Knox (knoxinator) wrote in shadows_rpg, @ 2023-11-11 15:13:00 |
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Entry tags: | #july 2018, aidan, aidan x knox, knox |
Who: Aidan and Knox
When: late afternoon, Wednesday, July 18th
Where: the O’Reilly house
Status: complete
Knox was pissed. Sometimes he just wanted to set fires in the human world and burn it all down, it was full of so much bullshit. He had been out with Shayna Mae when she’d gotten the news from Max that he was being arrested again, for reasons that Knox didn’t quite understand. At least she didn’t seem to understand it either, which made him feel a little better about not knowing anything about human bureaucracy. It was that reason and his aggravation at the situation that made him opt to go home instead of going to the police station with Shayna Mae. He was sure that if he did, he would only make the situation worse. And it wasn’t like this was the first time Max had gone to jail. Shayna Mae would go and fix it, bail him out, and things could go back to normal.
That was his hope at least, as he flew back across the treetops of Blackwater to their homestead in the form of a crow. As he approached the house from the air, he saw Aidan’s truck coming up the long driveway. Shayna Mae had mentioned she was going to call Aidan to let him know what was going on, and Knox was sure he would be pissed too. He dove down toward the front porch, morphing into his human form again the second before he reached the ground. Knox ran his hands through his wild hair in frustration and waited for Aidan to park and get out.
Aidan had been out working for once, delivering a couple cases of liquor to Dragonfly with the intention of running some errands afterwards, but that changed as soon as he received the text from Shayna Mae. He headed straight home, too furious with the situation to imagine doing anything else. Going home wasn’t necessarily going to help things, he couldn’t do anything from there, but he couldn’t do anything anywhere and if he was going to rage, then he needed to be in a safe space to do so. Aidan slammed the door as he climbed out of the truck, turning his attention towards Knox as soon as he transformed on the porch. “What the fuck happened?”
Knox could tell that Aidan was angry by one look at him, but he’d expected that when he’d seen him coming. Everyone was mad at this situation, he was sure Max was stewing about it in whatever jail cell they had him in now. “I don’t know,” Knox told him. He heaved a sigh and gritted his teeth for a minute. “All he told Shayna Mae was that it was bullshit charges. She’s heading to the station now, maybe she can clear it up.” It was frustrating not being able to do anything from there. Shayna Mae had told him to go home and stay put, but all of the restless anger in Knox wanted to go down there and bust him out of that place. He lifted his hands and dropped them against his thighs in a helpless gesture.
“He doesn’t even go anywhere!” Aidan argued, even while he knew that wasn’t quite true. Max was willing to leave with him and Aya, but they were always careful. Max wore gloves, Aidan took out the electronics, and Aya took them around the doors. The chances of any of that being traced back to them were so slim it seemed impossible. Plus, if they’d come for Max, then they’d come for Aidan too. “It’s bullshit!” he said, aware that he was stomping around the yard like a child, throwing a temper tantrum. He wanted to hit something or someone, but there was no outlet for his anger except the air which crackled around him. “He’s barely been home. He doesn’t deserve this.”
He was only vaguely aware of the illegal shenanigans that the kids were still getting up to -- Knox didn’t really give two shits about human laws, and as long as they were good enough at what they did to not get caught, he didn’t really care. It didn’t sound like they’d taken Max in for something like that, though. Max would’ve told Shayna Mae the truth, and he’d said the charges were bullshit. “Fuck no, he doesn’t,” Knox agreed, watching Aidan angry-pace around. He could certainly relate to the burst of emotion, even though he wasn’t letting his out quite as much. His role was to support the family in moments like these. “It’s probably something stupid, bad paperwork, or ... something. Shayna Mae will clear it up.”
Aidan hated feeling helpless and it was worse when people he cared for were the ones struggling. It made him restless, gave him energy with no appropriate outlet. He wanted to hit someone, but there was no one to hit. Even if a cop had been there, he knew better—at least, he thought he did. It was still probably a good thing it was Shayna Mae dealing with them over him. Aidan would’ve liked to say he wasn’t prone to doing stupid, impulsive things, but that was a lie. The only thing stopping him from breaking his brother out of jail was that he’d have nowhere to go. He couldn’t come home; they’d look for him there. In the long run, it would make matters worse. Aidan knew—he’d thought about it in detail. “Can they even do that? Bring you in for a clerical error? I feel like that’s someone else’s problem.”
Knox gave a helpless shrug -- if Aidan was looking for answers about the technicalities of the human world, he was asking the wrong supernatural entity. Knox had spent a lot of time with humans, but only the O’Reilly family, and mostly out here on their ancestral land. Which wasn’t to say they were completely lawless and wild, but they did tend to keep their distance from the general populace in town, and that afforded more freedom. He knew fuck-all about legal paperwork or how it could go wrong, he barely understood Max’s probation rules. Had Max broken them? Yes. Had he gotten caught doing so? Knox wasn’t so sure. “Can Aya take us there? Maybe later tonight when he’s not so surrounded by cops? Even just to ask what’s really going on ...” Knox did know enough to know that breaking him out of jail when they’d just arrested him again would be a stupid thing to do. They didn’t need mundane authorities crawling around the farm looking for him.
If Aidan hadn’t been so frustrated, he would’ve known that Knox couldn’t answer his questions. He didn’t even really expect answers. The whole situation pissed him off on his brother’s behalf—he’d gone through too much shit to be taken back on a damn technicality, if that’s even what this was about. At the mention of Aya, he looked towards the house, wondering where she’d run off to. “Maybe. If the door frames are made of wood, yeah, which is more likely before they move him…” They could maybe pop into the Point Pleasant Police Station without anyone noticing, but not if they took him some place with more security. Even if Aidan could take out the cameras, it wasn’t worth the risk. “Have you seen Aya?” Just because she could do it didn’t mean she would and despite her attachment to Aidan, he had very little sway over these kinds of things.
Knox hadn’t known about the wooden doorframe thing, and he tucked it away in his mind as an interesting tidbit of information. He didn’t like or trust Aya, and the feeling seemed mutual, so it was good to know there were places she couldn’t just walk right into. “No,” he answered Aidan’s question. “I was out with Shayna Mae, haven’t even gone inside yet. If she can’t or won’t do it, I can sneak in later tonight and have a talk with him.” Knox’s shapeshifting afforded him all kinds of sneaking opportunities, but those only worked for him, it wasn’t like he could take Aidan along as he scuttled into the building as a mouse or a beetle.
Normally Aidan worked to keep Aya’s secrets, but that was the last thing on his mind at the moment and he trusted Knox. He knew they didn’t like each other, but he didn’t think they’d do anything to hurt each other either. And sometimes more information helped. Unfortunately, this time it didn’t. Aidan stared at the house, wondering if Aya was there, lounging on his bed, or if she was in another town completely, drinking and dancing despite it being the middle of the afternoon. “I’ll see if I can track her down,” he sighed. “If not, it might just have to be you.” Hopefully Shayna Mae would have more to tell them. The waiting was the worst part, not knowing what would come next.
He knew Aidan hadn’t meant it the way it kind of sounded to Knox, like he was a last resort, so he tried not to take it that way. Aidan just wanted to talk to his brother directly, to figure out what the hell was happening, and there was very little Knox could do to make that happen. He could ferry messages back and forth, that was about it. Ideally, Shayna Mae would just come back with Max in tow, all of this straightened out ... but Knox didn’t think anything got solved that simply in the human world. Being pessimistic wouldn’t help Aidan though, so Knox just nodded. “Can I do anything for you until then?” he asked, his instinct to serve coming forward when he felt like there was nothing else he could do.
Aidan definitely hadn’t meant to offend Knox. He just wanted to see his brother himself, though in reality they were lucky that Knox going there was even an option. Without Aya and Knox, Aidan himself was useless in this situation, relying on everyone else for information, not even worthy of a phone call. Not that he blamed Max—he’d have called Shayna Mae as well. It was just one of those times where magic couldn’t do shit to help and the best he could do was sit around and wait. “I dunno,” he sighed, running a hand through his hair. He needed to cut it. It was getting too damn long. “Maybe… you wanna hang out until Shayna Mae gets back?” As much as he hoped Max would be with her, that seemed unlikely. The paperwork itself usually took days.
Knox felt equally useless, even with the ability to sneak into the jailhouse to talk to Max. Neither of them would be able to do anything about it ... though Max did have that weird new thing he could do ... but no, escaping jail was a stupid thing to do, they would just assign him more jail. They could only wait and see how Shayna Mae did with straightening it out. The earnest request from Aidan made him smile a bit. “A’course,” Knox rumbled. He ambled in closer to give Aidan an affectionate nudge with his arm. “You wanna come inside, we can make somethin’ nice to eat? Or drink. Or wanna go check on your brews maybe?” He was game for any kind of hanging out Aidan wanted to do, relieved to do something for one of his family.
Normally focusing on his liquor would be a great distraction for Aidan, but he was caught up on most of his work and was in the process of waiting for things to ferment. Sure, he could tinker around and come up with a new experiment, but he wasn’t feeling creative at the moment. The first suggestion was probably a better bet. “Let’s… um… maybe get a start on dinner? I can help prep. You can teach me something new.” When it came to cooking, there was a lot that Aidan didn’t know, in large part because he was happy to let others take the lead there. Knox always fed them well and he seemed to like it, so normally Aidan let him have at it, but tonight he wanted to help. He needed to be useful, even if it was just in the kitchen.