Danilo Parker (abandoned_) wrote in shadows_rpg, @ 2023-07-28 20:20:00 |
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Entry tags: | #july 2018, dan, dan x spence, spence |
Who: Spence and Dan
When: evening, Saturday, July 14th
Where: The Back Porch
Status: complete
Dan wasn’t sure how long it had been since he’d hung out with Spence Wheeler, but it had definitely been a while. Since before Tatum had come home, that was for sure. Dan had considered calling him with the news a few times, but it seemed weird, and he had already talked to his therapist and Toby about it, so ... he was starting to feel needy, and like he shouldn’t be. He’d gotten what he’d wanted the most -- his wife and the love of his life back. She was different, but so was he, wasn’t that what relationships were all about? Or was he just losing his mind? Dan wasn’t sure all the time anymore.
In any case, he needed a break from it all, and he was dumbly grateful when Spence had accepted an invite to go shoot some pool at the Porch. All Dan wanted was some uncomplicated company, a few beers, and a few laughs. Tatum hadn’t been thrilled by him going out without her on a Saturday night, but she just had to get used to it. He still needed his space, especially considering everything that was going on with her.
Dan arrived first at the bar and glanced around as he entered. It was fairly busy for the Porch, but Saturday was probably their busiest night anyway. He stepped up to the bar to order a drink from Miles, then moved to claim a pool table for them while one was open.
Spence was pretty happy to be hanging with Dan tonight. Roxy was off at her bachelorette party for Mila and she had told him Caden would be off at the bachelor party festivities so Spence had no trepidation about walking into the Porch. Not that Caden Lucas scared him much. He'd like to break the guy's nose, in all honesty, but he didn't want to make trouble for Roxy before Aaron and Mila's wedding coming up. So he went to meet Dan without much on his mind and was pleased when he walked in and Dan had already grabbed a pool table. He gestured in a quick hello before stopping by the bar to get a beer. Once it was in his hand, he wandered over to Dan while taking a sip from his glass.
As soon as he was close enough, he reached out to clap his hand on Dan's shoulder before grabbing a pool stick from the wall. "It's about time you wanted to hang out, man. Where've you been?"
Dan spotted Spence come in and up-nodded his own greeting before Spence got a beer. Dan had opted for something stronger for a few rounds, but he would probably end up with beer too by the end of the night. He didn’t want to go home completely trashed. Tatum was already unhappy enough with him, and she never kept that a secret. Except for the dissatisfaction that had led to her running away, of course. But he was trying not to dwell on that shit anymore. He gave Spence a grin and a sheepish sort of shrug. “Well ... shit’s been kind of ... busy, I guess,” he said. Dan took a swallow of his drink and then set the glass down on the small round table next to their pool table. He licked his lips and watched Spence’s expression. “Tatum came home.”
Spence could understand shit being busy. He had work and then reigniting his relationship with Roxy and that had taken up a lot of his time. Not to mention the fact that he was still renovating his home. So it was nice to get out and see a friend for an evening. Spence was placing his own beer down when Dan mentioned Tatum and he was taken aback for a moment, staring at Dan dumbly until it sunk in. "Oh." Oh. Tatum had ditched out three years ago and while Spence had still been living in Virginia, he had heard about it, both from Dan and from his own mom, who loved town gossip. Spence finally broke free of his surprise and moved to rack the table for them. "I'm g-guessing she's alive and well, then. She tell you where the hell she'd been?" He did his best to keep his tone neutral but as Dan's friend, he felt annoyance on his friend's behalf. What Tatum had done had been shitty as fuck.
That shock on Spence’s face was pretty much what Dan had expected. They were closer and talked more often than Dan did with a lot of his other friends, and even casual acquaintances had given him that same slack-jawed look when he’d told them the news. He couldn’t blame them, they’d had no reason to think Tatum was coming back after all that time, just like him. And Spence knew what kind of a struggle it had been. “Not a lot of details, but ... she joined some kind of cult,” Dan told him, his voice dropping a bit. This town was full of gossips, so maybe he shouldn’t be talking about it in public at all, but Spence was a good friend, and Dan needed those in his life right now. “It sounded fucked up. But she just found them on the internet or something, and decided to bail on me and join them.” Dan was trying to come to terms with it all, but every time he said it out loud it made him feel fucked up inside.
Spence had grown up in Point Pleasant, and despite leaving for college and the Marines, he hadn't forgotten everything he knew about this town. Weird shit happened all the time. Even so, he was surprised to hear Tatum had joined a cult. At least for the first few seconds of digesting the information. Then, the more he thought about it, the more he wasn't surprised, because Tatum had been impulsive for as long as he'd known her. He was more surprised that she could leave Dan than anything else. The two had been joined at the hip since they were teenagers. "Jesus," he muttered, pulling the rack from the table and reaching for his beer again. "So, she joins a cult for a few years, gets bored and comes back? She didn't railroad you into g-getting back together, did she?"
Dan had been aware of who his wife was and how she sometimes made irrational decisions ... but he had never thought she would leave him either. It had been a total blindside that he still wasn’t fully recovered from, obviously. She’d blindsided him again by showing back up unannounced and with this bizarre new problem. Dan wasn’t going to tell Spence about that, though he was tempted to just lay it all on the table. He got a pool cue down and chalked up the tip, avoiding Spence’s eyes for a moment. “I don’t think it was boredom, I think she more ... escaped,” he answered. It felt kind of awkward not having all of the details about that, like he sounded gullible, but Dan had seen proof that those people had done something horrible to Tatum, so he was inclined to believe me. “And I’m not railroaded, I just ... I dunno man.” Dan sighed and took another swallow from his drink.
"Escaped," Spence repeated after taking a drink of beer and setting it down before grabbing a pool cue of his own. He gestured at Dan with it to go ahead and break for them. "That sounds... dangerous. Then again, I've n-never known a cult not to be dangerous." He thought about it for a moment, gripping the pool cue with two hands as he watched Dan. "If she escaped... you think maybe she wanted to come home sooner and couldn't?" He didn't want to disparage Tatum completely, though he felt like he ought to, being Dan's friend and everything. But Dan looked pretty worn and tired and Spence was sure he was dealing with a wide range of emotions.
He bent over to take his shot before he replied, though the extra time didn’t give him any better answers. “I don’t know, honestly,” Dan said as he straightened up, watching the balls clack and bounce around. One of the striped balls sank in a pocket, so Dan circled the table to find his next shot. “She hasn’t really opened up about any of it yet. She says she thought about me a lot, but ... not a letter, not a random phone call, man, I don’t ... I dunno,” Dan ended in a mutter. He leaned over and missed the next ball, then moved back to give Spence room and suck down some more of his drink. He had so many mixed feelings about the whole thing, it made it all hard to talk about.
Spence lined up his shot, glancing at Dan. "I don't really know how cults work, but maybe she couldn't do any of those things." Then again, maybe she could have, but didn't. He didn't want to come across like he was defending Tatum, but Dan looked pretty conflicted, so Spence felt like he ought to try and help. Not that he was very good for that. Spence sank the ball and straightened to round the other side of the table. "Are you guys seeing a lot of each other? Is she giving you r-room to breathe?" Spence knew he would have felt overwhelmed if he were in Dan's shoes, so he could only imagine how Dan was handling things.
“She’s back in the house, so I see her every time I’m home,” Dan said, curling both hands around his cue while he watched Spence take his shots. “I tried to kick her out when she first showed up, but then ... you know, I ... couldn’t.” Tatum had nowhere else to go, and Dan didn’t have the heart to put her on the street, no matter how much she’d hurt him. Plus there was her added complication he couldn’t talk about. He definitely didn’t want her to go back to those crazy people in desperation. “She just seems to want to pretend none of it ever happened, she wants me to take her out on dates again and stuff ...” Dan’s eyes ticked to Spence’s face, his brow a bit furrowed. He felt like he was losing sight of what was ‘normal’ here, how he should be reacting, and Spence had always had a good head on his shoulders.
Spence blinked in surprise, well aware of how dumbfounded he must look. How was Dan supposed to cope and deal with all this when Tatum was always under foot? "Sounds like she needs therapy," Spence said finally before missing his next shot. He frowned but reached for his beer. "Maybe you both do... together. I don't know Tatum as well as you do, obviously, but... avoiding the hard stuff always seemed to be her thing, you know? Pretending the last three years didn't happen isn't exactly a good foundation for reconciliation." He took a drink before grimacing. "Sorry, I don't mean to sound like... some kind of relationship guru, 'cause I'm not. But she's got some issues she needs to sort out, for your sake and hers."
It was a completely reasonable take on it, and something in Dan was relieved to hear somebody else say it. He didn’t know if Tatum would actually want to cooperate and go to therapy, but maybe if he made it a condition of the two of them getting back together? Gods knew it had done wonders for Dan, but this reunion had been a curve ball in his healing journey. “I mean, I’ve been going myself, but not since she came home,” he told Spence as he eyed the table. After taking one more swig of beer, Dan went to line up a shot. “We might benefit from going together, yeah. Tatum definitely has issues. Whether she’ll see that and do anything about it ... that’s another question.” Dan didn’t trust her much to do anything for his sake, he just hoped she would accept that she needed some help for herself. He jerked the cue forward and was pleasantly surprised when all of that satisfying clacking ended with one of his balls thunking into a pocket. Dan moved to the other side of the table, but missed the next one with a low curse.
Spence shrugged his shoulder slightly, eying the pool table to try and line up his next shot in his mind. "If she loves you, she'll go." She ought to be doing anything and everything Dan asked of her, really, but Spence knew Tatum well enough to know she was stubborn and maybe a little oblivious. He got into position, concentrating for a moment on his shot. The ball clacked into the pocket and he straightened, looking over at Dan. "I think... the most important part of all this, is if you wanna be together with her again. Doesn't matter if you're m-married or not. If you think you can trust her again and you love her, then... work on it. If you don't know... don't jump into anything, right?" He felt lucky that he had Roxy in his life. Things had been complicated for a while, but now everything felt like it was lining up exactly how it ought to.
Spence was giving him more sensible advice, stuff that had gone through Dan’s head a million times already. He just wished he had better answers to those internal questions no one could actually help him with. He perched on the edge of one of the stools next to their table, nursing some more on his drink while he watched Spence play. “I still love her, I know that for sure,” he said ... but was he? Did he even know Tatum well enough anymore to say he loved her? She didn’t seem like a completely different person, but if she never talked to him about what had happened to her, how was he even supposed to know? “Do I trust her ...? That one I don’t have an answer to. Not really, I guess. I just ... want none of it to have ever happened, you know? I want the life I had back, before she smashed it all up and left. Going forward though, I don’t know.” He looked just as pained as he felt about it all.
It was a sad fact that love wasn't always enough. Dan and Tatum had gotten together in high school, just as he and Roxy had. But while Roxy and Spence had broken up and went their separate ways after school ended, Dan and Tatum had stayed together and gotten married. Their being apart for three years was very different from Spence and Roxy's time apart. "Yeah, I know," Spence said with a sigh. He missed his next shot and huffed. He really ought to practice more. "I wish I had the right answers for you, Dan. You just need to decide if she's worth the headache this is gonna bring you. It might end up imploding, but..." Spence shrugged. "Could be really good too. You seem to be in a good place right now, don't let this fuck it all up."
Dan didn’t expect Spence to have great answers for him, or really any at all. Certainly not the ‘right’ ones, since he didn’t think there were any truly right actions in this situation. It was just all based on what he felt, and that made it feel so hard to wade through. Dan had lived a fairly passive life for most of it -- it was easy to do being married to a strong personality like Tatum -- and now it felt like all the pressure was on his shoulders to decide their future. It made him a little panicky. Spence definitely had a point about the last part though. Dan had done a lot for himself in the past three years, and his wayward wife was poised to undo a lot of it. “Yeah,” Dan agreed as he stood up again and looked at the table. “I’ve got a lot to think about, I know. I just ... don’t have a ton of sane people to talk to, so thanks.” He offered Spence a crooked smile and moved to line up a shot. “Enough about me though,” Dan went on, giving a little laugh as he bent over. “How are things with Roxy going?”
Spence was sort of dreading Dan asking how things were with Roxy, because things were pretty great and it felt mildly insensitive saying so considering what was going on in Dan's love life. Even so, Dan knew him well enough that he'd know if Spence acted cagey or was downplaying shit on his behalf. That didn't mean Spence had to gush though. "Things're going really good," he said, taking another sip of beer. "She's moving in." Which he understood might seem really fast, considering they just got back together, but they'd known each other for years and Spence hadn't been more sure of anything in his life.
Dan had been through years of pity aimed his way because of his relationship situation, and it was kind of painfully ironic that he was still in that position even though his wife had come back alive. Not that Spence was obviously pitying him -- he wasn’t, but Dan could tell Spence was holding back a little. That probably made him a good friend, but Dan didn’t want him to have to censor himself just because Dan’s love life was insane. “Oh yeah?” he asked in a prompting kind of way, shooting Spence a smile. Dan took his shot, sunk a ball, then moved to the next one. “That’s awesome, man, congratulations.” Maybe some random co-worker telling him news like that would’ve been annoying, but Dan really cared about Spence, so his tone was sincere. “And no trouble out of her ex, right? You never know about those Lucases.” Dan took his second shot but the ball bounced off of the edge of the table, and he sighed as he made room for Spence.
It was awesome, but Spence wasn't going to gush or gloat about it. Not right now, anyway. He was thrilled to have Roxy in the house with him, and it felt like the right time to start making it a home for the both of them. The mention of Caden brought a quick, but brief, scowl to his face and he glanced toward the bar, half expecting to see the asshole there. But no, he was off at Aaron Lucas's bachelor party, so it was just Miles and the waitress. "No trouble. Not yet, anyway. He got married anyway. Some woman in Atlantic City." Chuckling, Spence set his beer down to approach the table again. "We'll see them at Mila and Aaron's wedding though. Not sure how that'll go, but hopefully everyone'll b-behave." Thinking about exes prompted Spence to cock a brow as he looked up from his shot at Dan. "Oh shit... Nicole knows Tatum is back?" He had to think she did. As far as Spence knew, Dan and Nicole weren't serious, but still.
The bar was busy enough to be safely noisy, so Dan wasn’t worried about any of the Lucas brothers taking issue with what he said. They were talked about a lot in the town already anyway, they ought to be used to it. None of them seemed to be there, so he was especially not worried. The news that Caden got married in a different city made Dan’s brows lift again, then he laughed a bit and murmured an “okay then.” He didn’t envy Spence’s position when it came to the wedding -- hopefully the worst it would be was awkward, and not dramatic or violent. The sudden question about Nicole got him off of that train of thought though, and a pained look crossed Dan’s face. “Yeah ... I uh, broke it off with her. A few days after Tatum came home,” he said. It didn’t feel like a giant heartbreak, considering the slew of other emotions he had going on, but he did feel bad. He’d liked Nicole. But liking her meant he needed to keep her out of harm’s way, so he wasn’t going to risk stringing her along in case things with Tatum didn’t work out. “She said she understood. It was still shitty, though.”
As surreal and insane as it was to hear that Caden Lucas had married a complete stranger so soon after he and Roxy broke up, Spence couldn't say it upset him. Maybe the dick move had helped Roxy realize how wrong for her that Caden had been. Would the two of them be in this place in their relationship if that hadn't happened? He had no idea, but it felt pointless to think about any what ifs. Roxy was moving in and they were happy and that was all he cared about. "Sorry, man," he said with a frown. "Probably for the best though. Remember what Tatum did to Phoebe Miller when she found out Phoebe asked you to homecoming?" Spence snickered and went to line up his shot. The official explanation was that Tatum had run into Phoebe during track practice on accident and busted the girl's nose, but anyone who knew Tatum knew better. "If things get too weird at home, you can always crash with us," he offered, knocking the ball into the far pocket. "I've got an extra room."
Dan sighed a bit -- he remembered that all too well. Poor Phoebe, her nose had never quite looked the same. Most everybody they’d gone to high school with had known that Tatum had a big temper with a short fuse. It was part of what had attracted Dan to her in the first place, the fact that she didn’t take any shit from anyone. It was a trait he still admired sometimes, even though they’d matured past a lot of that. He wished he had more of a backbone himself on occasion. Dan had tried to work on it in therapy, but now here he was faced with a situation where he might be taken advantage of, and he felt clueless to approach it. “Thanks man,” he told Spence with a wan smile. “I really appreciate that. I don’t wanna piss Roxy off immediately though. You two deserve your space.” Dan knew he would go in an emergency, but he hated to ask that kind of thing from people unless his back was really against the wall. He picked up his beer and sipped, watching Spence work the table.
Spence chuckled and took his next shot, pleased when the ball somehow hit the pocket. "For the record, Roxy knows how Tatum can be too... she wouldn't mind. She knows what it's like to need a place to crash because of things at home." The offer was there if Dan needed it, though Spence knew his friend well enough to know it would be a last resort kind of thing. If anyone left the house it ought to be Tatum, but things didn't always go the way they should. "And if you need anything else, y-you know I'm here for you." He sunk the next ball and wandered around the table, eying his next shot. "Women, man... they're a mystery. Cliched, but true. All you can d-do is go with your gut and try not to overthink things."
Dan would’ve agreed that Tatum should be the one to go if anyone needed to, but he also knew himself well enough to think he wouldn’t be able to do that to her. No matter if he’d been the one maintaining and paying for the house on his own for three straight years, he didn’t think he had it in him to make Tatum homeless. At least not until he knew she had somewhere to go, anyway. “Yeah, I know,” Dan said, then groaned a bit as Spence got another point on the table. He was decent at pool, but his friend had always been better. Dan laughed a bit at the rest of it and shrugged. “Are they a mystery or are we all just too dumb to figure them out?” he asked lightly before tipping his beer up again. “God knows I don’t get Tatum half the time, and it drives her crazy. I’m just ... tryin’ to be honest with her, you know? I can’t just go back to how things were like nothing happened.”
Spence grinned and shook his head, finding his groove now as he bent over the pool table. "Being honest is all you can do, man. She'll either understand that, or not. And if she c-can't work on gettin' things better..." Then what was the point? He knew it wasn't easy to walk away from a relationship, but sometimes it had to be done. Calling off his own wedding had been one of the hardest things Spence had ever had to do and he knew he hurt a lot of people. But it would've been worse had he gone through with it. "But speaking as a man, I can confidently say that men are definitely dumb as hell.” He missed the next shot and blew a frustrated breath through his lips before looking over at Dan. "Relationships are fuckin' hard. But if you both want to make it work, you just gotta take it day by day."
He gave a bit of a laugh and stood up from the stool, giving Spence a friendly shoulder-bump as he passed him. “Listen to you, relationship guru,” Dan teased. It was good-natured -- he would never bring up Spence’s failed engagement to throw it in his face with bad intent. Dan was sure his friend had learned a lot from that experience, and he really hoped that this rekindled thing with Roxy worked out for him. They’d always seemed good together, just young, and a lot of life circumstances changed fast at that age. Maybe it would work better now. At least the both of them knew what they didn’t want, which was more than Dan could say for himself. “Maybe we need Roxy to talk to her or something and translate for my dumb ass,” he suggested, his tone still light as he circled the table to look for his shot.
He was so not a guru of any kind, but Spence found things came easier with communication. And he seemed to have that with Roxy, which he appreciated. They both had a long way to go, and things certainly weren't perfect, but things were good and he was content with that right now. They would only get better, after all. Chuckling, Spence picked up his beer, watching Dan's shot. "I mean... I can mention it. Roxy tends to shoot from the hip. Women understand each other better than we understand them." He had no idea if Dan was serious or not, but Spence was sure Roxy would be interested in hearing Tatum was back in town, regardless.
Tatum could be volatile, and Dan honestly had no idea if that trait had gotten any worse since she’d been gone. Being in a cult and suffering whatever they’d done to change her had to be traumatizing. He wasn’t sure he seriously wanted to put Roxy in the line of fire. He and Tatum probably needed a professional counselor to mediate things for them, it was probably best not to drag friends into their drama. “Nah, I wouldn’t want her to set off any landmines or anything,” Dan said with his own chuckle. “I just wish I had her insight, I guess.” He lined up his cue and sank the ball, then moved onto the next one. Dan got one more in before he missed, then groaned a bit as he straightened up. “You ready for another round?” he asked, nodding at Spence’s beer as he went to lean his stick against the wall.
Roxy had lived with a landmine for years so Spence figured she knew how to maneuver around it. But like Dan, he didn't really want to toss her into Tatum's bomb zone if she was still struggling with whatever had happened. Whatever was going on between Dan and Tatum would have to be solved by them too. It sucked, but relationships were never easy. "Yeah, another would be great." Spence made the next shot and exhaled as he studied the table. "You want me to set up another game once I beat you here in a sec?"
Dan glanced at the state of the pool table and groan-laughed. He was definitely getting his ass handed to him. “Yeah sure, go ahead and set me up for slaughter again,” he told Spence with an easygoing grin. Dan didn’t mind losing, he just appreciated the company and conversation. Spence had always been a solid friend, and Dan really needed those in his life these days to feel like he had both feet on the ground. Everything with Tatum was painfully confusing, and having an outside perspective helped him process it a bit more. Dan tapped the table and made note of what Spence was drinking, then turned to head to the bar to get them refills, happy to get a bit of a buzz on and enjoy the rest of the night