rageandruin (rageandruin) wrote in shadows_rpg, @ 2018-02-28 13:22:00 |
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Entry tags: | #october 2017, caden, caden x gavin, gavin |
Who: Caden and Gavin
When: Late morning, Thursday, October 5th
Where: The bar
Status: Complete
Caden had given it a day before deciding it was time to talk to Gavin about Aaron. He and Roxy had fought about it, and things were tense at home, but it was what it was. His family, and girlfriend, was doing a damn good job at getting on his nerves, but Caden knew this shit had to be dealt with, or they would all be suffering for it later. And if you asked Caden, they’d had enough suffering in their lives. He knew Gavin was opening the bar today, and his own shift didn’t start until after lunch, but Caden left early, hoping Miles or someone would be there to hold down the fort so he and Gavin could talk. With any luck, their old man wouldn’t be there just yet, though Caden knew how early Joseph liked to start drinking.
He parked out back and headed inside through the back door. Aaron wouldn’t be there, and Mila’s shift didn’t start until evening, so he wasn’t worried about either of them interrupting. Caden shrugged out of his jacket and hung it up in the small office before heading out front to find his older brother. He was guessing that by now, Aaron had told Gavin what was going on. Caden knew Aaron would have wanted to beat Caden to the punch, and Caden was more than happy to let him. He was sort of holding out hope that Gavin had talked some sense into their brother and no further action would have to be taken.
Caden found Gavin behind the bar, where he usually was until the place started getting busy, and Caden gave him a nod in greeting as he moved to grab a glass so he could fill it with water. “You got a sec? We need to talk.”
Gavin knew too damn well what they needed to talk about and he nodded with a heavy sigh. He'd been chatting with Miles about their Facebook page but that was a conversation he was happy to leave, even if it was to talk about Aaron and the mess he'd gotten himself into. He wordlessly left Miles to handle the bar, gesturing at Caden to join him in the back for a smoke. He was definitely going to need to smoke for this conversation.
Instead of asking Caden what he wanted to talk about he gave him a long suffering look and got his pack of cigarettes out and opened the door to step outside.
Caden took the glass of water into the back with him and took a long gulp before placing it on one of the back counters before following Gavin outside. He understood the need to smoke. Every time Caden thought about Aaron's problem, it had him craving nicotine. Caden stepped outside and crossed his arms against his chest, watching as Gavin lit up a cigarette. Gavin hadn't asked what the problem was, so Caden was assuming he already knew. "So what're we going to do about this?" Caden asked. "Were you able to knock any sense into Aaron?"
"No," Gavin muttered and he'd been feeling the weight of all the shit coming their way since Aaron came over to tell him. "Idiot thinks he can handle it, that it's good news." He usually left the berating to Caden but sometimes Aaron really deserved it and this was one of those times. Other people did it all the time, he'd reasoned and Gavin had somehow failed to remind him that a lot of those people completely fell apart. That those who didn't had a lot of support. Aaron had watched Gavin's life all but ruined by 'family' and he still thought he could somehow do better. Sure, he wasn't sixteen, but he wasn't responsible or wealthy either. "It didn't look like Mila was all that happy about it."
"No?" Caden cocked a brow and rocked back on his heels for a moment as he thought about that bit of information. Aaron seemed pretty confident in becoming a dad. Caden hadn't given a lot of thought to how Mila was handling it. "Well... maybe Mila's the one to talk to then. Other than getting knocked up, she seems to have a brain, at least. I mean, shit... I don't think Aaron's giving any thought to what this really means. He just thinks he's gonna be a daddy, and it's gonna be great. What'd you tell him?" He kind of wished they knew someone with an infant just so they could pawn it off on Aaron for a day or two to get a taste of what parenthood was really like. Caden didn't think for a minute his brother could handle the reality of it. He could barely take care of himself for fuck's sake.
Gavin agreed Mila was the one to talk to, he'd considered it already, at least to gauge her reaction, maybe even nudge her to do the right thing. That was probably out of the question with her faith and family but she could still give the kid up for adoption. It would be better off. He hummed at Caden's question and shook his head with obvious dismay. "I just told him the truth, should have been enough to get him to think twice but it just pissed him off. Stubborn kid." Of course it had to happen to Aaron, an accidental pregnancy. Like Gavin hadn't drilled it into his head as much as everyone else's that he needed to be safe, bring his own condoms, preferably follow his brothers' lead and get a vasectomy.
"Yeah, he got pissed off at me too." Caden was probably less tactful than Gavin, but sometimes people needed to hear the blunt truth. Caden scratched idly at the nape of his neck, thinking about the situation and what they could do. "Maybe we just need to talk to Mila and feel her out a bit. Can you imagine what the old man is gonna say when he finds out? Christ." It would somehow be Gavin's fault, probably. Caden didn't know if Aaron had the ability to put up with Joseph's mouth and what would be coming out of it. "Think Mila just needs to think about how this is gonna affect her job, her money... I mean, fuck, Aaron's not going to be faithful. It's not in his DNA. It's just going to become a huge shitshow."
Gavin knew all of that was true and it was one of those few times where he and Caden were absolutely on the same page. Joseph Lucas was going to chew up his youngest son when he found out and it was going to get ugly. It was a matter of when and not if Aaron got sick of it all. He had no idea how messy it got, just not having a baby but having a hormonal baby mama to deal with on top of that? It had been Gavin's only blessing that Ollie seemed at her happiest when she was pregnant. It was like that damn thing tuned out her crazy a little. There was no way of knowing what Mila would be like and hell, maybe she'd be the exact opposite. She'd get big and bloated and Aaron wouldn't know what to do with that. "It's already a shitshow," he muttered bitterly. "He has no fucking clue."
Caden could already imagine the help Aaron would need, especially when he and Mila split up. Raising the kid would fall on their mom, or Gavin and Caden, or all of them. He tried to imagine Aaron being a single dad, and Jesus Fucking Christ, that was a disaster waiting to happen. “You wanna talk to Mila or do you want me to?” He knew he could be abrasive, and he doubted Mila would react favorably to him if he were the one to talk to her about getting rid of the pregnancy. But Gavin was a bit easier to get on with… probably because he barely spoke in the first place. “Doesn’t seem like we’re going to get through to Aaron. Maybe she can.”
Gavin couldn't imagine Caden talking to Mila and getting any positive result. If anything he might push her into having the baby, even in the unlikely event that she'd already decided on abortion because Caden tended to piss people off and pissed off people tended to rebel. "I'll talk to her," he muttered even if talking to people wasn't his strong suit. "Does Roxy know?" It would be perfect if Roxy was on their side, she was the most likely to be able to talk sense into Mila but Gavin had a feeling that if and when she knew she'd be just as obliviously happy about it as Aaron was. It was that damn baby fever that he'd never understood.
"Roxy knew before Aaron knew," Caden said with a humorless laugh. "She's not going to help us out with this one. She seems to think it's a good thing. Well, it seems like she thinks Mila can handle it, not so much Aaron, but that seems to be the general consensus. Fuck." He sighed loudly and ran a hand over his short hair. He and Gavin each had very different ways that they talked to people, though neither of them were very adept at it, and Caden knew that. Hopefully Mila would listen to reason. Folding his arms across again, Caden studied Gavin. "Speaking of kids, how's it going with Jasper at home?"
Gavin had been expecting that so he wasn't really surprised though he was disappointed. Roxy would have done a better job at talking Mila and Aaron out of this. He was right there with Caden in sighing and grumbling but then he asked about Jasper and Gavin's mind was momentarily taken away from the problem at hand. "It's good," he said with a little surprise. It wasn't good all the time, there were definitely sharp corners and sensitive subjects galore when it came to him and his son but considering all that it had been surprisingly good. Gavin knew a lot of it had to do with the trauma Jasper had gone through. He texted him and let him know if he'd be home or not and he talked to Gavin sometimes too. Gavin was pretty sure that he wouldn't do either of those things had he not seen those black-eyed children. It was weird to be grateful for something that also made him angry and paranoid.
Caden cocked a brow, waiting for a bit more than It's good, but then again, this was Gavin so Caden sighed a bit when he realized that was all the more he was going to get. He was glad Gavin didn't have anything to bitch about when it came to Jasper, but still. "Okay, look, when you talk to Mila you can't just grunt at her and say 'abortion', okay? You have to actually put a couple sentences together, Gav. You know that, right?"
Gavin gave him a tired frown. "Of course I know that," he grumbled and took another drag of his cigarette. Not that he knew exactly what to say to Mila, he had no game plan here. He'd ask her how she was doing, what she wanted to do and try to find his way from there. A part of him wanted to sic Ollie on her to talk about how magical and wonderful it was to be a mom because Ollie could make even fantastic things seem awful when she was manic enough. He already had a bad feeling about this upcoming chat but he had to try, or all their sakes.
Caden wasn't entirely sure Gavin really knew that, but what could he do? If Gavin totally screwed up his talk with Mila, Caden would give it a go, but he was hoping he wouldn't have to. "All right, well, let me know how it goes," Caden said, trying not to sound too skeptical. "And you know what, if it doesn't work, fuck it, we'll just tell the old man and let him scare Aaron shitless instead." He really didn't want to have to go into work today, but shit had to get done, so he reached for the door, pausing only briefly. "You've got the kids, so you know if this baby happens, Aaron's gonna be on your doorstep every time something goes wrong."
"Don't I fucking know it," Gavin said and he'd already thought of that. He'd also thought of the financial support he would feel compelled to give them and how this was going to ruin him. Things were tough already with the upkeep of two houses, his idiot brother bringing a baby into the world was going to make it all so much worse. "If he was just ruining his own life I might just let him go ahead and learn the hard way but he's not so I won't."
Well, it was good to see Gavin was willing to look out for Aaron, especially with this shit. Because this kid wasn't going to affect only Aaron and Mila. It would affect everyone, and Caden didn't need that kind of upheaval in his life. He knew as soon as Roxy was around a pregnant woman and infant, she was going to start talking kids too and he didn't want to deal with that. "Okay, good," Caden said, sounding somewhat relieved. It was a rarity, but it seemed like he and Gavin were on the same page with this. "Finish your cigarette, I'll take care of the front for awhile," Caden said, gesturing toward Gavin.
The brothers didn't often agree on anything but this was something that could possibly ruin their lives and life-ruining events tended to bring them closer together. While Gavin didn't feel good about this upcoming chat with Mila, it felt necessary and he was glad Caden wasn't going to bulldoze his way in just yet. Better to let Gavin have a go, it was less likely to end up in complete chaos mostly because Gavin had the sense to shut the fuck up when he needed to. Caden did not. "Alright," he said, though there wasn't much left of his cigarette by now. He could use a few minutes to think about how and when he was going to do this.
Caden left Gavin where he was and walked back inside, grabbing his glass of water on his way to the front of the bar. There were a few more customers now and Caden got to work. He was glad Gavin was going to deal with Mila, but he didn't think he was going to be able to relax until they had come to some kind of conclusion. Hopefully they'd reach one without having to beat the shit out of their brother to get his brain working again. Sometimes using their fists on each other was the only way they were able to fix their problems. But Caden was determined not to think about it again until he had to. And hopefully he wouldn't have to.