tapes: (☞ BLUEBIRD OF FRIENDLINESS)
𝘧𝘣𝘪 𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭 𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘵 dale cooper ([personal profile] tapes) wrote in [community profile] remarks2012-05-11 06:38 am
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Diane — though I would quite like to believe in the better nature of nature itself, I must admit that there is very little that truly is what it seems.
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( VERSED )

[personal profile] disjointed 2012-05-11 05:57 pm (UTC)(link)
[ She's slumped against the passenger door of the sedan, the hood of her sweatshirt pulled over her head (her eyes ache in the back of her their sockets, right against the optical nerve). At first it seems like she's going to just leave it, but— ]

Who's Diane anyway?
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[personal profile] disjointed 2012-05-11 06:53 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm somebody, [ Martha says moodily and it's hard to tell how much of that is self-consciousness, defensiveness, or the migraine talking. She's not really one for conversation most of the time (she's too busy sleeping or glaring or dazing) but part of her, too close to the surface, too busy bristling rather than listening, thinks I am a teacher I am a leader I am a— ]
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[personal profile] disjointed 2012-05-12 02:53 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Shitty. Confused. Angry. Where are we? Tired. Tired. Tired. Are we safe now? Martha shrugs and says nothing at first. ]

I'm fine, [ she insists, the words snapping shut like a trap. (Defensiveness, definitely defensiveness.) ] Same as last time you asked. [ That's a lie. ]
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[personal profile] disjointed 2012-05-13 01:01 am (UTC)(link)
[ Time is strange for Martha, who seems to experience it back to front, front to back and in starts and stops. Sometimes she's in the rent-a-car with Cooper and sometimes she's back in that barn in the mountains, her face pressed into some natty bit of carpet and the tips of her fingers and toes all numb and sometimes she's watching blood pool on a hardwood floor and sometimes—

Once, she'd woken from a daydream with a start and found herself in a hotel instead, the road long behind them for the day, and Cooper shaking her awake. Martha had broken the bedside lamp after that, having brought it up and against the side of Cooper's face and sometimes, when she looks at him, she thinks she can still make out the bruise. (I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm really really sorry—)

Martha's silent for a while.
]

Are we far? [ She doesn't clarify from what or from whom. (She shouldn't have to.) ]
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[personal profile] disjointed 2012-05-13 06:13 am (UTC)(link)
[ (No, it's not okay. It's really not. Cause some wounds don't.)

Martha shifts her weight, burrows it harder against the resistance of the passenger door. She wants to tell him that they'll never be far enough, that it'll always be with her, that he's inside her, inside her head and no matter what she does, she can never manage to pour him out. Behind her lips she bites her tongue. Bites until the muscles of her jaw aches and she tastes copper.
]

Tired? [ Because sometimes Martha remembers that Cooper's a person too. ]
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[personal profile] disjointed 2012-05-13 08:32 am (UTC)(link)
[ Sometimes Martha wonders if Agent Copper is a liar.

No one is that helpful, that clean or that good. And if he's that good, no goodness comes without a price. (Martha had paid her debts to the man the mountains, only to realize he'd been a liar too.)

She ignores his question, turning now in her seat, pressing her back flush against the door so that she can stare at him in profile. One of Martha's hands reaches up and pulls back her hood so that he can see her staring, her brow lowered over her eyes in vague suspicion.
] No one's fine all the time, [ she says, not realizing the hypocrisy of it. ]
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[personal profile] disjointed 2012-05-13 02:17 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Martha narrows her eyes at him across the small space that separates them, every tiny bump and asphalt seam jostling against her spine on the door. No one is that good. No one is that good. And sometimes she wonders — when the dreams are worst, when she wets the bed, when she tears at her hair and shrieks over and over again we have to leave — did she make him up in her head?

(Sometimes the answer is yes and sometimes it's the worst and sometimes it's the best.)
]

Yeah, but would you tell me if you weren't?
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[personal profile] disjointed 2012-05-14 03:22 am (UTC)(link)
Maybe.

[ She should say no, and maybe there's a part of Martha that kicks herself for not just up and admitting it. How long had she been in the world and how much of that time had been spent lost and listless and without focus (and how much of the time had been spent unlost but pointed in the wrong damn direction)? Martha can hardly handle her own shit, how could she be expected to deal with his baggage, too?

But she doesn't say no. (She should, she really should.)

She says maybe, and Martha doesn't know why.
]
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[personal profile] disjointed 2012-05-14 05:29 am (UTC)(link)
[ It's getting late and so the sun is sitting low in the tops of all the distant trees, the half of it disappearing already over a distant ridge, large and fat like an overripe orange wedge. Martha squints into it through the latticework of her fingers and seems to ignore Agent Cooper's question. The sun seems larger than it did yesterday and maybe that's because it's closer than it was the week before, which means whatever's behind them is even farther and wouldn't that be nice.

Laying the crosswork of her fingers over her face, she concentrates on the dull throb against the back of her eyes.
] You got something for a headache, [ she asks and then realizes it's been how long since she allowed herself to eat. ]
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[personal profile] disjointed 2012-05-18 06:18 pm (UTC)(link)
No, [ she says, a little defensively, as if she's actually offended by the suggestion of leaving her by herself. She's confusing like that, a contradiction. (Martha wants to be left alone, she wants to be kept safe, she wants to go back to the house from the mountains and wants to run far far away, even though she knows she'll never be free. She needs her space, she needs arms around her, she needs to be smothered, that suffocating press and if only Agent Cooper would put both hands around her throat and squeeze maybe, just maybe, she'll get there and—)

Martha shakes her head abruptly and frowns. More decisively:
] No, I want to go in.
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[personal profile] disjointed 2012-05-20 08:46 pm (UTC)(link)
[ There's something about his cheerfulness that grates on Martha's nerves sometimes — something about his smile when it's at its broadest that reminds Martha of Lucy, of her sister, and how disingenous the thought of her feels in Martha's mind. She had thought she'd be able to save Martha, too, and they all saw what that had earned her, hadn't it? (Martha hadn't said anything when the car had pulled over, when Ted had put on the blinkers and the SVU had found the curb and that man she'd seen on the lake and come out and run over and wait, no—)

The thought makes her blink, makes her realize that both Cooper and the waitress (Cheryl, her nametag says; HI MY NAME IS CHERYL) are staring at her in expectation and how long had she been there, in the back of that car, how long ago was that, and where were they now.

Martha frowns and realizes her hands are knuckle white around her menu.
]

Are you— are you waiting for me? [ She flounders for a moment, unsure if she should be scared or angry and she looks at Cooper (how long was I gone) before she lifts her shoulders and shoves her shoulders down and buries her face in her menu as if no one is looking at her at all. ]
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[personal profile] disjointed 2012-05-21 07:10 am (UTC)(link)
[ Maybe it's terrible and maybe it's selfish, but Martha likes it when they stop for the night and the day's posture gets stripped from Agent Cooper's shoulders, hung up alongside his camel trench and his black blazer like another article of clothing (something he dons instead of is, proof that he is only human). He's a man of ritual and there's an order to things — the way he folds his clothes and brushes his teeth and talks to his recorder and calls it Diane. But at the end of all rituals, before he shuts off the bedside lamp and rolls over onto his side with his back facing the wall, that's when he lets himself smile a little less and that's when Martha thinks — just maybe — it's possible they're not so different after all.

He takes his time as he places his order, which means Martha's more herself when the waitress turns her large cow eyes back towards her, peering at Martha over her glasses, the tip of her pencil tapping her scribbled notepad.
] Fries, [ she says shortly and pushes the menu away. ] Just fries and— [ Martha glances at Cooper. ] —and pie.

[ The waitress asks her which kind and Martha says pecan just to be difficult. She almost forgets to tack on a: ] —thanks.