Jared Gaines (thatbigguy) wrote in shadows_rpg, @ 2022-06-13 22:51:00 |
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Entry tags: | #july 2018, carson, carson x jared, jared |
Who: Carson & Jared (Feat Lem!)
Where: Ludlow
When: Tuesday, 7/3
For what appeared to be an easy going week from the outside, the last week had been pretty tumultuous for Jared as he processed all the information Ty had gathered for him, fretted about the weird event at the carnival and had his sights on a house for sale that was likely to go fast if he didn't make an offer soon. It was something he and Ty had to decide together but a part of him wanted to just go and take care of it all and get it out of the way. He also wasn't sure how exactly he could check if a house was haunted without actually moving in and that was apparently a factor now.
The thing weighing the heaviest on him was Sadie's death. He kept changing his mind about how to address it, whether he should tell Carson the truth and that he forgave him because it obviously hadn't been his fault - or if he should lie to him and let at least one of them have peace of mind. He kept leaning toward the latter but every so often he felt like maybe he was infantilizing Carson and that he deserved to know for sure. Would Jared want to know if he was in his shoes? That was not a question with a definite answer, some proud and ethical part of him said yes, of course! It just didn't serve anyone to keep that particular suffering going indefinitely. Sadie's death was painful enough without it being so violent and unnecessary.
Ty kept tabs on Carson for him so at least he didn't run into him by accident before he was ready and he finally decided this was something he needed to get over with. It'd be nice to have a Fourth of July celebration without this hanging over him and he figured Carson could use a worry free day as well. It was Tuesday afternoon on July third when he headed to Ludlow where Carson was visiting and he couldn't help but practice his smile and hello a few times before he even parked the car.
None of Carson’s days seemed worry-free, and the past couple of them had pretty much been the opposite. He’d been trying to check in on Jules through their mental connection all day Sunday and most of Monday until she’d finally responded in a way. Her thoughts had all been jumbled and confusing and out of it. After some calling around Carson had found out she was in the hospital. It had been distressing as fuck, and he’d been really upset with himself for not pushing harder when he’d talked to her. Nic had been right, something bad had been up, and now it had landed her in a hospital bed.
He’d wanted to go see her immediately, but a friend of his at Mercy had checked and told him that she wasn’t allowed visitors except for family yet. So Carson had to wait. Rylee had gone to visit some of the family, and he really couldn’t sit in the hotel room alone, so Carson had gone to Vex’s house. It was always soothing to hang out with his favorite weirdos, and he thought maybe Vex would want to throw the ball around or something. He was still in human form for the moment, having a beer with Vex out on the back deck, doing his best not to fret too much about Jules. At least she was somewhere safe.
Lem was inside the kitchen and closest to the door, so when the doorbell rang she yelled out “I got it!” as she tromped her way there. She pulled it open and her eyes widened in surprise as her head tilted back to take in the huge man standing there. Lem knew vaguely who he was, a cop, mostly because of Nic, but his name escaped her. “Hi,” she said.
Jared was plenty used to people being a lot smaller than him but the girl who answered the door was almost comically so. It was almost like looking down at a kid and since he was well aware that he could come off as threatening due to his size alone he gave her a friendly smile - much like he might an actual child, while also trying to be careful not to come off as patronizing. "Hi," he echoed almost cheerfully. "I'm Jared, I'm looking for Carson? I was told he was here." After a moment's pause he added, "We're friends." From what he knew of this crowd they were no strangers to trouble knocking on their door any more than he was.
Jared, right. Jared, who'd had someone he cared about disappear along with Vex. Lem’s memory of that time period was spotty at best, but she remembered Nic talking about having to tell him what had happened to his man. The fact that he knew Carson too was weird, but this was a super small town, something that was easy for her to forget sometimes. “Right ... hang on, I’ll get him,” she said. Lem eyed the big man for another second, then turned to go fetch Carson, shutting the door halfway so Jared would stay outside. It was a nice enough day, and Lem didn’t like cops in the house.
A few moments later, Carson pulled the door open again, a quizzical sort of expression on his face, his beer still in his hand. “Hey man,” he said as he stepped outside onto the front porch with Jared, a slight question in the words. Carson hadn’t seen him in a long time, not since they’d all come back, and it made his stomach twist a bit with nerves that Jared had sought him out like this. His suspicions about what had happened to Sadie definitely still lurked in the back of his head, along with so many other horrors now. “Good to see you.”
Jared had convinced himself that seeing Carson would be hard, that he would change his mind about lying to him and confront him right there, or storm off because he couldn't deal with it but none of those things happened. If anything his resolve strengthened and he was happy to see someone he hadn't seen in a long time. "Way too long," he agreed and opened his arms up in an invitation for a hug, relieved when Carson accepted. "I heard you were back in town and figured I'd track you down. So much has happened since I last saw you." And he knew so much more now than he had back then, his whole world view had shifted and he wasn't even sure if he fully grasped it yet just how weird the world really was.
The hug was a bit of a surprise to Carson, though it shouldn’t have been, and he gave Jared’s back a couple of gentle thumps while he was there. It was easy to guess how Jared had tracked him down -- if he concentrated at that very moment, he could sense where Ty Solomon was, so of course it naturally worked the other way around too. Would Carson ever be alone again in his own head? Probably not. Carson chuckled faintly. “Ain’t that the understatement of the year,” he murmured before he took a swig from his beer. “You wanna come in and sit? It’s uh, not my place obviously, but Vex won’t mind.” He was fairly certain of that fact, at least, unless there was some bad blood between Vex and Jared he didn’t know about. Jared probably wouldn’t have stopped by here if that was the case, though.
"Does Vex have a nice yard we can sit in?" Jared asked, suspecting the answer was yes. There might not be much privacy but that was okay, they could shoot the shit about random crap to start with and then he could get Carson somewhere alone later. "The weather's mighty fine, I wouldn't mind basking in the sun. Especially if you got another one of those." He gestured to Carson's beer, giving him an easy smile. He'd considered going somewhere but that felt a bit like ambushing Carson, taking him somewhere to talk about hard things. No, it was better if they found a private place on this property - or even just went for a walk down Ludlow.
“Yeah there’s some chairs out back, come on through,” he said, motioning for Jared to follow as he turned to walk back through the house. Carson grabbed a beer for him on the way. It wasn’t his house to invite people into really, but it was, at the same time. Vex was pack, and so was Lem by proxy, and Carson had spent so much time in this house that it felt like a second home. It only took a few words to convey to Vex that he wanted to talk to Jared in private, something that still made him nervous, and then they were alone in the backyard, perched on the patio furniture with the sun on their shoulders. Carson sipped from his beer and offered Jared a little smile. “So you and Ty ... back together, I’m assuming?” he started with.
Jared was relieved to see they had some alone time and he'd been right, it was more relaxing to sit outside than to have this conversation in somebody else's living room. He grinned at the question and raised his hand, wiggling his fingers. "We got married down in Texas. Took the long way back home for our honeymoon. It was hard at first, with everything that happened... Nic Castell filled me in on everything..." He hadn't meant to dive headfirst into that particular topic but it was hard when it was so interwoven with his life, all that love and grief all mixed up in this huge event that had taken over their lives. "I'm really glad you survived that place, I honestly didn't think anyone would."
The gold band on Jared’s finger made Carson smile, though he got a bittersweet pang in his chest too. He would probably never get to marry Rylee. Even if they lived in some other city where nobody knew they were related, he was sure the states checked stuff like that before they gave out marriage licenses. But it was nice for the people who could do it, and Jared definitely deserved it. “Yeah, I didn’t either, so ... I’m glad for all of us,” Carson said, lifting his beer a bit in a little salute before he took a sip. “How’s he doing now, being back? I didn’t really ... get to talk to him much, over there.” He gave a little huff, sure that Jared knew why that had been the case. It made his stomach twist a bit tighter. Unless Ty hadn’t talked at all about his experiences over there, Carson supposed that was possible. Maybe Jared was here for insight, he didn’t even know yet, so there was no use freaking out about it.
Jared arched a brow, then gave him a wan little smile. "Yeah that was..." he trailed off for a second, then let out a slightly unsteady laugh. "That was weird, right? I didn't know you were..." He gestured vaguely, unsure just how much privacy they had out there in the yard. "What was that like?" he asked and he wasn't really certain just how much he should let Carson know that he knew, it was probably weird to find out he had been talking about him at length with Ty, but with something so out of the ordinary, of course they had talked about it to some extent so he wasn't going to try to hide that fact. There just had to be a line. A believable line he could skirt as he tried to bring up what he was really here to talk about.
So he did know, that wasn’t surprising. Trying to talk about it to someone who wasn’t Vex or Rylee already felt challenging, and on top of that this was Jared. Carson had never gotten any real confirmation that he was responsible for what had happened to Sadie, and just the possibility hanging over his head was uncomfortable. “It was, ah ... probably the most insane few months of my life,” he said with a humorless chuckle. “And honestly that’s saying something. But, kinda ... in a way I’m glad it worked out that way. I was able to help keep everybody safe sometimes. And I learned how to --” he made a gesture with his free hand as he hunted for the word. “Think and function, in that form, I guess. It’s hard to describe.” Carson took another swig of beer. He probably sounded crazy, but the whole thing was crazy already.
Jared cleared his throat, not really ready to dive into that heaviest topic but it had come up on its own and it felt weird to steer away from it only to try to bring it up later. "You don't uh... You don't know who infected you, do you?" he asked hesitantly, unsure how else to put it. Werewolves and vampires got turned in fiction but this wasn't fiction, this was a friend of his in real life and 'turning' sounded so dumb in that context that he couldn't really bring himself to say it. The topic was surreal enough and when he thought of Carson's condition- outside the scope of fiction - it sounded like a disease rather than a curse, even if it probably was the latter.
Curse or no, ‘infected’ felt right enough to Carson. It was a curse that spread like a virus, no matter what the source actually was. He’d been bitten and it had spread to him, and Carson had to assume that if he bit anyone else in werewolf form, he would pass it on. He shook his head to answer Jared’s question, debating whether or not to be completely honest on that point. He didn’t know who it had been, he’d never seen the body or heard the man’s name. Vex had told him that the guy was dead while they’d been over there. How he and Lem had lured him in, killed him, and disposed of the body. None of that were things that were smart to tell a cop though, and Carson had to protect his pack. “No, I never found out,” he half-lied. “He doesn’t seem to be around anymore though. Or she, I guess. I couldn’t exactly tell when I was attacked.”
"Well, I gotta think it's pretty rare or there'd be a lot more slaughter in town," Jared said, his stomach clenching uncomfortably as he tried to skirt that very fine line he'd been thinking about earlier. "So I'm pretty sure whoever attacked you, attacked Sadie too." There'd been other kills but it didn't feel right to start listing other incidents when he'd already mentioned the biggest and most relevant ones. "I gotta think they figured out a way to stay safe or left town, like you say. There haven't been any more of those weird incidents in a long while." He sipped his beer and maybe it was okay if he didn't look totally nonchalant about it since he'd brought up Sadie. They'd been divorced by then, but he had loved her for a long time and she hadn't deserved what happened to her. He was allowed to get upset about it.
Hearing Jared say her name made Carson kind of want to throw up, and he took a longer pull from his beer bottle. There’d been no way for him to know for sure if he’d been the one who’d killed her, since she’d died just a month after Carson had been infected. It could've been him, it could’ve been the werewolf who’d attacked him, it could’ve been a completely different one they didn’t even know about. None of them were good options, but god knew Carson didn’t want to be the one responsible. He hadn’t known Sadie well, but nobody deserved to die like that, and Jared was his friend. “I’m glad it’s stopped,” Carson started with, his good knee starting to bounce. “I think ... I only had one or two moons before Vex built the cage and we got help with tranquilizers and shit. But one of them was that one, so ... you really think it was them?” He was hesitant to ask it, but surely Jared had already considered that it might have been Carson who killed Sadie. He would’ve been a shitty cop, otherwise.
Jared nodded and it didn't take cop skills to see just how agitated Carson got over this topic. Hopefully Jared could take that away from him, let him relax a little. He might never know what else he got up to that night, who he'd scared or what he'd wrecked but he at least wouldn't have a human life weighing on his conscience. "You don't magically grow your leg back when you're like that, do you?" he asked and it felt good to be sure about that part, maybe he should look a little worried or something in asking but he didn't feel like putting on theatrics. It was logical to assume Carson was a three footed wolf, even if logic probably didn't have any place in this whole conversation. "I talked to an expert tracker down in Texas, he'd have told me if that wolf was missing a leg." It was a smooth enough lie and one he hoped helped. He had no idea what Sadie would have really wanted, but he wanted to remember her as a kind and warm person who wouldn't want unnecessary suffering. That terrible visage he'd seen at the Rogan house hadn't been her.
He’d been investigating shit even down in Texas? Of course he had, Carson chided himself. That had been his wife at one point, and her horrible death had been a mystery for quite a while now. The relief that flooded Carson’s system as he actually registered what Jared was saying was profound enough to make him feel all trembly. “Oh fuck,” he said, slumping back against the chair. He let out a shaky little laugh and shook his head. “No, no I don’t. I just spent months as a three-legged wolf, so ... I know that much for sure.” A good tracker would be able to tell that, and it was significant enough that he naturally would’ve told Jared, that made sense. As the implication that he was innocent of Sadie’s death really sank in, Carson covered his eyes with one hand and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered to himself, and gave another shaky laugh. “You don’t -- I can’t even tell you, like ... how much I’ve worried about that. That it was me. Goddamn.” There were tears in his eyes suddenly and Carson swiped at them absently. “Fuck. I’m sorry, Jared, I really am. I knew what had done it when I heard, I just ... I never knew how to tell you anything without sounding fucking crazy.”
Carson's reaction just drove home that this had been the right decision and something seemed to unclench inside of him, bringing relief on a level he hadn't even realized he needed and making his eyes water up a little. "Yeah I- when I first heard about you, I considered... I thought maybe it might have been you," he admitted. "I'm honestly glad we didn't have this conversation before you went missing, I didn't have all the facts back then, it would have been so much harder." That was an understatement, it probably would have been a shitshow and while Jared rarely lost control of his temper, he had no idea how he would have reacted back then. It was better this way, with more information at hand and the time to really let it sink in. "But it wasn't you. We may never know who it was, I just hope he - or she - is keeping others safe now." He huffed a watery little laugh and shook his head. "Because apparently werewolves are real."
So much had happened since then, Carson couldn’t clearly remember the last time he and Jared had spoken. Did he have his suspicions then? When was the first time he’d heard about Carson’s curse? God, could Carson have kept his head about him, confronting someone he suspected of horrifically killing a person he loved? He couldn’t even think about it being Rylee, it was too horrible to consider. So he had to agree that he was glad this talk was happening now and not earlier. The last part drew a shaky laugh out of Carson as well. “It’s such a mindfuck, isn’t it?” he asked, sniffing and swiping at his eyes again. “Just ... I dunno if this helps, but ... I had no fucking control over myself when I was changed, before. I can barely remember any of it at all, it’s just this ... all-consuming wild rage and violence. There was no human thought in me. But after the portal ... it’s different now. I can do it when I want to, for one, and when I change on purpose, I’m aware of everything, I can understand things and people.” He had just discovered the week before that things hadn’t changed for him during the full moon, which had felt like such a setback, but at least Carson had a place he was kept neutralized.
"You know, you and the others could start up a werewolf help clinic," Jared said with a little grin. "Throw a werewolf into another dimension, fix'em up a lil." It probably wasn't that simple but then he didn't really mean for it to be a serious idea, they were all done with other dimensions and hopefully there weren't any more werewolves out there. He just knew he would always be watching his back extra careful like on the full moon from now on. "But then maybe we don't want a lot of folks able to change into gigantic killing machines on a whim either." He shrugged and sighed, taking a long swig of his beer. There were too many new realities in his life, he wasn't even sure if joking about them was in poor taste or not, it just tended to be his way to cope with things.
“Yeah, probably best to avoid that,” Carson murmured with a chuckle. “People can’t even be trusted with guns.” He hoped to god that he was the only werewolf left in the area, or the whole damn state. He never planned to bite anybody to spread it, he wouldn’t wish this on his worst enemy. More than that, he wouldn’t trust anybody else not to fuck it up and end up killing more people and making more damn werewolves. If Carson was careful, he could contain it. His strain of it, at least. “So I guess unless I can figure something out in Virginia, I’ll be coming back once a month. Which’ll make my family happy anyway, so ...” Carson shrugged. It was a long drive and Rylee wouldn’t like it, but he didn’t know where they could put a fucking cage for him in Virginia. “I’m a little surprised you and Ty came back,” he added. “When I felt he wasn’t in Point Pleasant ... I dunno, I kinda hoped you got away.”
Hoped they got away, like they'd been imprisoned somewhere. Jared smiled faintly but it was close enough to the truth. "Well, it's home," he said. "Ty's mom is here, he doesn't want to leave her behind." What else was here? His job, one he could easily do elsewhere... Not much else. So what was keeping them here? They really should have stayed gone, Carson was right about that but Jared meant it when he said it was home. He'd missed it when he was gone. "How's Virginia treating you?" he asked rather than dwell on it. It was a good thing Carson had left and he made a note that he had to come back once a month so that probably meant that he didn't have control on the full moon. So much for the werewolf cure idea.
Even though it didn’t make any logical sense, Carson understood what he meant. Point Pleasant was home, and he got the feeling that even if his family wasn’t there, he would’ve felt the draw from it anyway. That just seemed to be the vibe in this town. Carson had felt like he escaped, and he knew Rylee did too, but there always seemed to be reasons to come back. Jared had fewer personal ties here, as far as Carson knew, but Ty was a pretty huge one. “It’s great, honestly,” Carson told him with a lopsided smile. “We’re at the beach a lot, it’s a cool little town. I’m doing some more vet charity work ... got a couple of clients to train too, but I’ve been trying not to overwhelm myself, you know? There’s been a lot of adjustments, being back. ... how’s Ty holding up?” he added, curious. They’d kind of gone off on a werewolf tangent after he’d asked the first time. “Anything ... weird going on with him?”
Jared took a sip of his beer before he answered, giving himself a second to consider how to answer that question. "You guys should talk," he said and while that was confirmation that Ty was going through something strange, it didn't feel like it was his business to tell Carson what exactly was going on. "Hell, all y'all should talk, there should be a dimension hopping support group in town. Nobody's gonna know what you've been through if they ain't been there themselves." He squinted up against the sun and yet again wondered what it had been like. It was so hard to imagine the things Ty had told him, even harder to imagine surviving them for months and it was amazing that most of these people had made it back home. "Anything weird going on with you? Other than, you know..."
Carson knew that Ty had talked to Vex, so he was pretty sure he could just ask Vex what Ty’s New Weird Thing was. It seemed like all of them had one now, or were developing them. It was kind of scary, honestly, like all of this might not be over yet, even if they felt like themselves again. The way Jared protected his man’s privacy was kind of cute and aggravating at the same time. Carson didn’t see the point in any of them not being open about it all. “Yeah, it would be nice to get us all back together to talk,” he agreed in a mutter. “I just dunno if that’s gonna happen. Vex has been finding out from people that all of us have, like something different now. For me it’s ... well, the control over my shifting. And I’m stuck with some ... canine traits, I guess. My sense of smell is off the charts now, I’ve got more body hair than I used to ...” And he had a wolf-ish dick, but Carson decided to spare Jared that knowledge. “Vex has more control over his visions.”
"Ty's been talking about meeting with everyone, at least one on one," Jared replied and he would have thought this kind of an experience would bring people closer together, but this particular group almost seemed to avoid each other. He paused, obviously thinking about it before sighing softly and stretching out, like doing so with his body might help loosen up his mind too. "I might as well tell you," he muttered. "I think he told Vex already. He can't feel pain. Scared me half to death when we found out, still does if I'm honest about it. I keep thinking he could die from something as simple as appendicitis, just 'cause he wouldn't feel the warning pain. Do you... know where everyone is too? Just by instinct?"
He glanced at Jared’s long legs all stretched out and had a vague hankering to train him, not for the first time. Carson always felt weird working with his friends though, especially the ones he found attractive, like he couldn’t push them as hard as other people who were paying him. That wasn’t what he was here for anyway, so he pushed the thought away and tried to focus. Carson frowned a bit as Jared told him about Ty -- that was kind of scary. “Wow, that’s pretty huge,” he murmured, though his own changes were pretty huge too, he supposed. “Like he can’t feel anything at all, or just no pain? So weird. But uh, yeah. It’s kind of just this ... sense of them in the background, until I focus and then I just kind of know where they all are.” He paused, then added, “I can still talk to the others in my head too. Nic and Jules and Neil. I dunno if you knew that, but we’re all telepathically linked.”
"God, the world is crazy," Jared sighed. "But yeah, Ty knows where everyone is, that's how I knew you were back in town. And he can feel things, just not pain. He's getting all sorts of tests done, just in case it's a tumor or something, but we both know it ain't that. Especially with how he's not the only one." There was always that looming thought that there might be more waiting for them down the road, that all these strange afflictions or abilities were a precursor to something bigger, something bad again. It was something he didn't want to bring up, like speaking it might make it real. "It makes you wonder. Why you guys. Why the others."
The worry was there in between the lines anyway, and Carson understood it completely. It felt like he and Rylee were constantly concerned about when the other shoe would drop, and how many other shoes there might be. As scary as it was for all of the people directly involved, Carson knew it was equally terrifying to those who loved them too. “Yeah, I’ve wondered that a lot,” he said, his tone indicating that it hadn’t done him much good. It never did. “But it’s like ... wondering why my leg got blown off, you know? Wrong place, wrong time. All of this is really hard to understand in the first place, trying to figure out motives when it could just be random chance can drive you nuts.” He sighed and took another sip from his beer. “I’m just ... really grateful to be home, and gonna do everything I can to stay in this fucking dimension, you know?”
"Yeah," Jared said with a wan smile. "If we spent all our time worrying about the bad stuff we know will inevitably catch up with us, we won't have time to enjoy the good stuff and then what's the point?" It was a good philosophy, it just wasn't always easy to follow. He'd still wake up in the middle of the night sometimes with a cold pit in his stomach, thinking Ty wasn't with him anymore. Thankfully it happened less and less and passed quicker than in the beginning once he found Ty sleeping next to him. He wasn't so sure it would ever really stop though. "So how long are you in town for?" he asked, not wanting to wallow in the misery of that particular topic. "We should hang out again before you leave, I've missed seeing you around the gym."
Pretty much everything was easier said than done, but it was good advice to keep in mind. That was what Carson had been trying to do since he’d gotten back home -- enjoy the good moments, spend time with Rylee, soak in the beauty of being alive in this world where he belonged. He still got nightmares, still felt uneasy in certain situations ... the struggle wasn’t over, but he could still stop and take a breath now and then and appreciate what he had. Maybe more than he’d been able to do before. Carson didn’t want to dwell either, and the invitation made him smile. “Yeah, I'd love that,” he told Jared. “I’m, uh, here for I don’t really know how long, but several more days at least. Maybe a week. I’ll hit you up soon though, we’ll find a night to have some beers out or something.” He lifted the bottle in his hand and chuckled.
"I wish I could invite you to a house warming but we don't have a house yet," Jared said and it was a much nicer topic. "I've got one in my sights right now but I keep thinking maybe I should get a psychic, a rabbi and a priest to check it out first. You know, like the beginning of a bad joke. Just every spiritual person I can get my hands on - and probably a witch too? Man, things have gotten weird. We're renting at Castle View right now, it's pretty nice but I can't wait to get a place to make my own, yard and firepit and all." The dream he had of his future home would probably never fully come true but he and Ty could take a space and make it home and he was pretty handy, he could fix up what needed fixing if he just got the time.
Carson laughed a bit at the bad joke that wasn’t actually that unreasonable around here. So much of Point Pleasant was so fucked up, it was amazing that anybody found any peace here at all. “I dunno if there are actually any rabbis around, but you do know some psychics who know other psychics, so we could cover you on that front,” he said with a little grin. Vex’s visions might not really work that way, but Carson knew he was connected to other people who might actually be able to tell if something was wrong with a house. “Hope it works out, though, and that you end up with the most boring house in town. Even if I miss the house warming, I’ll definitely come visit next time I’m here.”
"Yes! The only fun allowed in my house is human made, thanks," Jared said with a little chuckle. "If some ghost is gonna stay there, he better pay rent." And stay out of his way, he wouldn't last a night in a place like the Rogan house and the thought of some evil lurking in his new house, ready to pounce on him and do more psychological damage was daunting at best. "So you'll be coming here every month for a while, huh?” he asked and it was a good thing they had a place to contain a werewolf, he hoped there were more out there, hidden cages in random basements for any and all werewolves that might still be lurking in town.
He chuckled too over the idea of rent-paying ghosts. “Damn right, in this economy,” he murmured as he sipped his beer again, amused. Carson then nodded, looking a bit apologetic even though it wasn’t Jared he was putting out. “I was hoping it wouldn’t be necessary, but this was my first full moon back, and ... yeah, I’ll be coming back next month.” Whether Rylee would want to come with him or not felt up in the air at the moment. They’d both been rather disappointed with the outcome of this little experiment, but when it came to preventing himself from becoming a murderer, Carson didn’t want to play around. He knew it was safe here. “I’m just gonna say I’m coming back to see my mom. Which I am also doing, but ... y’know.” Carson shrugged a bit and lifted his beer again.
"At least your hosts seem nice," Jared said with a little grin, though he wasn't sure what to make of them. Ty had told him a little bit about Vex but there wasn't a whole lot to tell. He'd been a weirdo who spent all his time with a werewolf and didn't seem to need companionship and shelter like the others. "That has to be the tiniest girl I've seen in a long while," he added and tittered at the way Lem had looked up at him. It had made him feel even taller than he normally did, in a very awkward, hovering kind of way. "Is that his daughter?" He didn't really need to know, it was just chit chat really, but he was a tiny bit curious about all these people who seemed to share a strange link with Ty.
“Lem?” Carson asked with a laugh, stretching his good leg out in front of him as he relaxed even further. He’d missed the comical scene at the front door, but he could well imagine it. “Yeah, she’s itty bitty, but she’s got a lotta personality packed in there. I think she’s like ... twenty? So she probably won’t get any taller. But no, she and Vex are ... friends? Platonic life partners? I’m not even sure how they met, but they’re really close. She’s dating Nic, from what I understand,” he added, nodding over at the Castell house next door. Lem was far too young and small for Carson’s personal taste, but to each their own, Nic’s attraction to her was his business. “They’re both loud and proud weirdos, but they’ve been great to me, I couldn’t have gotten through any of this without ‘em.”
Jared was feeling better and better about his decision by the minute. Sitting there and idly chatting with Carson felt so good, reconnecting with an old friend, seeing him laugh again after all the trauma he'd been through. He could only imagine how stiff and uncomfortable things would be if he told him the truth and he wasn't so sure how Carson would live with that knowledge. He watched him with a warm smile, nodding at the estimation that was probably true. How would any of them get through any of this without help? "I'm glad you've got the support system you need," he said. "I sometimes wish my family was up here, but then I'm really glad they're far away. Maybe just a little too far away though." He tittered and shook his head. Sadie was the sole reason he'd moved to Point Pleasant and while he had friends here now - and family in Ty - it still seemed a little strange how this place was home even without her. "Don't underestimate the weirdos, sometimes they're the most solid bunch."
“Oh for sure, I love some true weirdos. Texas is pretty goddamn far,” Carson agreed with a little wince. “Though sometimes I wish I could ship my family that far away, you know? Like it would be safer for them, more peaceful. Point Pleasant just always feels like home, and I know they wouldn’t wanna leave now.” He didn’t understand the hold this town had on people, but there were a lot of things he didn’t understand about a lot of different things. If nothing else, his experience with shared dreams and portals and living in his own personal werewolf-y hell had taught him to keep an open mind. “I do, though, even though I got family and really good friends here, and I know Rylee does, so ... gonna try to head back to Virginia in a week or so, maybe. I just ... still need the distance, I think. Driving up Witcham Road nearly gave me a panic attack, you know? I think we’re all pretty traumatized.”
"It'd be weird if you weren't," Jared said and gave him a wan smile. "I'm glad you're not trying to put on a happy front and ignore the fact you've been through a lot of trauma." He was even more glad Ty wasn't either, the fact that they could talk about things reassured him that Ty wasn't breaking under the pressure behind some happy facade. Those were the people who ended up killing themselves and Jared couldn't stand the thought of losing his husband again in any way. He supposed he should count himself among the traumatized, even a divorce was trauma all on its own, everything that had happened since was that damage multiplied. Grief, loss, anger, hopelessness, he still felt it sometimes, like it was all still in his system and he didn't know how to get it out. "I keep thinking we should move, even if it's just one town over. But who knows, maybe they have their own problems we know nothing about."
Carson was shaking his head to the first part even before Jared finished talking, then he chuckled faintly. “Everybody does, right? But I tend to think our problems are a little on the fucking crazy side,” Carson said. “But yeah, no ... man, I’ve been through too much PTSD therapy and worked with too many vets to try and pretend I’m okay when I’m not. I know how that can just eat away at you inside. So ... I know I don’t know him all that well, but make sure that man of yours is staying honest about it all too, at least to himself. It can be hard to ask for help, and I know the circumstances were fucking insane, but we all get it, you know?” Carson paused as he eyed Jared, then added, “You too, big guy. You’ve had a lotta grief lately and even though Ty came back, that pain was still real.”
Jared gave him a defeated little look, like 'you got me' because Carson was right. He wasn't really doing anything about his own issues except trying to move on and build something pretty on top of the mess. "We could all use some therapy, I think," he admitted. "Question is who the hell would listen to all that crap and not have us sanctioned. My husband got infected by a monster, tried to eat my life energy and was sent to another dimension." Yeah, it sounded even worse out loud than it did in his head. He didn't even want to mention the ghost who'd looked like Sadie and the way he kept having to remind himself that it wasn't really her. "Sometimes it feels like the whole town should be in a support group but then I run into folks who seem to have no idea anything's wrong. Isn't that weird?"
“Yeah, we definitely need a therapist who grew up here,” Carson agreed with a chuckle. If there was such a professional in town, he’d never heard of them, but one of the locals really ought to get their degree and come back to treat the people of this town. They would never run out of business. Carson might have considered it for himself, since he was already kind of familiar with talk therapy and he loved talking to people, but he didn’t think he had the attention span for more school. “It’s weird as fuck, for sure. But I know what you’re talking about, some people in my family just ... don’t seem to notice it. Or they remember it different and wrong. My mom, she ... she knew I was missing, but she’s barely asked me any questions about where I was. Like it’s just enough that I’m okay. Crazy shit.”
"Makes me wanna get to the bottom of things," Jared sighed. "I just don't have the first clue how to even begin." It was probably too dangerous anyway, meddling with something he didn't understand. There were people in town better equipped to do it than he was from what little he knew of what went down in Blackwater Woods, he was only human. "I'm definitely questioning my career choices here, no wonder so many cases go unsolved. And I'm still gonna go back there. Ty got a sweet gig being a cute receptionist at a vet's office, I don't think he'll ever become a cop again but you never know." Maybe Jared wouldn't last either, it was exhausting never getting a win and the thought of having to go back into a place like the Rogan house made his insides clench uncomfortably.
Carson wasn’t even sure if there was a bottom of things to get to. It felt like every explanation they could find would just create more mysteries to strip away, until there was nothing but madness at the core. He might have scoffed at that six months ago, but Carson had been through a lot since then. He didn’t want to discourage Jared any further though, so he just chuckled faintly and finished off his beer. “Cute receptionist, was that in the job description?” he teased, grinning a bit. Ty was definitely qualified, though Carson would never dare to call him ‘cute’ to his face. “I don’t blame him though, I wouldn’t wanna be in the position to run into some crazy situation either, considering everything. I think you’re brave as fuck for doing it yourself. When do you start back in uniform?”
"I was originally thinking July or August," Jared replied with a little shrug. "It's a little up in the air right now. I was hoping to find a house and get everything ready before I started but time is both moving really slow and really fast lately. Either way, might be a lot sooner." He didn't really feel brave for going back to work. Stupid, maybe, but it was the only job he felt any good at. "Does it feel at all like... Things are ramping up?" he asked and while things had been quiet lately, he couldn't shake the thought that they had been. Or maybe it was just his turn and a whole lot of other people had been through the wringer already. "I lived here for years and while yeah there were some weird cases, didn't seem anything like this last year."
That seemed like a difficult question to answer, but maybe that was because Carson didn’t really want to face the answer. “Yeah,” he said slowly, giving a solemn nod. “It really kinda does. I dunno what to think about that, but ... I’ve been here most of my life, and I mean, things have always happened. People disappearing, shit like that. And some of those memories feel kinda fuzzy now, but like, there’s been a lot of big shit lately, seems like.” Carson had been hit with three major mindfucks within the past year, and so far they’d all permanently altered his life, when before he’d only brushed up against the Weird Shit. “Everybody’s said it was quiet while we were gone though. Whatever that means.”
"Sounds like we were in the fog of unknowing and now we're not," Jared muttered and he had no idea what that really meant, just that a lot of people were right where he'd been just a year ago, oblivious and a little baffled at all the strange stories the town seemed to accumulate. He wasn't sure he wanted the answers either, his feelings much like Carson's on the matter that the deeper he'd dug, the more danger he might put himself in, possibly everyone around him as well. "How's Rylee holding up?" he asked instead. "She came to see me, she's the one who told me what was going on. She didn't have to do that but... It helped. I can't imagine going through all those months not knowing what happened."
Rylee had mentioned to him that she’d done that, but Carson had half forgotten it in the midst of everything else. He felt a pang of a sad kind of love for her, that she would want to help somebody else while she was filled with her own grief. “Yeah, her and Nic used to be pretty close, so he filled her in,” he said, which he knew had to have been hard on Nic too. Carson had been on the right side, but he’d still gotten punished. “I’m glad she did that for you. But she’s doing pretty good. She’s doing nursing school, and she’s great at it. She really loves Virginia.” There was so much more to say, about how much happier she was out of this town, where they could actually act like the couple they were. But as close as he was to Jared, Carson wasn’t ready to share that with anybody else.
"That's really good to hear," Jared said with a smile and it was good to get good news for a change, like those last couple of months had been trying to make it all up to him. He was pointedly ignoring the feeling that it wouldn't last, enjoying it while he could. "I'm happy you found somewhere better, even if it's a little weird not having you around." Carson had been there since Jared moved to Point Pleasant and they'd become fairly good acquaintances after a short bout of Jared attending the gym. He could safely say he missed having him around, even if he was glad he hadn't been there while he was working through all that he knew about Sadie and figuring out how to deal with it. "So are you signed up anywhere? Or just freelancing? They got a good gym down there?"
“It’s weird not bein’ here, trust me,” Carson said with a soft chuckle. As much as he was enjoying the freedom of living in Virginia, something always seemed a little off. Things seemed off here too, of course, because the world was chaos and reality was a slippery thing, but it was different somehow. Carson couldn’t really explain it. “There’s a few good gyms in the area, yeah,” he answered with a nod. “But I’m just freelancing with just a couple clients. Trying not to get overloaded, ‘cause I’m doing some WW projects too. It’s helping, taking time to just focus on other people, you know?” That was one thing Carson would hate to give up if they permanently came back into town -- there were a hell of a lot more local people to be involved in stuff like that in Virginia. “Where’s this house you’re lookin’ at?”
"You think I'm gonna tell you when I haven't even told Ty?" Jared said with a little laugh. "But yeah, it's on Winthrop. It has everything I'm looking for but I need to drag Ty out there and see what he thinks. It needs some repairs but nothing the two of us couldn't handle and the current owners are just moving to a smaller place so there doesn't seem to be any drama involved." It was promising but he didn't want to get his hopes up. The place could sell before they decided what to do, they might find some major flaw with it or it might not work for them for some other reason. Ty might hate it. Anything could happen. But Jared had a feeling about that house and he was looking forward to giving it a better look at least. "Heard of any terrible hauntings on Winthrop?"
Carson definitely didn’t expect to be informed before the husband, he’d assumed they were looking at places together, but he was pleased that Jared told him anyway. “Not that I can remember,” Carson answered with a laugh of his own. It was a valid concern when buying a house in this town, that was for damn sure. “Sounds sweet though, Winthrop is a good neighborhood. I had a couple friends who lived there.” he’d had friends on practically every street in Point Pleasant though, so maybe that wasn’t saying much. The houses on Winthrop tended to be pretty nice though, and Jared and Ty deserved nice. “Good luck, hope Ty loves it and you guys can land it easy.”
"Thank you," Jared murmured warmly and maybe wishing someone well held some power he didn't know about, there were stranger things real in this world. He hoped it did, they needed all the good they could get to balance out the bad. "Good luck to you too and I hope you stay happy in Virginia," he said to maybe give Carson some of that much needed goodness back. Of course he'd given him some goodness already, lifting some weight off his shoulders by lying to him and he felt better for it too. He thought he might visit Sadie's grave with some flowers before he went home but first he thought he might see if Vex could spare them some more beer or if he should try to drag Carson out to the Porch. They hadn't gotten the chance to hang out in months and he could feel how much he needed it. "So, seen any good movies lately?" he asked, just to steer the conversation somewhere lighter, find a topic they could really get into without accidentally unearthing more trauma.