032 - action/audio

[tapestodiane]

Sometimes, being right isn't all that gratifying. In actuality, it can be devastating, especially if there's bad thing coming. Cooper wouldn't claim to have foreseen what would happen during those days; in fact, won't claim to be able to foresee anything. But he'd had a feeling, had been bracing himself, and yet he'd been completely unprepared for what happened and the things he saw.

"I don't know what to do", he tells his audio recorder (not Diane) later in the day, voice uncharacteristically choked. It's the simple truth in light of everything he can recall - actually recall, not just piece together, and that alone is worrying in a whole new way.

He's trying not to think about all that, not yet. And for the next few days he's still trying to clear his mind, even if his motions are distracted and his focus is shaky and his thoughts are stubborn and loud. Whatever is happening, it's escalating, but he feels powerless when it comes to stopping it or even figuring it out.

He wouldn't even assume he had the right question to ask, were he given the chance for an answer.

[Action for Justice Farm: When he wakes up the day he'd normally have been (mostly) mind-wiped, he's still exhausted. Most days will find him in the kitchen with his hands around a coffee cup and none of the usual enthusiasm for the beverage inside, staring distantly out the window with the look of someone who hasn't slept at all. It's a change from his usual demeanor, but whatever is going on in his mind, he doesn't seem all that inclined to share.]

[Audio, for the network, backdated to the 29th:] I'll keep it brief: who else can recall this weekend with a lot more clarity than the previous ones of its kind?

[Action for Saffron: He's around, so feel free to bump into him. He's been on quite a few walks lately. Walks are good.]


(KIND OF BACKDATED and spans all days from 4th wall end til like yesterday, so feel free to bump in with whatever, whenever!)

Comments

[audio]

[soggypastry]

It's starting to look like a lot of people can. [she's heard chatter, at least. After a moment, however, her voice gets softer.] I can remember. Leon was here.

[and really, what else needs to be said but that?]

[audio]

[tapestodiane]

_{[There's a moment before Cooper gets back to her. His voice is soft as well, but for a different reason.]} Are you okay?

[audio]

[soggypastry]

Better than I was. [The memories are a little foggy. She can't remember the exact words they used in their conversation, but everything else...she's using that like an anchor. It's working. Mostly.] It was good to see him again.

[Though it's starting to look like she's the only one coming off better this weekend.]

Audio

[haveyouseenalittlegirl]

[He's out for a walk, because feelings, but he takes the call.]

I can.

Audio

[tapestodiane]

... how much?

_{[I met your wife. Your daughter. And your killer. He doesn't voice any of those things, not yet, but it's ... definitely in his mind, and probably in his voice, much like the sadness is also evident in Harry's.]}

Audio

[haveyouseenalittlegirl]

My wife.....

The creature from the town.

[But as to which one is more painful. Yeah the first one. It's been over twenty years and suddenly she was there again.]

[video]

[paladinlost]

...I can. I definitely saw them, spoke to them. I never truly believed they were dreams, but...

[But this time was most certainly not one.]

[video]

[tapestodiane]

_{[Cooper shakes his head in response. It's been a while since he talked to Cecil, maybe even a year, but he still remembers their conversations with a certain fondness; still, this isn't doing a lot to help his mood.]}

But now we have evidence of the fact.

[video]

[paladinlost]

[Ah, yes, it's been a long time indeed. But under the circumstances...]

Physical evidence, yes. I was in Saffron when everything started; in Celadon after it ended. Yet at some point along the way, I caught a Tangela.

[No Tangela on route 7, as far as he knows.]

action; | /seizes priority

[doitrockapella]

[Albert's gone. Gordon is gone. And Cooper...he might as well be.

She's only seen one of these three-day stints before, but she recalls it altogether too well — the morning she'd woken up in Azalea Town with no recollection of how she'd ended up there in the first place, drowsing awake to the sound of Zack's frantic booping and the discovery that an unauthorized video had been sent. It'd been a mystery then, a strange and prolonged dream that in retrospect she hadn't been entirely sure how to address. Ivy had been there. She could remember bits and pieces, albeit through an unshakeable fog of uncertainty. But it had been a dream — or something very much like it.

This wasn't a dream.

The familiar faces. The new acquaintances. The strange sights, the race to the moon, the eerie awareness of something more that once again she can't quite seem to place. There's no fog this time. It's too clear. It's too certain in her memory that yes, whatever it was that happened...she recalls it, too.

What big teeth you have.

She'd come upstairs to find him (because that was how you addressed fear, you faced it, you stood up and stood against it as it came head-on toward you, and she's not afraid of anything but that doesn't mean she doesn't know fear when she feels it), but stopped outside the door when she'd overheard him talking, voice choked and thin, and with no mention of Diane, and that was the moment when the whole world seemed to tip off-balance.

Silently, she'd pressed her back to the wall and slid down, waiting just outside the door, listening and reflecting and coming herself to the unsettling, sicky realization that she didn't know what to do, either.

And there she sits, waiting, silent and secluded and unseen — but there, even if he doesn't know it, and waiting either for the opportunity to approach, or to be discovered herself.

Maybe it'll come to her, the answer she needs and doesn't have, if she only waits long enough.]

action;

[tapestodiane]

<sub>[He doesn't elaborate on what he just said because there's nothing more to add. He doesn't know what to do - the options that are presenting themselves to him are all ones he doesn't care for.]

[So following that, there's silene. At least until there are footsteps, in what might be even more worrying to anyone who knows Cooper at all; pacing isn't his style. And even if there are only so many steps before he finally does seem to head away from the door towards the window, that moment of hesitation, of simply not knowing where to go ...]

[If there was anything needed to underline his words, it would probably be that, and it does it fairly elegantly, all things considered.]

[The recorder is left in his jacket which he's not wearing, much like his hair isn't slicked back, like his eyes are haunted and open a bit too wide when he leans on the window sill, stares out at the trees outside.]</sub>

action;

[doitrockapella]

[She holds her breath every time she listens to the footsteps approach the door, releasing it silently only after they move away — not apprehensive of his coming, but just listening, her eyes closed, just quietly readying herself each time for an encounter that never comes. It'll have to happen sooner or later. They can't tiptoe around each other forever.

She doesn't want to go back to being strangers again.

When he finally moves for the window, she toes off her shoes, leaving them pushed up against the opposite wall — abandoned, but still out of the way. She doesn't need to be in her stocking feet to move silently; she could do it just as well in the heels, without a bit of discernible difference. But these things (her shoes, her hat, the red) are things she wears to complement the identity she's crafted for herself, and it seems wrong, somehow, to keep them, when he's so very not himself either.

Easing herself up to her feet, she slips into the room, not trying to hide her presence but seeking not to upset the stillness of the moment, either. She'll let him notice her. She'll see if being here can draw his eyes away.

(She'll watch and see if his expression twists into a wolf's.)]

[gochuugoku]

I recall this past weekend. I thought it was just me, but now I see that is not the case.

[China's memories are a bit fuzzy, but his heart still hurts for some reason, as though it was torn in half. Like he was missing something.]

[audio] ?

[tapestodiane]

I thought it wouldn't be uncommon. I wanted to make sure.

_{[If he sounds a little off, it's because he is. Mind and heart occupied, much like Yao's.]}

[audio] oh right, I forgot since I almost commented with my personal DW adfkd

[gochuugoku]

Do you know if anyone else has remembered?

[audio]

[quickattackjack]

I saw a school bus pass by a window while I was upstairs in my study. I decided not to go outside.

_{[IT HAD BEEN ONE OF THOSE DAYS.]}

I trust you're well?

[audio]

[tapestodiane]

_{[Sounds like a wise move, Jack.]}

Speaking frankly? I could be better. These weekends take their toll on all of us.

_{[L I E S okay, not actually - it's true as far as fact goes, but it's a lot worse than he's going to let on.]}

[audio]

[quickattackjack]

I'm sorry to hear that. Need an ear?

_{[Since he actually has them as a human :I]}

[Audio]

[canthearyou]

PREVIOUS? THIS HAS HAPPENED BEFORE?

[So it wasn't a freak occurrence. Gordon's not sure whether to be relieved or concerned about that.]

ALSO, SORRY I CAN'T CONTACT YOU IN PERSON. I SEEM TO HAVE FOUND MYSELF IN A FOREST SOMEHOW. DON'T REMEMBER HOW I GOT HERE, BUT WORKING ON LEAVING IT. SHOULD HOPEFULLY BE BACK TO ALBERT'S IN A FEW DAYS.

[Audio]

[tapestodiane]

THAT HAPPENS SOMETIMES.

<sub>[It makes sense that both him and Gordon would be elsewhere. It happened to Coop more than once, after all. But he still feels a bit relieved at hearing that they'll come back. It's not that he ever doubted it, just ...]

[Yeah.]</sub>

THIS IS THE FIFTH OCCURENCE THAT I KNOW OF.

[Audio]

[canthearyou]

THE FIFTH?

[That's...concerning. Okay, he's definitely more concerned than anything else now.]

YOU MEAN TO TELL ME THAT THIS HAS HAPPENED FIVE TIMES NOW?

[Action]

[leftinbasketforfbi]

[Reid is not a profiler for no reason. He might not be able to do it when conversing with a person, but he can read people when given time to observe, and he can read them well.

So on the many days he goes to the farm to work with Albert, it doesn't escape his notice that Cooper is not doing too well. Reid doesn't think it's his place to pry, but it concerns him. So one morning after he passed out in one of Albert's guest rooms (not for the first time), he's up early and there's the smell of cherries as he mixes a saucepan on the stove and the smell of something baking in the oven. A Munna sits perched on his head, and a coffee pot is bubbling cheerfully (and there may or may not be a coffee mug full with more sugar than coffee next to him).

He'll deny that any of this is for Coop. As far as he's concerned, it's just to thank Albert for putting him up so much. Yet if Coop comes downstairs and wanders into the kitchen like usual, Reid wouldn't mind if he started sneaking nibbles and maybe take one or three slices of the cherry pie he's making once it's done.]

[Action] ... ;;

[tapestodiane]

<sub>[And Cooper is nothing but a man of habit, no matter how much they sometimes suffer, because they're a thing of safety; routine means you're in control, that you have a plan with which to tackle the day. Coop's the first to encourage you to break these rules you set up for yourself if you were to ask him, but fact of the matter is that sometimes? You just need them.]

[Coffee in the mornings is one of those things.]

[He notices the smell of cherries already on his way down but doesn't take the time to get it until he's already in the kitchen and it hits him what Reid is doing. He's seen him around, of course - him and Albert, practically inseparable at times. It's a good thing for the both of them, but Coop has been more than happy to stay out of their way.]

[It looks like it might be something like that today as well, when he doesn't greet Reid at all other than maybe a small nod of his head, but once he's taken the liberty to some of that coffee and is leaning against the counter and has watched the other man work for a little while, he does break the silence.]</sub>

Some might think you'd be tired of baking by now.

action;

[worktodo]

[So the killer thing is, this isn't the first time Albert's seen Coop like this.

All of a sudden it seems eerily prophetic, the conversation they'd had a couple months back on his birthday. You mean to tell me you fell down the rabbit hole and now Pittsburgh doesn't mean anything anymore? And that's what this is. It's Pittsburgh, all over again.

Oh, maybe it's not exactly the same. Nobody went insane and no witnesses turned up dead, and Coop may be on the equivalent of bed rest and house arrest but at least he's not two minutes gone. But it's close enough for it to bother the hell out of Albert, and it's getting pretty damn hard to swallow back the fact that he'd seen this coming like Cassandra and wouldn't you know it, here it is.

But "I told you so" doesn't matter. Cooper matters. And that means walking the delicate balance between mothering the hell out of him like he needs, and leaving him the hell alone like he also needs. But that's fine. Albert can do delicate. Albert is a master of the scalpel; his career revolves around delicate balances.

There's an infection in Cooper, and it's going to be his job one of these days to cut it out. Once he's ready for it. Once he'll stand a chance at recovering.

See, that's the problem with a procedure like that, is that you can't help but take a little of the man with it.

He comes into the kitchen and finds Cooper there, and doesn't miss a beat in taking the coffee cup out of his hands and discarding it in the sink. Two cups of fresh coffee are just what the doctor ordered, and Albert can do that, because he's a doctor.]

Perk up, buttercup. We're trying out a new blend this time.

action;

[tapestodiane]

<sub>[The passiveness with which Cooper allows Albert to just get rid of the coffee like that speaks of two things - the obvious one being that he's still far from okay after what happened during the weekend, something that's also clear in the way he's been so drastically quiet the past few days and continues to be even now when he turns his head to watch his friend.]

[But the less obvious and more important layer to that is how it reflects their relationship at large. Because even though they have quite a few disagreements and sometimes outright fights, Cooper counts on Albert when he doesn't feel like he has the answers himself, and trusting him enough to fall back on him in a situation like this ... well, it shows how much he matters, doesn't it?]</sub>

What kind?

<sub>[He asks it slowly, like he's not quite there, but he's paying attention to Albert's movements anyway.]

[Finds that now when the mug isn't in his hands anymore, he's not quite sure what to do with them.]</sub>