Reagan and Caius
He could only imagine what she was going through. And he had, at length. Caius had even had a few nightmares about it. In the dreams, it felt something like being jettisoned into space. Nothing to hold onto or ground himself with, adrift in a lot of cold nothingness, unable to even tell if he was still solid or not. He knew that was just his stressed brain working overtime worrying about Reagan, but it still gave him a little chill to think about. He hadn’t told her about it, either. Caius’s arm tightened slightly around her, and his fingers moved upward to toy with the fine soft hair at the back of her neck. “I know you must,” he murmured softly back. His chest felt a bit tight. “I would take it from you if I could. Just keep holding on for me, I’ll keep you as warm as I can.” Of course, his magic was of a colder nature, where Reagan had always burned so hot. Caius hoped that turned out just to be metaphor. He couldn’t fix how she was feeling, but he could give her everything he had.
Reagan wished she wasn't speaking literally. But losing her magic had left her feeling cold inside. And hollow. With winter settling in, she was afraid the cold would turn to ice, and then where would she be? She was beginning to wonder if her magic had been akin to her soul, and what would she turn into without it? There was the sudden urge to cling to Caius until the wine finally made her drowsy, but she was still vaguely aware that they were at a formal event, surrounded by people from town. Reagan was positive she could feel her mother's gaze on her, even from across the room. "I think I might be a little drunk," Reagan said, her lips twitching against his skin before she pulled back to open her eyes and look at him. "I'm not sure if that's good or bad, right now. It's not distracting me as much as I thought it would, and I'm afraid I won't be able to keep my shit together much longer."
She seemed far from wasted, but it was very rare for Reagan to get anywhere near sloppy in public, and Caius knew that shitty phase of being drunk all too well. Too drunk to have fun, not drunk enough to shut one’s mind up. He’d spent a lot of time there in recent memory and it sucked. Caius stopped moving them around the dance floor and pressed a brief kiss to Reagan’s lips. “Let’s get out of here, then,” he suggested. “I already wrote a check, we made our appearance. We can go home and relax.” Maybe they could drink some more until life was fun again, however briefly. Or numb. It had occurred to Caius more than once that Reagan would be susceptible to his mind manipulation ability now, and he’d been tempted to take her pain away from her, at least for a while, but he couldn’t do it without her permission. He just couldn’t.
It was probably a good idea to go. Reagan knew if she stayed she would keep drinking until everything exploded inside of her. Not that anyone would be in any real danger, because all she could do was scream. Honestly, she had no idea if she could go home and relax. Maybe she could go home and drink some more until she couldn't feel a thing and then she could relax. "Let's do that," Reagan murmured. "Let's just go. If I try to explain to my mother that we're leaving she'll try to guilt me into staying longer." She should feel bad leaving Nate behind to deal with Veronica, but at the moment Reagan was feeling purely selfish, and getting away from these people was suddenly her top priority. Reagan quirked a brow thoughtfully. "Do we have wine at home?"