rageandruin (rageandruin) wrote in shadows_rpg, @ 2019-06-11 09:46:00 |
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Entry tags: | #december 2017, caden, caden x roxy, roxy |
Who: Caden and Roxy
When: late night, Saturday, Dec 23rd
Where: their house
Status: Complete
The snowy night before Christmas Eve was not a night Roxy expected to be sitting alone at her kitchen table, drinking, but there she was. She’d visited Mila in the hospital earlier that day and still felt heartbroken over it. She’d fed Aaron some chicken soup and grilled cheese when he’d gotten out of bed for a very brief time, and in spite of her protests, he’d washed it down with beer instead of water. Three of them, right in a row. He’d been slurry and out of it, and Roxy was pretty sure he was taking more pain medication than he should. She could only hope that stopped when Mila felt good enough to join the world again. If she ever did.
Considering how bad the weather had gotten, Roxy expected Caden home from the bar at any time. Nobody in their right minds should be out, and while she was worried, she didn’t have any desire to call and check on him. He hated that anyway. He would turn up when he turned up. She was going to wait up, though, with her phone close at hand. The house was near silent, and she had most of the lights off. She’d put up a small Christmas tree in the corner of the living room the weekend before, and Roxy liked how the multi-colored lights danced on everything, making it look different. Like someone else’s house, one full of cheer instead of sorrow and worry. Or maybe she was just feeling maudlin.
Roxy’s eyes drifted toward the clock on the stove. It was almost midnight. She lifted the glass of rum to take another swallow. She felt like she was drunk, but not too far gone. Just enough to feel somewhat numbed and disconnected from reality. Roxy was tempted to check in on Spence, but it was late and she knew she shouldn’t. She should just sit and wait in her soft-fleece bathrobe, one foot pulled up on the seat of the kitchen chair, her hair still damp around her shoulders, and wait for her man to come home safe, so that was what she was doing. Plus rum. Because reasons.
It was close to midnight when Miles and Caden finally shut down and locked up. Given the holiday weekend, the bar wasn't as crazy as it could be most Saturday nights and Caden was eager to get home to check on Aaron. He knew Mila was back but he had been at work for the majority of the day and Gavin had been the one to deal with Aaron at the hospital when... well, whatever happened happened. It was probably better that Caden hadn't gone, otherwise Mila's parents would have probably been filing charges against him.
The house was mostly dark when his truck pulled up into the driveway but Caden had a feeling Roxy would be awake so he wasn't too surprised when he found her at the kitchen table drinking. The Christmas tree was lit up, at least so it didn’t look too ominous. Caden shut the door and knelt down to untie his boots, his gaze glancing down the darkened hall before it found his girlfriend. "He okay?"
Roxy heard Caden’s truck pull up, and she felt some dim relief when he came through the door. Point Pleasant wasn’t the safest place at night under any circumstance, much less when the weather turned bad. But Caden was safe and home now, and Roxy wondered a bit why she wasn’t happier about that. She’d been waiting for him, after all. She loved him. Why did everything feel wrapped in cotton? “Are any of us?” she asked in a murmur as a response, lifting her glass for another swallow. Roxy cleared her throat softly. “He’s been passed out most of the day. He ate a little something around five ... then went back to bed. Pretty sure he’s got a liquor bottle in there and plenty of oxy, so ...” She trailed off from saying he was probably feeling better than the rest of them.
No, they weren't okay, but they were more okay than Aaron was. Still, things felt heavy and once his boots were off Caden shrugged out of his coat, hung it up and then joined Roxy at the table, sitting down across from her and reaching out for the rum to take a drink. He waited until he'd swallowed before he set the bottle back on the table. "If he's got a bottle in there, I'll find it." Caden felt a spike of annoyance. He had told Aaron not to take those pain meds with alcohol for fuck's sake. Sighing he rubbed his hand over his face. "We can't fuckin' watch him every second of the day. Who does he think he's helping? Trying to numb himself to death. Christ."
She was fairly certain that Aaron currently felt like the numbness was helping him, but she didn’t bother to point that out to Caden. Roxy wasn’t surprised that Aaron was turning to the bottle -- it was the only way it seemed like the Lucases had been taught to deal with trauma -- she just wished he wasn’t mixing it with painkillers. That part was dangerous. Roxy swirled the rum in her glass before draining it, then set it down to fill it up again. “Mila was calm when I went to see her,” she said. “So I’m hoping he’ll start to come around after the next time he sees her. She doesn’t need him all fucked up.” She brushed some hair behind her shoulder before picking up the fresh glass. “How was business tonight? Roads still decent?”
"Bar was fine. Roads are fine." He reached for the rum again. He didn't want to talk about the bar, or the weather. Honestly Caden didn't want to talk about anything. Shit had been exhausting for far too long. With the bottle in his hand, Caden stood and walked over to the cabinet to grab a glass for himself. Rum was a bit tame, but it was in his hand, so that's what he would drink. "Mila might have been calm when you saw her, but you don't know that's how she'll stay. Are we all just gonna forget that she tried to kill Aaron? Stabbed him twice, Roxy, remember that?" He shook his head and began to pour. "Yeah, fine, maybe it wasn't really her, but it was at the same time. And no one knows if she's any better. She could be faking all this shit, ready to finish Aaron off first chance she gets. Maybe even you."
Shit was certainly exhausting. Roxy felt depleted, and she wasn’t even in the thick of it. Caden’s cynicism didn’t surprise her in the least, but it did make her feel even more tired. She wanted to point out that he hadn’t seen Mila -- how injured she was, the fear in her eyes when she said she wasn’t sure what was real -- but Roxy knew it wouldn’t get through to him, so why waste her breath? “Maybe so,” she said instead, gazing down into her rum as she idly swirled it. “If she’s faking it, she deserves a fucking Oscar, but who the hell knows for sure. She doesn’t trust that she’s really back, not yet. She just ... seemed more like Mila than she did before she disappeared, for whatever that’s worth. Pretty sure they won’t be moving back in together once she gets out of the hospital, if that helps ease your mind.”
Caden set the rum down on the counter and took a drink from his glass before he looked over at Roxy, his brow cocked curiously. "Why not? I mean, yeah it eases my mind a little, but is she not comin' back home?" Aaron would eventually be well enough to leave Caden and Roxy's and Caden could imagine the guy wanting to go back to Mila's, where he'd almost died. But Aaron could be an idiot sometimes, so Caden didn't want to assume his brother would use any common sense when it came to Mila.
Roxy cocked a brow at him. “Would you want to come back and live in the place where you tried to kill me? Right up the way from where you were possessed by some kinda demon and tortured for what felt like years?” she posed, sounding a bit incredulous. Caden was smarter than that. “I’m like, ninety percent sure she’ll go live with her parents once she gets out, until she recovers. She’s in bad shape, Caden, really bad.” Whether they could keep Aaron away from Mila was a completely different story, and not one that Roxy really wanted to get involved with. If they wanted to see each other, they should. Maybe supervised for a while, but ... yeah.
No, Caden wouldn't want that. And he was okay with it if Mila didn't want that either. That meant she wouldn't be near Aaron, or Roxy. Roxy and everyone else might think Mila's herself again, even in bad shape, but Caden wasn't about to just let his guard down and trust her around the people he loved. "Then let her parents take care of it," Caden said with a shrug. He walked over to sit back down. Feeling weary and tired all of the sudden, he rubbed his hand over his face. "I don't want Aaron near her... you either. I know she's your friend, but you don't know that she's not dangerous. No one knew what was wrong with her before, and no one can say she's fine now. I don't want you getting hurt either."
Roxy was pretty sure that Mila’s parents wouldn’t be able to ‘take care of it.’ They didn’t even know what had really happened to her, they weren’t equipped to really help their daughter. But then, neither was Roxy, and Aaron certainly wasn’t, no matter what he thought. “The witches might be able to tell,” she suggested, instead of arguing that she would see Mila if she damn well felt like it. It wouldn’t help anything, and she would just do what she wanted anyway. If Caden felt better doling out orders, like he had some semblance of control over anything, then Roxy would let him have that tonight. “From what Aaron said, they could tell she was possessed by something, they just couldn’t do shit about it. Maybe we can have them come look again. Put everybody’s minds at ease.” She took another sip of rum. Roxy set the glass back down and looked up, quietly adding, “After this, once they’re both more settled, I’m taking a break. I need out of here for a while.”
At the mention of the witches, Caden's head fell back and he released a weary fuck. He was tired of witches. In his mind, witches got them into this entire mess. He had no idea how much stock he put into those people anymore, but... fuck it. If they had been able to tell Mila had something inside of her, the least they could do was tell them if it was gone. He could ask Gavin about it. Aaron didn't need to be involved in any of this right now. He was probably too shit faced to do anything anyway. He brought his head back up and looked at Roxy in the dark, his brow quirking briefly. "What'd you mean taking a break? Where are you going to go?" He sounded calm, but there was the trigger of fear in the pit of his belly again that she was leaving leaving, like she had wanted to before.
It was often calm before the shouting started, and Roxy just hoped Caden would control himself tonight. Aaron needed to sleep. But hell, with as fucked up as Aaron seemed last time he’d been awake, maybe Caden could beat her ass in the kitchen and Aaron wouldn’t even hear it. Not that he would do anything about it if he did. “I don’t know yet,” she said. “Just away. Maybe upstate New York. Maybe further south. I just need to not be here for a bit.” A normal person would’ve gone to visit her family, probably, but Roxy thought that would put even more strain and misery on her. She couldn’t go home without endless criticisms and questions about why she wasn’t married yet, what was the holdup on the grandchildren, she was wasting her life, she needed to lose weight, blah blah blah. She just wanted some peace and space to breathe.
It sure sounded like she was leaving leaving, especially if she was talking about leaving the state. And she didn't seem to even know where she wanted to go. Only that she wanted to. It was a strange feeling, the sense of abandonment that was kicking in. He had been trying really hard since she told him she thought about leaving him. He had kept his temper in check, he had been more understanding, or at least he thought he had. Caden just wanted to love her, and have her love him and let everything else sort of fall into place. But maybe his family's issues were proving to be too much for her. Things he couldn't help, and couldn't walk away from. Caden knew he shouldn't feel blindsided by this, but with everything else going on, he did. "So you're gonna just go?" he asked after a moment. "You don't think I need you?"
Roxy was braced, the muscles in her core tight and her heart beating hard, even though she looked the same sort of relaxed on the outside. She was braced, but not for that question. Was it bad that her first impulse was to laugh a disbelieving ‘no?’ Probably. “After Aaron’s gone home and everything’s settled down, like I said,” she murmured after an unsure pause. “It’ll only be like a week, maybe. I can leave the freezer full. What else do you need me for?” Roxy was drunk enough that she couldn’t quite stop the note of bitterness that crept into that question. Caden hadn’t acted like he needed her, not even with all this family shit going on. He hadn’t confided any feelings or worries to her, he hadn’t sought out just her company, he hadn’t even expressed much gratitude for what she was doing for Aaron. Who wasn’t even technically her brother, since Caden wouldn’t fucking marry her. And of course he wasn’t hearing what she needed, all that mattered was what he needed.
Caden could only stare at her across the table for a few minutes as he tried to wrap his head around whatever her problem was. Who knew when Aaron would be able to go home. Physically he might be okay soon, but mentally... who the hell knew. He nudged aside his glass with a finger, wishing he had the energy to argue with her. He wasn't perfect, everyone knew that. Fuck, he knew it better than most. But he had been trying. He couldn't help that the shit hit the fan with Mila, that he was trying to keep the guilt at bay over what he and Gavin had done to Mila and Aaron. That he was working his ass off at the bar to try and keep it running smoothly. There were things he couldn't tell Roxy about. Caden had never been able to express himself the way he ought to, but fuck if he hadn't been trying to be better for her. He was obviously failing spectacularly if she thought he only needed her for food and it was both frustrating and exhausting. Caden brought his hand up to rub his fingers over his eyes. "Okay," he said finally, moving to stand from the chair. "Whatever you need to do, Rox. Go anytime you want. If Aaron's still here, I'll get Miles to pick up more hours so I can stay here. It's fine."
Caden wasn’t happy about it, Roxy could hear that as plain as day. She hadn’t expected him to be. But he didn’t seem to want to fight about it, which was a nice change of pace. Maybe he was just too tired. She felt a jab of guilt that was all too familiar -- she was being an inconvenience by needing something, wanting to take care of herself in some way that put other people out. Didn’t she know she only lived to serve? To take care of everyone and be used up without a thought for herself? She’d been steadily cooking and cleaning and working and trying to be supportive and getting ready for Christmas, worrying about Aaron and Mila both, trying to deal with her own emotions about the family she wanted and probably wouldn’t ever get, and Spence and ... everything. Things with Caden had been better in some ways, but Roxy was still waiting for the other boot to drop there. It didn’t seem like it would be tonight, but it would happen. It always did. And he hadn’t even asked her why, didn’t even want to know what she was feeling, why she wanted to escape for a while, didn’t ask to go with her even for an optimistic ‘we can make it happen’ moment. And now he was getting up to walk away, like always.
“Okay,” was all Roxy said back, her gaze moving toward the bright tree again as she lifted her drink once more. She would stick to her original plan, in spite of Caden’s passive aggressive assurance that she could go anytime. After Christmas, after Aaron was more stable, after Mila was with her family again. Then Roxy would go and breathe somewhere else before she started screaming here and never stopped.
Caden figured if Roxy wanted him to go with her she would have said so. It just felt like she was eager to get away, either from him or just Point Pleasant and while he didn’t want her to go, he knew she would think he was being an asshole if he said so. He did need her, he just didn’t know how to say it without sounding... pathetic. Desperate. Emotional? His dad was in the back of his head telling him to grow some balls. Maybe he was realizing Roxy would probably be happier on her own. She had already been thinking about leaving him. Would letting her go prove her loved her? Fuck if he really knew. He never knew how to deal with any of this and it wasn’t getting any easier.
Caden paused beside Roxy and leaned over to press a kiss against the top of her head before moving away to head down the hall to their bedroom. He’d change and check in on Aaron before bed. And maybe call Gavin to see about Mila and potentially asking the witches to check on all of this bullshit. Hell, maybe Roxy had the right idea, getting the fuck out of this place.