Jared Gaines (thatbigguy) wrote in shadows_rpg, @ 2020-08-06 22:01:00 |
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Entry tags: | #january 2018, jared, jared x nic, nic |
Who: Jared & Nic
Where: Ludlow Lane
When: Monday 01/29
Status: Complete
Jared felt like maybe he should have gone to Nic Castell's house as soon as he knew about his involvement but everything Rylee Mears had told him was so nonsensical and hard to swallow, he'd had to sit with the knowledge for a couple of days before he could decide what to do with it. He didn't feel like he could tell Grady or Bailey let alone anyone else at the station anything when he himself barely understood it. He'd also been holding out for hope that they would find something that contradicted Rylee's story, that all those missing people would turn up somewhere in the woods and it would just be another strange story for later. His hopes were slowly cracking under pressure and on Monday afternoon he made his way to the Castell tea shop, a slightly less formal place to speak. Nic Castell wasn't there and he debated leaving this for later but no, he needed to understand where Ty was, needed to fill in some of the blanks in Rylee's story.
Ludlow Lane always creeped him out. Most of the houses were in complete disarray and those houses reminded him of the Rogan house in that they all looked fucking haunted. At least the Castell's place didn't look as bad, one of the few houses on that street that was presentable and looked lived in. Jared still braced himself - for what, he didn't know - before he knocked. He was in uniform, it just felt right to go there while on the job, though on some level he wondered if Nic was more likely to tell him something if he came there as a worried boyfriend and not a cop.
Things were supposed to be returning to normal, but nothing felt normal in Nic’s life. Lem was still grieving, breaking a little more each day, and Nic didn’t know what to do to help her. Each day seemed harder, wearing him thinner, but he knew he had to stay strong for her. The nightmares that plagued him were no longer supernatural in nature, but they were just as terrifying, sometimes forcing him to relieve the night the portal opened, while others provided him with twisted possibilities of the future. He’d considered taking something to help him sleep, but then worried he might not hear Lem call out to him. Or even Jules or Neil. They’d both been relatively silent since that night, but he wanted to be on guard, just in case.
In the days that followed the portal opening, Nic had told the story over and over in various forms. Reagan and James McCarthy had gotten the whole story, minus the names of those involved. It was something Nic refused to budge on, regardless of the threats hurdled his way. After that, it had been quiet, so Nic didn’t expect to have to explain to anyone else. When the doorbell rang, he hurried down, hoping that maybe it was Lem. His steps slowed when he saw the form outside the door, a frown tugging into place as he opened it to face Jared. “Afternoon officer. Can I help you?”
The greeting hammered it home for Jared that he was not there on official business as a sheriff's deputy and he reached up to touch his badge as if he could magically alter his outfit into a civilian one before he spoke. "I'm uh, not here on official business." He recognized Nic the way he recognized a lot of people in town, not from any trouble he'd been in since his arrest but still, word got around and he knew what Nic had done in the past. He didn't hold it against him now, he'd stayed out of trouble since. "I'm Jared Gaines, you may know of me. Can I talk to you for a few minutes?" He'd felt like he was wading through sludge in the last few days, like every movement was somehow tenfold harder than it should be but somehow he'd managed to keep a brave face and go to work when he was needed. Maybe it helped that a big chunk of work these days was searching for Ty but with every day that ticked by - so slowly, too slowly - it got harder to stand upright under the pressure. Coming here was hard too but he had a feeling it might either open up a new door or give him the closure he needed.
Nic stared at Jared for a beat, his expression never changing, then sighed and stepped back as he opened the door. “Come on in,” he said, waiting until Jared was inside before leading the way to the living room sitting area. “What’s this about?” He didn’t know Jared, but he’d seen him around. The town was too small not to know all the cops and his relationship with Ty had been big gossip for a while. Not that Nic cared, but Zania had a habit of filling him in on things he couldn’t care less about. Nic suspected that was why he was there, since Ty was one of the ones missing, but he didn’t ask. He didn’t know who sent him and he wasn’t about to incriminate himself. If his blood had been identified at the scene, then he figured Jared would be there on official business.
It was warm in there, far warmer than outside and Jared unzipped his coat to make it a little more bearable, looking around the living room as he did. "I think you know why I'm here," he said. "Rylee Mears came to see me. She didn't know a whole lot about what happened, just that Carson is gone. That a whole lot of people are gone, including my partner, Ty Solomon. I just want to know what really happened, what Mears told me didn't make a whole lick of sense and I... I need to know. I need to understand." What he really needed to know was if it was in any way reversible but he didn't dare ask, as if asking might jinx it somehow, take away what little chance there was of finding Ty alive.
“Fuck,” Nic sighed, closing his eyes as he shook his head. Unfortunately, Jared was still there when he opened his eyes, so he knew he’d have to deal with this. Official business or not, he couldn’t kick a cop out of his house when he’d already been incriminated, not without making things worse. “Have a seat,” he said, nodding towards one of the chairs, then took a seat on the couch himself. “How much did Rylee tell you? And… how much do you believe about the weird things that happen around here? Just so I have a gauge on where to start from.” It was really so he knew what he was dealing with. If Jared bought into all the cover-ups, then explaining that his partner had been locked in another dimension was going to be a long journey.
Jared sat down, perching a bit on the edge of the couch. He felt slouchy in a way he wasn't used to, like he was carrying something heavy on his back. "The people who got hurt in the fog were infected with something," he summarized, thinking of the disjointed way Rylee had tried to explain what had happened. She'd used that word too - infected - and it felt right. That hadn't been Ty sitting over him willing - even eager - to watch him die. It could never have been Ty. "You and Carson and some other people were trying to fix it but something went wrong. They're in some other world now." He hadn't said those words out loud and suddenly it all felt more real, making him feel like he was going to throw up. He looked down at his legs, at his uniform, at the badge dimly glinting on his chest. It helped ground him, he'd wanted to throw up on the job a countless times, he could wait. Looking up at Nic again he cleared his throat. "Am I anywhere close to the truth?"
“Yeah, that’s… pretty spot on,” Nic said with a little nod. It was the shortest version of the truth he’d ever heard and he could understand why Jared might have some questions, but hearing it from a cop put him more on edge than usual. If Jared decided to bring him in, he’d have to change his story because the truth wouldn’t hold up in court. It would just make him look crazy. He could keep his mouth shut, he’d done it before, but the thought of leaving Lem at a time like this made him feel sick. If he was stuck behind bars, what would happen to her? Nic shoved the thought away, trying not to worry about something that hadn’t happened yet. “It’s complicated, but it’d been building for months. Me and the others—Carson— had been having weird dreams. We knew something was coming, but we didn’t know what. Even after the fog happened, we didn’t realize it was connected, not right away. But then people started to get sick, or— they weren’t sick. It was like they were drained of energy. And it seemed to affect everyone but us. Even the most powerful people I know in this town were useless. And it was getting worse. People were dying. And the fog people, they weren’t themselves. I mean, did Ty seem normal to you?” Nic didn’t really pray, not to anyone in specific, but he still felt compelled to send a mental plea that Jared had noticed something wrong with Ty, otherwise this could be far more difficult.
Jared shook his head numbly because no, nothing about Ty had been normal that last time he saw him. He was ready for Jared to die and Jared still wasn't sure why he hadn't. Maybe the only reason he hadn't faded away was that Nic and the others had intervened. "That other world," he asked, his voice giving out before he finished his question so he cleared his throat and tried again. "Where are they now? Do you think they'll come back?" He couldn't help but think of little Amelia Lucas, not so little anymore. That had been her story, hadn't it? She'd been somewhere else, another dimension, another world. Was that where Ty was now? Was he still ...wrong? Jared wanted him back but he couldn't help the cold fear that if Ty did return he still wouldn't be himself and with the effects he and the others were having on everyone that would be a disaster.
“I don’t think so, but I can’t say for sure,” Nic said, wishing he could speak with more certainty. They knew so little about that other place that he didn’t feel like he could be sure about anything, except that they couldn’t come back the way they’d gone. He couldn’t imagine Jules willingly opening the portal again and he’d do everything in his power to make sure no one he spoke to asked her to do so. So far, he’d successfully left her out of every conversation he’d had, save the ones with Lem. There was nothing he could do there; she’d been involved from the start. “We opened the portal hoping we could somehow, I dunno, cleanse them or something. Rid them of whatever was controlling them and send it back where it came from. It was never our intention to trap them inside. I suppose there could be another way out— we don’t know where the fog came from the first time, but it wasn’t from us.”
Back to where the fog came from. That meant back to where those impossibly large monsters had come from, large enough to flip his cruiser like it was just a toy and Jared's understanding of the situation shifted a bit. What were the odds of anyone surviving in a place full of those things? He rested his hand on his face, rubbing idly at the scruff on his jaw and pressing his finger against his lips. Maybe they were all still infected, he wasn't sure if that made it better or worse. Carson hadn't been infected, did that mean he was already dead? "How do you even... Do something like that?" he asked. “Open up a portal." Was that how the fog had gotten in that first time around? He had to wonder if this was something they needed to worry about, if Nic and his friends were a possible danger to the community. They'd been trying to help, yes, but if this was all true, that kind of power was a time bomb.
“I don’t really know,” Nic said. “I can’t personally do it, but one of the others can. I think it’s an innate ability, probably more psychic than magical. And I think the fog helped trigger it. I know it’s painful. And… it’s not something they’d ever do again.” He almost said that ‘they lost someone too’, but thought better of it. There was always a chance that could be traced back to Jules, that someone could look into who was gone and who’d been left behind. It was highly unlikely, sure, but Nic wasn’t taking any chances. “I know it sounds crazy, but we did the best we could and almost died in the process. We couldn’t involve the police; even if you’d believed us, pretty much everybody was out of commission once things got bad.” And what would the cops do? Lock them up? On what grounds? Nic knew they’d done what they needed to do, but it would never feel right. There’d been too many losses to ever feel good about it.
"I know," Jared said quietly and he understood better than he wanted to. He'd been comatose for days but he knew what kind of damage had been done around town now. Not everyone had survived this, whatever this was, and he knew that whatever Nic and the others had done was necessary. It just didn't make it any easier and the cop part of his brain wanted to get all the details, question everyone else who was there, pin down the exact location of where those people had... crossed over? That sounded too much like dying but what were the odds any of them were still alive? He still didn't know what to tell Grady, this wasn't like covering for a murderer but he could still get in trouble if he let on that he knew something and wouldn't talk about it. The whole thing was making his head hurt as much as his heart and he just wanted to be comatose again, unknowing and unfeeling. "Who opened the portal?" he asked though he suspected Nic wouldn't tell him. He was being vague on purpose and Jared thought he could understand why.
"I can't tell you that," Nic said, his tone making it clear that it was not up for discussion. He understood why Jared would want to know, but Jules didn't need him showing up on her doorstep, asking her to re-open the portal. He'd tried to keep her name out of it in every conversation he'd had and had mostly been successful. Lem was the only one he'd told and that had happened before he knew how things would pan out. He thought that Rylee might know, but it all depended on how much Carson shared with her. "I know that's not what you want to hear, but..." Nic shrugged. He wasn't sorry, not about that. It felt like he'd failed just about everyone lately, but he refused to fail Jules in that regard. And Neil, though there was no reason to mention his part in it all. "I'm still trying to figure out if there's some way to contact them or help them, but... I'm not finding much."
Jared thought about all the manpower and time they had wasted trudging around in the woods, searching. Maybe it hadn't been a complete waste because it had at least made him feel like he was doing something but the truth was out now. There was nothing he could do, he wasn't even sure why Nic and his secret collaborators were capable of doing something like that. Did it mean they weren't human? There were a million questions buzzing in his head and his cop-senses were arguing fiercely with the personal grief inside him, the part of him that said just drop it and go, the part that said he couldn't cope with this, that there was no way a mortal man could cope with something like this. He was quiet for a few moments, could feel that whatever energy he'd managed to gather up to finally confront Nic was slowly seeping out of him. "I guess that's that then," he said finally. "They're just gone."
“Yeah,” Nic said softly, his eyes dropping to the floor. It was a subject that dragged him down physically and emotionally, draining him like nothing else ever had. He’d never been personally responsible for the pain of so many people and unable to do anything about it. Telling them it was the best he could manage made him feel like a failure. Telling them he’d saved their lives felt like a lie when he knew how devastated everyone was. He found himself grieving more for the people left behind than the people who were gone, as he was fairly certain they were the ones still suffering. Those trapped in the portal were most likely dead by now. He couldn’t impart hope because there was nothing to hope for other than recovery and that seemed like a long and difficult road, at least from his point of view. Jared seemed to be coping better than Lem, but he could never tell. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
After everything Jared had heard about what had happened to Ty, it was these last words that seemed to really compound it into his mind. I'm sorry for your loss. Five simple words that made his breath catch and feel like cement in his lungs. He looked at Nic, eyes widening a little as he tried to remember how to breathe, how to turn cement into oxygen again and then he huffed, getting to his feet a bit unsteadily. "I don't know how to explain this to the sheriff," he muttered. "But I'll leave your name out of it." This went beyond an investigation and for the first time in his adult life Jared wished he wasn't a cop. "Thanks for telling me the truth. I'll get out of your hair now."
“I’d… appreciate that,” Nic said. “I can’t go on record with the truth. There’d be a lot of questions that I can’t answer and it just… it wouldn’t go over well.” It was hard for him to imagine a scenario where he told the cops what went down and they took it at face value, especially if his story was littered with holes. And even if they did believe him, what would they do about it? Certainly not report it to the public. No, this needed to stay as private as possible, which seemed like a lost cause considering the list of people he’d already spoken to. None of them had taken it well, though he didn’t really expect them to. At least Jared wasn’t hearing it first from him. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help.”
Jared was trying hard to keep his expression neutral even as something inside him had started to crack. He clenched his jaw and nodded, unable to reassure Nic that it was okay or really say anything at all. Instead he let that nod serve as both affirmation and a farewell, turning to leave. It was a loss, another loss, another person this town was taking from him. It wasn't just Ty and Sadie, it was Carson and Danny too, this town just kept taking people from him and he felt like he couldn't breathe. He really couldn't make it to his car fast enough and really he was amazed at how calm he managed to be on the surface as he left the Castell house. He would cry as soon as he got in his car, it was an inevitable thing that was going to happen and he wanted to drive at least down the street before it did. Ludlow wasn't a busy street at least but he needed to get away from this house.