seas_open | [closed

Entry tags:

caden,
closed

[closed - Caden]

She feels guilty.

Lying in Caden's bed, that's the thing she keeps coming back to, the thing she doesn't know what to do with. She can't remember the last time she felt anything even close to resembling guilt and as she lies here and stares up at the ceiling, she realizes she isn't sure what to do with that. Siren Cove was supposed to be nothing more than a stop, a place to play for a little while before she continued onto another city, another population to fuck with, another way to make some quick cash.

But here she is. Nearly a year later, she's still here and for the first time in her life she actually feels guilty about her actions.

They were awful. She's done terrible things to people before, she's manipulated them and broke them, she's stolen tens of thousands of dollars and ruined lives, but it's never been without some kind of reason. The men she steals from often make their money in their own dishonest ways. The marriages she destroys should have crumbled a long time ago and giving the women infidelity as a cause for divorce puts them in a far better position. She doesn't think of herself as a good person, she's not doing anyone any favours, but she's never gone out of her way to hurt people she cares about.

And now she owes a lot of apologies. Spencer and Joel, obviously, but even more pressing is Caden. She'd been so cruel to him, said things she can't quite explain and when she thinks about the woman she's been for the past two weeks, she has to wonder. Is that what she's destined to become eventually if she doesn't rein herself in somehow? Is that the path she's eventually going to travel?

And if it is, why does it bother her so deeply to think that might be the case?

With a soft sigh, she pushes back the blankets from the bed and gets up, dressing quickly in a t-shirt and a pair of shorts. She ties her hair back and wanders out of the bedroom, following the smell of coffee to where she knows she'll find Caden in the kitchen.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Caden can't sleep. But to be fair, he hasn't even tried.

April went to bed and he didn't follow. That in itself isn't all that unusual. Sometimes he's just too into his writing he stop what he's doing, and he'll join her later. Tonight was different. He just couldn't fathom lying next to her like everything was okay, not yet.

He's still trying to process it all. It was a spell, apparently. It was magic. It made everyone forget who they were and crafted brand new lives for them. Caden still remembers how it felt to be Joel's brother, and to have pined for April for years. He still remembers how it felt when she revealed that all she wanted to do was break him. It's still too fresh and the two lives feel superimposed on top of one another, like he can't tell where one ends and the other begins.

It was magic, he knows that. But he didn't really feel like a different person, not really. He was just the same Caden placed in a different situation, and the most terrifying thought of all is that maybe it was the same for April. Maybe that was real her, just dropped into different scenery.

His heart still aches, and he isn't sure what to do. For now, he just sits at the kitchen island with his fingers curled around a cup of coffee. When he hears soft footsteps padding up behind him, he tenses, shoulders drawing up as he sits up a little straighter. April comes into view and he eyes her warily, like he doesn't know what to expect.

He doesn't know what to feel, or what she feels, and he's terrified that he just got a real glimpse of it thanks to that spell.

He's looking at her like she's a serpent poised to strike, which she supposes is fair. The things she had said to him the night of that ball hadn't been her, but she's never been able to open up to him about the things that have happened in her life, she's never been able to tell him the truth about who she is and how she got to be that way. Given how little she's really let him in, she probably shouldn't be surprised that he's looking at her like he is. Like he can't trust her.

Because that's what she is, after all. That's what she's good for. Fucking and making people believe what they want to. And if she hasn't made Caden understand it's possible for him to be more than that to her, then that's really her own fault. She can only get so far blaming the parents who completely fucked her over.

"You didn't sleep, did you?" she asks as she goes to pour herself some coffee. She should have gone home. He doesn't want her here. Maybe it's time to move on entirely. She remembers thinking that just before the clock struck midnight and everything went back to normal, and maybe that hadn't just been that horrible version of herself. Maybe it had been reality. She's hurt the only people in this town who might actually have cared about her with the exception of Coop, so she isn't sure it matters anymore.

"No, not yet," Caden replies, and his voice sounds tired and rough. He looks up and is vaguely surprised to find that the sun has come up. He watches her move around his kitchen with familiarity, and he realizes that he has no idea what she's thinking. She's built up her walls so carefully, and Caden has done his best to steer clear of them.

But he finds that he's just exhausted. He's so unsure of his place in her life, and he's too afraid to ask her what it is. He's always tried to avoid any sort of emotional conversation with her in fear of scaring her off, making her run away, but he finds that he just can't do it anymore. He's so tired of the uncertainty and he just needs something. Anything.

"Can we talk?" The words feel monumental, and Caden's cheeks are slightly flushed, but he needs this. They need to work past this. "Please."

She pours her coffee and then goes back to where he's sitting, slipping into the chair across from him with her hands wrapped around the mug. After all the things she's been through, she knows she's far from an open person, but the fact that she's still here, that she hasn't simply left his house and left town entirely means she wants this. She wants to be able to talk to him. She doesn't know how good she'll be at it, if he'll find her a disappointment, but she's willing to try.

It isn't like the time she'd told him about her parents. She had been so angry then, hurt and betrayed, she'd bristled and been unable to say much of anything. This is different. She's calm now. Remorseful, but calm.

"Caden, I'm still here," she says, her voice soft. He well knows her tendency to leave when there's something she wants to avoid. "Of course we can."

For anyone else, simply being there might not mean much. But he knows what a big deal that is for April. She has stuck by his side when he's sure that she would have liked to flee, and that's something. It takes him a moment to gather his thoughts and he gets up to refill his coffee before taking his place across from her again, looking a little cautious and wary as he looks at her.

"Was any of that real?" He asks quietly, and it's not exactly how he intended to start off, but it's the first thing that rolls off of his tongue. "I just - does any part of you hate me like that?"

Because some of what he felt as a prince is definitely real. He cares about April so much, and he knows what it's like to pine for her. Sometimes he feels like he's pining for her while she's sitting right next to him, and that's sort of the problem.

Somehow that's not at all what she expected and for a moment April is too stunned to respond. She stares back at him with naked shock, possibly the most sincere expression he's ever seen on her face, and it's that she's so surprised that she can't just cover it as easily as she might have once been able to.

Being rendered speechless isn't the sort of thing that happens to her very often. She very clearly remembers the last time and it hadn't been a pleasant experience, but here she is and Caden has managed the one thing she's always thought was so difficult.

"What?" she asks, though it comes out on a soft exhale, almost a breath more than a word. "No."

She's had some time to think about it and with more real cruelty experienced at the hands of her parents, she thinks that might be what she could have become, but they'd simply abandoned her. The woman she was in that world had been dealt a far more difficult hand.

Her reply is so adamant and honest that Caden almost feels bad for asking it in the first place, but he had to. The fear that April is growing to resent him has been gnawing at his insides, and he just had to know. He nods at her and looks down at his coffee, taking a cautious sip and looking at her with a furrowed brow.

"April, I know that things haven't been easy for you, and I know that whatever is that we're doing isn't easy for you either," Caden begins quietly, voice earnest as he speaks. "I've tried so hard to follow all the cues you've given me, and I'm trying to be what you need, but I don't think that I'm being fair to myself."

He sighs and scrubs his hands over his face, doing his best to meet her gaze. "It's just so hard to keep biting my tongue, and to go on being so damn unsure of everything."

His eyes are shining and his bottom lip is trembling and he hates that he's so open with his emotions. He wishes he could be a little bit stronger, and he wishes he didn't feel like he was ripping out his heart to lay it on the counter between them.

"I feel like I'm falling for you, April." The words are quiet but unwavering, and he looks her in the eye as he says it. "And I'm not looking for some big declaration or anything, but I just wish I knew what I really meant to you."

It's a lot for her to hear and take in without immediately closing herself off, which is what she feels herself wanting to do. But Caden's right. It's been long enough that she should at least be able to tell him some things, even if they come haltingly and slowly. She doesn't want to make excuses, he knows the stories. Abandoned by her parents, abandoned by the first man she allowed herself to love the second he saw her scales. Abandoned by Leslie Parker, the first time she'd allowed anyone in since then.

Her track record doesn't speak well for itself. People leave her and so she's done her best to be the one to leave first. Caden deserves better than that.

"First I want to tell you that I'm sorry," she says and she looks at him and holds his gaze when she says it. He deserves that, too. "I don't know if you believe me, but that spell... it made me an extreme. It took all the hate I've ever felt and twisted it and turned it all on one person and you didn't deserve that. I don't hate you, Caden, you have to know that."

Then she takes a breath and lets it out, looking down at her coffee for a moment. "I'm twenty-eight years old and I've never done this. I know I'm not very good at it, but I am trying. I'm not seeing anyone else, I don't even look at anyone else and I know talking isn't my strong suit and maybe I'll never be good at it, but I think I could get better. It just... it takes time."

"I believe you. I do." Caden gives her a small smile and reaches over to take her hand for a moment, rubbing his thumb over her knuckles. He pulls his hand back after a moment and curls it around his coffee again, listening as she continues speaking. Her words put him slightly more at ease and he nods, looking down into his coffee for a moment.

"Okay. As long as you want to try," he says quietly. He looks up at her and lets his gaze travel over her face, smiling wryly. "I just... I want something real with you, and I can't keep pretending I don't. I don't want to pressure you, April. I'm not asking that anything change. I just don't want to have to constantly question what we are anymore."

There's a spike of anger in her heart then, fury directed at both her parents. Robert is here now, trying so damn hard to make amends and he can have her name cleared, he can send men after those who have come after her, but nothing he does will ever fix the damage done to her as a child. He can't go back and hold her as a baby, make her feel loved and safe. She's done enough reading to know what it does to a person when they're not held as a baby, when they're not given any sort of affection. She knows what it turns people into and Robert might not be the only one at fault, but he's the only one of her parents left alive and for a bright, burning moment, she hates him more than she's ever hated anyone.

"The first relationship I was in ended when he decided he was scared of me. Scared of what I was," she says, choosing her words carefully. "The second relationship I was in ended when he decided he was in love with my half-sister. I've never been the one to leave."

She pauses, looking at Caden. "I know just my being here isn't enough, but you have to understand what just being here is for me. I can work on the rest, but this part, not walking away, not going to find solace in someone else, that's... a big thing for me."

Caden listens to her as she speaks, frowning in concern and then nodding slightly and looking down into his cup, watching the colors shift as the creamer swirls around the surface. For a moment, he feels frustrated. He'd give anything to hear the words, to have April actually say that she cares about him, and she wants him to stay, but that isn't what he gets, not really.

But she's right. Her being here, sitting across from him right now, is a big deal for her. It means a great deal, and he tries to tell himself that the words aren't important. Caden feels hope and sadness both scrambling for purchase inside of him, one trying to overpower the other, and he isn't sure which is winning.

All of Caden's relationships have been relatively normal and healthy, aside from one guy who was a little too into his money, and a woman who didn't really want to take no for an answer when Caden wanted to end things, but there hasn't really been too much drama. None of them were particularly serious, either. Caden was always just sort of waiting for the right person. He thought he would meet them and they'd fall in love and it would be easy. It was an incredibly naive notion.

He thinks he's met the right person, but he doesn't know if she loves him. He doesn't know if she can, and none of this easy.

"I appreciate that," Caden says after a moment, voice thick with a emotion. There's so much he wants to say, but he's still so afraid of saying the wrong thing and driving her away. It seems less likely now, but it's still a possibility. "I'm sorry you were hurt, but I'm not them, April. I think your siren form is beautiful, and I haven't so much as looked at anyone else in a very long time. I'm not afraid of you, and I'm not going to leave. If it takes time to prove that to you, then that's what I'll do."

"That isn't what I'm saying. I know you're not them. If I thought for a second there was a chance you were going to do what Les did, I wouldn't be here at all," she says, looking up and meeting his gaze. It's about more than having just been hurt and she knows he probably won't be able to understand that. He has a good family, parents who cared about him. She had being left to cry herself hoarse while her mother shot up and then filthy foster homes where no one had looked at her.

And she doesn't want to blame everything on that, but she's never bothered trying to deal with any of that before. Now that she is, it's difficult.

"I don't need you to prove anything to me," she says. "I trust you, Caden. I like you. And I like being with you, but I'm not that person who's ever going to have any easy time with deeply emotional conversations. I can try and I'm sure things can get better, but it's never going to change completely." She pauses then, and looks at him. "And would you want me to?"

"Of course I don't want you to change, April. I - " He swallows hard, because he was about to say something very telling. He sighs and runs his fingers through his hair. "I just wanted to know that this was real, and it meant something. I didn't want to be alone in that."

He smiles a little and looks down at his coffee, biting his lip and looking back up with slightly flushed cheeks. "I just - when someone asks me if I'm dating anyone, I want to be able to say yeah, her name's April and she's great."

Caden looks at her for a long time, and he wants to go over to her, but he finds himself stuck on the stool unable to get himself to move.

She's never asked him not to say that and she tilts her head, looking at him with a faint smile. "So what's stopping you?" she asks. "I mean, besides the obvious lie in that last part of the statement."

It isn't much of a joke, but it's a small attempt at some humour. No matter what Caden thinks, though, she knows she isn't great. Not the kind of great he deserves. She's beautiful and she's brilliant, but she's calculating and she's cold where he needs someone warm. She does try for him and she has no intention of being cruel to him, but it is work for her. It's work worth doing, though.

"You can say that, Caden, we're together," she says. "We have been for awhile now and that's not... it isn't something I'm afraid of."

Something in Caden relaxes, but he hates that she doesn't see the good in herself. After a moment, he slides off of his stool and comes around the island to stand in front of her, reaching up to cup her jaw and draw her in until he can press their foreheads together.

"That wasn't you," he says quietly. "The fact that you feel so badly about it proves that it wasn't you."

He presses a gentle kiss to her forehead and pulls back enough to look at her, smiling softly as he thumbs at her jaw. "You've had a life I wouldn't wish on anyone, April, and you've come out of it as this incredibly strong, capable person." He slides his hand down to rest against her chest, just over her heart. "And there is good in you. Even if you can't see it, I can. I can feel it when we're together. Maybe the person you were under the spell is someone you could have been if you had let the darkness and hatred take control and twist you into something cold, but you didn't. You fought it. You aren't her."

Caden smiles and takes her hand, bringing it up to rest against his own chest. "I trust you, April. And I trust you with my heart."

That's scary, the sort of responsibility she would have normally run from. Unless she was working a con, if a man had said something like that to her, April would have found a reason to leave. She would have made up a story, something believable, something that wouldn't just leave him hurting for no reason, but she would have gotten out of this situation as fast as humanly possible.

Instead she leans in and kisses Caden once, softly, then sits back in her chair again. She doesn't think she's nearly as good as he's making her out to be, but maybe that's what this sort of thing does to people. Maybe it makes it easier for them to see the good in others.

"I trust you," she says and she finds it's the truth.

Caden's breath catches a little at the words because coming from April, that's huge. He knows that her trust is a carefully guarded that that isn't easily earned, and to have that trust, to have her actually say it, means the world to him. He smiles warmly and nods, cupping her cheek and leaning in to kiss her again.

He just feels so happy of a sudden, truly happy for the first time since the spell started. A relieved sigh escapes him and he wraps his arms around her, sliding one hand underneath her so he can lift her easily from the stool in a way that means she has to wrap her legs around his waist as he stands up straight.

A soft chuckle escapes him and he kisses her again, soft and slow, and holds her close to him while pressing their foreheads together. "Thank you."

She laces her hands behind his neck and lets out a soft laugh, then tilts her head to look at him. "Do you feel better now?" She does and doesn't. Caden isn't the only person she has to apologize to, but she's sure he's the one she's hurt the most. There are other people she needs to speak to, but at least for the moment they can wait. Neither of them have slept well or, in Caden's case, at all and if he's feeling better she thinks they should likely take the day off.

"You should probably get some sleep," she says. "Since you apparently didn't get any last night."

She doesn't think she'd mind going back to bed and falling asleep for a little while longer. She'll sleep better now, she thinks.

"I do," Caden replies, sliding his hand up and down her back and looking at her with concern. He knows that he isn't the only one that April hurt while under the spell. "Do you? It'll all be okay, you know. I'm sure they know it wasn't you."

He sets her down and kisses her again, going over to turn off the coffee pot and turn out all the lights. Once he's done, he takes her hand and leads her towards the bedroom. "I feel like I'm getting a second wind, but I'll try. As long as you come with me."

But he didn't. There's no reason for Spencer to trust anything she has to say when even Caden doubted her, but she only smiles and nods. "I'll talk to Spencer at the baby shower, I guess," she says. Assuming it's still on. She's had her invitation for nearly a month already and she's gone back and forth between attending and taking a pass, but now she thinks she has to go. She has to apologize.

"I think I could do with sleeping for another few hours," she says with a soft laugh, letting him lead her. "What I got wasn't exactly what you'd call restful."

"Look at it this way. You gave them a second chance at another great love story," Caden tells her, shutting the bedroom door and turning to smile at her. "They might even appreciate that."

He pulls his shirt over his head and tosses it into the hamper before slipping out of his pants, leaving him in his boxer briefs as he goes over to the bed and lays back on it, stretching his arms up over his head as he gets comfortable. April is standing at the end of the bed and Caden smiles at her, moving over a bit and holding his hand out to her.

She climbs into the bed beside him, stretches out on her stomach and pushes her arms under the pillow so she can bury her face in it for a moment. Now that they're lying here, she can feel the lack of sleep catching up with her. Maybe that's the guilt, maybe it's something else, but she still doesn't like it much. It's exhausting.

And the bed is comfortable and warm. At least here she no longer feels terrible about the things she's done.

Caden wants to pull her into his arms, but she looks like she's made herself comfortable. He watches her for a long moment and leans over to rest his large hand at the small of her back, ducking his head to press a kiss to her shoulder through the thin shirt.

"I missed you," he says quietly, kissing the back of her neck and resting his forehead against her shoulder before he rolls onto his back again, pulling the sheet up over his legs.

She doesn't know what to say to that. She knows she's just promised to try harder for him, but the entire experience is just so fresh that she really doesn't know what to say. Instead when he rolls onto his back, she shifts over from where she's lying, pressing herself against his side and closing her eyes as she rests her cheek against his shoulder.

This is all still so new to her, but this, at least, is something she can do. She can close her eyes and let herself relax against him and feel like she isn't playing at some game or that she's imposter. She feels enough like herself.

It doesn't bother him that she doesn't reply. He knows that their talk was a lot for her, and he isn't going to push the issue. He feels a lot better about everything, and his mind might finally quiet down enough to get to rest. He didn't sleep well during the spell either, too worried about his future.

She turns in to curl against his side and Caden smiles sleepily, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and tipping her head up to give her another soft kiss, lingering for a moment and then pressing their foreheads together before relaxing against the bed, turned in slightly towards her.

He pulls the blankets up over them and slides his fingertips up and down her arm, smiling to himself as he closes his eyes against the gray morning light filtering in through the window.

As far as he knows, neither of them have anywhere they absolutely have to be today and he's absolutely content to spend it with her, just like this.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[closed - Caden]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject