime,” he said dully. He wasn’t sure what else Caden could be talking about. It all depended so much on whether or not they found Mila, but the small amount of hope Aaron had for that was fading fast. The evil thing had taken her, he didn’t know why it would give her back. Especially not alive and well. He was sure that Mila’s parents wouldn’t be keen on him going back to her place indefinitely, so he would probably just end up moving back into his own trailer. The thought of going back to that lonely mess hurt his chest, but what else did he have? “I can prob’ly do light duty at the bar in a week or two,” Aaron added, to at least make it sound like he thought he had a future.
"We're not going to kick you out," Caden replied simply. "You can stay as long as you need to. But if they don't find Mila... her parents are probably going to try and sell her place." Caden didn't think the cops were going to find anything - when did they ever? - but if they did, he doubted Mila would be found alive. And Caden was just thankful Aaron hadn't sold his own place yet. "Gavin and I can help you get back on your feet. It's probably gonna take a while for things to start feeling normal again. If you need anything..." Caden knew he and Gavin weren't exactly the most comforting people around, but he was trying, at least.
Aaron wasn’t terribly optimistic that Caden wouldn’t kick him out eventually. He didn’t doubt his brother’s sincerity in the moment, but Caden was short on patience, and Aaron had no idea how he would do with all of this. They would just all have to see. One thing he was fairly certain of, however -- nothing was ever going to feel normal again. Aaron didn’t bother to say so, just took a sip of water and nodded vaguely. “I’ll just ... go back to my house,” he murmured. All of that felt very far away, even though it probably wasn’t. Aaron wasn’t sure how long the Morettis would hold out hope that Mila would return alive, but he doubted they would let him live there in the meantime. “I don’t need anything,” he added, wishing people would stop making that offer. They couldn’t give him what he did need.
"I don't believe that," Caden said, "but I get why you'd say so. If I could find her for you, man, I would." But there was nothing he could do, short of getting a witch involved and hadn't they tried that already? "But if you want us to do anything for you, just... let us know." Aaron probably wouldn't ask for a thing. Caden sure as hell wouldn't, for a lot of reasons, but there seemed to be some kind of deficiency instilled in all of them that made it impossible to ask for help when they really needed it. Asking for help was a weakness, taught to them by their dad and it was hard to shake that particular life lesson.
A few bitter thoughts crossed Aaron’s mind -- that Caden would only find Mila to punish her for what she’d been made to do, and that all he might ask of his brothers was to put a bullet between his eyes. He knew somewhere that was probably a sign that he did need help, but Aaron didn’t think there was any help for it. Especially not from the siblings who were as fucked up as he was. Well, maybe not anymore, Aaron thought he’d probably fallen in the ranks of having his shit together. His eating slowed even more, the routine action feeling like a chore now. Aaron let the silence settle for several minutes, then murmured, “Do you think possessed people get to go to Heaven? She didn’t get last rites.”
He hadn't been expecting that kind of question and Caden could only stare blankly at Aaron for a second before he recovered. It made him wish Gavin was there, because Gavin was the church goer, not Caden. Caden was raised Catholic but he found the concept of God and heaven to be bullshit. He could say so right then and there but it probably wasn't going to help Aaron. Caden was aware that he rarely lied just to make his family feel better, but his gut was telling him to try and be decent for once. "Well...I guess if there's a heaven I can't see why they'd hold possession against someone. It wasn't her fault that thing latched onto her. Didn't seem like there was much anyone could do." Not even God apparently but Caden bit his tongue on adding that part. "And you don't know that she's dead, Aaron. She might be out there somewhere, not knowing who she is. Someone might be helping her right now for all we know."
Aaron was aware that Caden wasn’t exactly devout; his brother wasn’t shy about saying blasphemous things if he was in the mood. But it was a question that had been weighing heavy on him as his hope started to slip away. He desperately wanted Mila back, alive and well. But if that wasn’t possible, Aaron wanted her to be at peace already, somewhere nobody could hurt her anymore. Caden had said it wasn’t her fault, and he was completely right -- it was Aaron’s fault. All of it. Unable to make himself eat any more, Aaron set the bowl aside. His thoughts were starting to get fuzzier, and that felt okay. He needed reality to be blurry right now. “Yeah maybe,” he said quietly. He knew everyone expected him to keep being optimistic, but he just couldn’t. His Mila was gone, like the thing said, and if her body was still alive, God only knew what was happening to it. Thinking about it too much kept making him emotional, but the gradual floaty feeling from the pills was helping some. “It’s my fault,” he murmured. “I should’ve known better.”
It wasn't surprising to hear that Aaron blamed himself. Caden was sure he would feel the same way if he had been in Aaron's shoes. Hell, he felt that way now, but that was because it was probably his fault. His and Gavin's. "Should've known better for what?" Caden asked. "You couldn't have known something like this would happen. No one can. If anything she should have asked for help." It sounded like Mila had been lying for a while, going back to that tunnel when she shouldn't have been. And maybe it was just easier to blame Mila for what had happened to her than accept any real responsibility himself. Or let Aaron do it. It didn't seem fair. Aaron was the one who had gotten hurt and almost died. It was ridiculous for him to shoulder any of the blame.
Maybe it was indeed ridiculous, but Aaron still felt like it was all ultimately his fault. He’d started this ball rolling, and he didn’t believe things would have gone the way they did if not for the pregnancy. Amelia still would have disappeared, but they wouldn’t have been lured into that tunnel by the crying baby. There wouldn’t have been such a vulnerable hole in Mila for that thing to get its claws into and tear open. It would’ve been okay. Or that was how it seemed now, anyway. “I got her pregnant,” he told Caden, like that should've been obvious. “And I didn’t take her to a priest. I shoulda done that right away. I killed her.” It all came out quiet and bland, all the emotion behind the words getting more and more muffled. The blankness was nice, Aaron wanted to hold onto that. He closed his eyes.
"If the witches couldn't help her, a priest wouldn't have been able to. There's nothing you could've done." Caden sighed and rubbed his hand over his face. "You didn't kill her, Aaron. I don't think she's dead." It was easy to lie right now, because he wanted Aaron to feel better, even if Caden knew it wasn't that easy. Maybe there was plenty of blame to go around. But who the hell knew if this would have happened if he and Gavin had minded their own business. He could tell Aaron was getting tired again and Caden moved to stand. "Come on, I'll help you get back to bed so you can sleep. You shouldn't be thinking about this stuff right now."
It all felt like too much to explain -- that even if they couldn’t pull together a full-on exorcism, the priest could have done a blessing or something; Mila hadn’t wanted to pray, and the Thing hadn’t like Gavin’s tattoos; it was clearly evil, and what better power to fight evil than God’s power? But Caden wasn’t a believer anyway so it would’ve just been wasted breath. Aaron just had to know that he hadn’t helped her. She’d needed help and besides getting Gavin involved, Aaron hadn’t done anything for her. And now it was too late. He looked up at Caden when his brother stood and came closer, tempted to stay right where he was just so he wouldn’t have to move ... but sleeping in bed was almost always better than elsewhere. Especially if he had bad dreams again. With a sigh, Aaron sat up and reached for Caden’s hand to help him to his feet.
Caden took Aaron's hand, the other coming around to grip Aaron's forearm to help him to his feet. He didn't right away, just in case Aaron felt dizzy or needed a moment. He couldn't spend the rest of the day trying to figure out who was to blame for what happened. He just wished he could convince Aaron that this wasn't his fault. Short of admitting to what he and Gavin had done, Caden didn't think it was possible. All they could do was wait and see if Mila was found. And if she wasn't, try to help Aaron move on, at least. It probably wouldn't be that easy, because when was shit ever easy for any of them? All they could do is try and this point.