rageandruin (rageandruin) wrote in shadows_rpg, @ 2023-12-29 17:46:00 |
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Entry tags: | #july 2018, caden, caden x shan, shan |
Who: Caden and Shan
When: evening, Saturday, July 21st, after the wedding
Where: home
Status: Complete
They hadn’t stayed too much longer at the wedding after their fun little romp in the maintenance office, and while she very much enjoyed walking around with sex-soiled underwear around normal wholesome people, Shan was glad to climb into the car to go home. Caden had had a few more drinks, so Shan drove them to make sure they didn’t get in any trouble on the way, even though she wasn’t completely sober either. Luckily she got them back to Seaview without incident, marveling a bit at how easy it was to navigate a town this small when you were fucked up. She could imagine the drunk driving rates in Point Pleasant were crazy high.
Shan was very happy to park and get out once they were home, eager to get out of her heels and bra and makeup and the clingy dress ... though she didn’t mind that part too much. And Caden seemed to like it. He could like her just as well naked, though. She killed the engine, pushed the car door open, and climbed out with a little groan.
Caden was barely coherent on the drive home. Those few extra drinks before they left had been strong and he was finally drunk enough where all the shit that lived in his head was mostly quiet. His eyes had been closed as they drove but when he heard Shan push open the driver's side door, Caden cracked them open to see they were home. Thank fuck for that. He wanted to undress and pass out for the night. Somehow he managed to open his door and he stumbled out, snickering a bit at himself. It had been a long time since he'd allowed himself to drink this much. At least he hadn't been in charge of keeping the peace at the wedding. He would've failed miserably. "Got the keys?" Caden mumbled to Shan, following her up the small stairs to the door.
She was relieved to hear Caden’s shoes on the concrete and the other car door close -- at least he wasn’t drunk enough to need help getting in the house. Shan was strong but not in the mood for that, an unconscious Caden would’ve just been sleeping it off in the truck. He was right behind her though, and Shan hummed some affirmative sound as she found the house key on the ring. She unlocked the door and stepped in, leaving it open for him as she made room. She braced one hand against the wall for balance while she lifted one leg and struggled for a moment to get the straps on her stupid heels undone.
Caden ambled past Shan and slumped into the chair, toeing off his shoes with a grunt. Between the liquor and the sex, his body was craving sleep. But instead he sat there, staring at a spot on the wall, thinking about how Aaron was married now and with a kid on the way. And how if it hadn’t been for him and Gavin, Aaron would've already been a dad. Mila probably wouldn’t have gone nuts and maybe Amelia would’ve never gone missing either and she’d still be a little girl. Fucking magic. But his dad, that hadn’t been magic. That had been this town in all its fucked up glory. They’d had a party today while his dad’s bones were buried out in those woods. The old man’s mutilated face wasn’t even there anymore. It was probably just a skull missing some teeth. “It was my dad,” he mumbled, words slurred. Caden wasn’t sure if he was talking to Shan, or just to himself. “At the carnival, on that ride. I saw him there… starin’ at me.”
Shan wasn’t too far away, so she heard the words even if they weren’t meant for her. “Huh?” she asked as she got her second shoe off and dropped it into the shoe pile. Her feet were so relieved as she shuffled over to where Caden had flopped. Shan reached and stretched back behind her until she could get her zipper down enough to get out of her dress. The bra came off immediately after and she let it all drop into a pile, rubbing the undersides of her boobs where the wire had dug in. At least being a stripper had taught her how to get undressed quickly. “What’d you say about your dad?” she asked as she crawled onto Caden’s lap. He might not want her there and she hadn’t caught on to what he was talking about, but he was nice and warm and she was just in her panties now, and if he was going to keep mumbling, she wanted to be closer so she could hear him.
Caden felt Shan’s weight on his lap but barely acknowledged that she was mostly naked. He was still staring at the wall, wishing that her presence brought some kind of comfort, but it didn’t. She had never met Joseph, had no idea what a fucked up piece of shit he’d been. She had her own demons, but had they ever haunted her? In a literal way. Caden was guessing no but if she stayed here long enough, it could happen. Would probably happen. He rubbed one eye with his knuckle, trying to ignore the woozy sensation he felt. He could hold his liquor, dammit. “He was at the carnival. He was there. Shouldn't've been, but he was. That’s why we had to go.” Caden closed his eyes again and rested his head back against the chair. “He’s dead. But he was there.”
She wasn’t paying her nudity any mind either -- it was just comfortable for the moment. Shan studied Caden’s face as he spoke, drunk herself but not so far gone that she couldn’t understand what he was saying. It was just weird, but she’d been warned multiple times now that shit was Twilight Zone-crazy around here, hadn’t she? She and Caden had had a whole conversation about it a couple of weeks prior. And he’d definitely been upset about something when they’d left the carnival ... after hearing everything else, was believing that a dead man could come back to haunt his son that much of a stretch? “What do you think he wanted?” she asked Caden quietly, still looking at him even though his eyes were closed. He was really so handsome, but sometimes she could see the weariness etched into his face, like he was decades older than he really was. A lot of it probably came from all the shit he’d told her his family had been through, but some of it just had to be this place.
Caden shrugged. "Dunno. Probably just to scare me. He always liked doin' that." At least when Caden had been a kid. Once he'd hit puberty and started fighting back, Joseph had tended to leave him alone... mostly. His eyes cracked open enough to look at Shan's face. In his boozy-addled mind he wondered why the fuck she stayed here. He was no catch, and this town was horror incarnate. He licked his dry lips and studied her, wondering if she'd ditch town if she knew the truth of everything. Of what an evil asshole he could be. "That's him in the woods," he continued, words still slurred, though they sounded coherent enough on his ears. "Me n' Aaron had to make sure he was still in the ground."
A little chill ran down Shan’s spine at the reminder of the rest of that night. She’d been pretty scared she’d married a murderer, but she’d believed Caden when he’d told her he wasn’t responsible for the body and the person deserved to be there. The comment about his father enjoying scaring him was offhanded on the surface, but it rang so familiar to Shan, and an intense wave of empathy rushed through her body. It was like the abused child within her was reaching out to the abused child within him, and she suddenly wanted to hug Caden so hard. She didn’t, because he might not be ready for that connection yet, but Shan’s sense that they were kindred spirits grew even stronger. “You told me you didn’t kill him ... but you had to bury him, didn’t you?” she whispered, holding eye contact with him. Maybe he’d lied, but if his father was the kind of man who liked to scare his kids, Shan fully believed he’d deserved whatever had happened to him.
Caden exhaled through his nose before he nodded once. Joseph's bloodied, mangled face rose in his memory and he felt, for a split second, that he might vomit. But he managed to swallow the bile before clearing his throat. He wouldn't tell her about Jasper. That was still their secret. He knew his nephew had guilt over what had happened and he probably wouldn't understand that he'd done the entire family a favor. "Me 'n Aaron. He's out there. No one knows but us." Caden cleared his throat again and shifted his gaze to Shan's face. "No one else knows. It's gotta stay that way." He vaguely remembered that Mila and Roxy knew, but Caden wasn't worried about them. Mila was Aaron's wife now, and Roxy would never put Aaron's freedom in jeopardy, because of Mila.
Shan lifted one hand to brush it up along his jaw. The haunted look in Caden’s eyes told her it hadn’t been a pretty death, and if the body had to be buried in secret in the woods, the circumstances couldn’t have been good. Part of her was curious, of course, but she knew she shouldn’t ask for details. He was already trusting her with a lot, and maybe it was better that she didn’t know. “I won’t tell a soul,” she told him somberly. “You’re my man now, and I’ve got your back. You did whatever you had to do.” Maybe she didn’t really owe him any loyalty, but so far Caden had stood by everything he’d said to her. She trusted him for now, and if he was talking about this at all, drunk or not, he trusted her too on some level. It seemed to her that he’d been put in a shitty position, and he’d done what he thought was best, and that was all anybody could ever do. “It sucks you had to do it, though,” she added in a murmur. Shan was sure he didn’t want any pity, but that didn’t make it untrue.
Caden wasn't sure he trusted her completely, but maybe he did, somewhere underneath all of the forced indifference. They were still getting to know each other, but it felt like they had more in common than Caden was ready for. Then again, that probably meant he could trust her. If he'd been more sober, he would have bristled at any semblance of pity but right now it felt good somehow, because it did suck that he'd had to bury Joseph, and that he'd had to get Aaron to help, and that they had to keep it from Gavin. Caden shrugged softly and sighed. "He's where he deserves to be... prob'ly rotting in hell too, if it exists. Fine with me." It was just the memories that kept fucking him up. Why couldn't D'Onofrio's witch shit fuck up all of that in his mind? Useless piece of shit.
She had yet to hear a good thing about this man from anyone in his family, and nobody had seemed overly sad about their missing patriarch at the wedding or anything. Nobody had said a word about him, no loving tribute, no throwaway line in the ceremony, no mentions in the toasts, nothing. Joseph Lucas sounded like a real piece of shit to her, and she was suddenly glad he was gone and not plaguing her husband’s life anymore. Except when he showed up as a ghost, which was apparently a thing that could happen. Shan kept studying Caden’s face, her bottom lip caught in her teeth for a moment. “Sounds like he hurt you a lot ... do you ever wish it had been you?” she asked softly. She was engrossed in this quiet confessional between them, and as someone who had fantasized often about murdering her own father ... she was curious.
Caden winced faintly and felt the urge to tell Shan he didn't want to talk about it anymore. Because he really didn't. For some reason he felt like he'd lifted a bit of weight off his chest but his dad's busted face was still staring at him in his mind. "Sometimes..." he said slowly. "But... I think we all wish that... should've been me than him, though." Clearing his throat, Caden's gaze ticked to Shan's face. "I wanna go to bed now. Pointless talkin' about it. As long as he stays buried, I'm fine."
For a moment she thought Caden meant he should’ve been the one buried in the woods, and Shan’s brows drew together. She didn’t move from her spot on his lap. It didn’t seem pointless to talk about to her, or he wouldn’t have brought it up at all. Maybe the wedding and all the family stuff had dredged it all up for him, but he didn’t often talk to her so candidly, and Shan didn’t want to let him back out of it so fast. She almost asked him what he meant by that when it dawned on her that ‘he’ wasn’t Joseph, it was whoever had actually done the killing. Had it been Aaron? Shan couldn’t even imagine that, the man was such a golden retriever. “It’s okay not to be fine, you know,” she murmured, still staring at him. “I don’t think anybody who grew up like we did really is. I’m not. And if I saw my father again, I would cut his fucking throat open. I’m not judging you, okay?”
Caden had few people in his life he actually cared about, but Shan was probably the only one who didn't judge him. Was that why he was talking to her now? Maybe it was just the alcohol. Maybe it didn't matter. Maybe he wouldn't remember any of this tomorrow, or whenever it was that he woke up. Shan had become something of a blurred vision sitting on his lap, but he could hear her voice just fine and while he'd never admit it to anyone, he found it soothing, despite the topic at hand. "Don't do that," he muttered with a humorless chuckle. "Blood's a bitch to clean up... poison his ass... they'd never... figure it out."
Shan smiled faintly. She didn’t think poison would be nearly as satisfying, but it was sweet that he thought of her safety. She gently squeezed the back of his neck and sat up a bit more to press a couple of soft kisses to Caden’s cheek. “Maybe you can help me do it someday,” she whispered to him, and kissed his temple. He hadn’t killed his own piece of shit father, but maybe he could take that out on hers one day. They both deserved the catharsis of revenge, and Shan already knew deep down that if she’d been there, she would’ve been helping Caden dig that hole in the woods. She moved to get up off of him and reached for his hands once she was on her feet. “C’mon, let’s get you to bed before you pass out.”
Caden grunted a response and took her hands to let her help him out of the chair. He had no idea if she was serious or not, but if she was, he'd probably help her. Caden didn't think of himself as a killer, but he couldn't say he felt any guilt over what had happened to his old man. The guilt revolved around the rest of his family. Before she could move away, Caden pulled her close and buried his face in her hair. "Fuck my dad," he muttered. "And fuck yours too. Pieces of shit." Thank god he would never be a father himself. Kids had never appealed to him, but he knew part of that was because he had no desire to fuck up a new generation of Lucases. He'd let his brothers do that.
She had swayed a little helping him up, still slightly intoxicated herself, and being pulled in against Caden’s firm body felt very nice. Shan slid her arms around his shoulders and held on tight, her eyes closing. “Fuck ‘em both,” she murmured with conviction. “May they rot in hell ... not together though, they don’t deserve the company.” Her own father wasn’t dead yet, but if hell existed, Shan had no doubt there was a spiked seat with his name on it. She didn’t really have faith that the universe was that fair and just, though. People got away with being pieces of shit all the time, and left broken people like her and Caden in their wake. Her nose prickled with emotion, and she sniffed it away and kissed the side of Caden’s neck.
Caden didn't respond, though he agreed with her sentiment. Hate and anger had always been easier for Caden to handle than any other kind of emotion. Even hugging Shan now, with a sense of understanding rippling between them, seemed to poke at the sour part of his soul that resisted affection. While he was too drunk to care much, he did pull away, releasing her as he rubbed his hands over his face wearily. "I need to sleep," he muttered, already reaching up to tug at his tie. There was too much going on in his head to do much else and he wanted to quiet it all down.
“Yeah, me too,” Shan murmured, letting her arms slip away from him as he pulled back. There wasn’t anything else constructive to say, and she didn’t know if Caden actually felt the deepening connection between them, or if she just wanted him to. Only time would really tell. They were both very damaged people, that was obvious, and whether that would get in the way or pull them closer together remained to be seen. Shan felt like she understood him a little better after tonight though, and she liked that. She didn’t need to push anything any further. “Do you need the bathroom first? I’ll be a minute in there.” She turned to shuffle back to her clothing pile to pick it all up.
At the moment Caden didn't feel like he needed to use the bathroom so he grunted an incoherent response and ambled down the hall to the bedroom, pulling off his tie and then shrugging out of his suit jacket, dropping both on the bedroom floor before he crawled into bed with a quiet exhale. He had no idea what Shan had to do in the bathroom but he supposed it had to do with taking off makeup and all that girl stuff women did. Nothing he had to worry about, anyway. He probably stunk and needed a shower, but that sounded like way too much work right now. It could wait until morning.