[Closed - Caden, Coop, Les & Robert]

[seas_open]

Whatever is responsible for this, April doesn't notice when it happens.

She and Caden have been back in town for a few days now and she knows he'll need to go back again in the next little while, but she plans on staying here. Not because she hadn't enjoyed her time in California, but given how much she's banked on Coop's generosity when it comes to her job -- the first legitimate job she's ever had and currently her only source of income -- she really thinks it's a good idea she stay and actually work a little.

She's unpacked, she's settled back in her apartment, and she spends a few days just settling back into town. It's a strange thing to feel, settled in any way, but she does. And she isn't entirely sure what she thinks of it, whether she likes it or hates it, but she's allowing herself to exist in this state, to give it a chance instead of rebuffing it as soon as she feels something out of the ordinary.

Whenever she uses her powers in Siren Cove, she does it almost without thinking. There are times she uses them to get what she wants, times when she's irritated and makes someone do something for her, but none of it is truly harmful in any way. Though it seems someone disagrees.

She's in a coffee shop, she's in a hurry, and she needs to get to the front of the line quickly, so she taps the guy in front of her on the shoulder, gives him a smile and asks him in a gentle, melodic voice if he'd mind letting her go ahead of him. In response he only rolls his eyes and turns away from her.

For the rest of the day she tries it on everyone she meets. She asks people easy favours, she suggests things for them to do, and while some people help her just out of the kindness of their heart, most just ignore her suggestions, and that's never happened to her before. She has never met anyone immune to her powers.

By the end of the day she's so furious she's trembling and she stands near the boardwalk, unsure of what to do or where to go. She needs to see Caden, she needs to tell him something is wrong, but she needs to see her father, too. Maybe he'll be able to track down whoever is responsible for this.

Staring out at the ocean, her jaw clenched tight enough to hurt, April finds the only thing she wants to do is scream.

Comments

[lesparker]

Les is on his way home from work when he spots April near the Boardwalk. Technically, his walk home from the Watersong doesn't bring him this way, but he likes to take his time on night's like this one and he also plans to see if Corry is still putting in extra hours at the construction of The Waterhouse. Her opening night is fast approaching, and she's been burning the midnight oil for what seems like days now. He hasn't seen her nearly enough, and he hopes maybe they can grab a quick dinner tonight.

However, he finds April first, standing up the pier as he heads in her direction. While he wouldn't have passed her by anyway without atleast a hello her demeanor gives him pause. She looks upset, and that's one thing he can hardly ever say about April. She hides herself well, so the fact that he notices she's upsest probably means something...

He leans into the space against the railing beside her. "So. You look like you're about to hurt someone," Les says with a half smile. "Have a bad day?"

[seas_open]

"Something is wrong," she answers and she knows she should say hello or at least greet him in some way, but Les is one of the few people in this town she feels comfortable being herself around and so she sees no reason to pretend things are fine when they're clearly not. "Something is wrong with my powers. I can't do what I'm supposed to be able to do."

He'll know what she means. If that means he knows she was trying to use her powers to get something she wants, so be it. Les doesn't have any illusions about the person she is, the person she's capable of being, and it's refreshing to be able to just be honest about this.

[lesparker]

While April has never used her powers on him (not that he knows of anyway), Les knows exactly what she means since he's never assumed that just because he's never seen her use them that she doesn't. While influencing someone in that way brings up issues of consent and ethics, they are still her powers and Les knows he would never want his powers to go on the fritz.

"Are you feeling okay?" he asks, brow wrinkling in concern as he turns towards her, getting a better look at her face. He wishes he was able to read auras the way Joel is. That's how he realized something was wrong with Raleigh. "When's the last time you used your powers?"

[seas_open]

"I feel fine except I can't make anyone do anything," she answers, realizing she's dangerously close to snapping at Les for absolutely no reason. He's one of the few people in Siren Cove she might consider a friend, even with everything that had gone on between them, and if there's anyone who might be able to help her, it's him. She thinks of going to her father, he'd probably be able to get her the information she needs, but when it comes to actual power, it's really only the three men she's closest to that she'd trust with this.

Though she isn't sure how much control Caden has over his powers yet and what he might be able to do to someone who's pissed her off.

"Yesterday, I think," she says. "I do it a lot without thinking. But if I tell you to go jump off the end of the pier, you should do it. Les, will you go jump off the end of the pier for me?" She only asks him because she knows it won't work.

[lesparker]

Les doesn't need Joel's ability to sense April's irritation and unease. She's normally so restrained that it's easy to see the emotion bubbling beneath the surface which is a testament to how concerned she must be over this. When she instructs him to go take a dive off the pier, he waits for a tug in his head, something to compel him to comply, but there's nothing. "I guess you'll have to ask nicer than that," he teases with a smile, but he hopes it's a comforting one.

"Okay. Where have you been lately?" he asks more seriously, thinking through the possible scenarios. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but sirens aren't normally capable of controlling each others powers right? It would take someone...like Lara. I would guess."

And around here if it's not a siren, it's probably a witch. "Is it blackmail again?" He wouldn't judge her, but there were those people that came after her the last time.

[seas_open]

April has never met another siren who can control her powers and although she's never asked Lara about it, she doesn't really know what she'd be able to do either. Whether or not she'd be capable of that doesn't matter, though, not in this situation, because this isn't Lara's doing. This isn't a matriarch just controlling what April can do because she's out of control -- which she isn't -- or someone just dampening her powers. They're gone.

She can feel where they used to be, she can feel the emptiness. Something just isn't right.

"No," she says. "Robert took care of them for good." It's not entirely impossible she's pissed someone else off along the way, but she's done a fairly good job of covering her tracks and keeping her identity a secret. "I haven't even done a job in over a year."

She says it without thinking. She's so flustered over the loss of powers that her usual defenses seem to have dropped.

[lesparker]

Les is smart, and for all his failings sometimes in expressing his emotions, he is very capable when it comes to people. He had to become that way in order to survive on his own. In all this time they've know each other he has always realized that his information about April was incomplete. When she says she hasn't done a job in over a year, he recognizes the words to be that part of her that's been secret.

He doesn't know if she meant to tell him or if she's that distracted, but she did and he takes in the words for a few seconds only to smirk and tilt his head at her. "What kind of job?" He asks though he has a very good inkling. It had to be the type of job that would make her powers useful, persuading people to do as she wanted. Give her a reason to move from place to place. It's why he thinks she has that job with Coop but it never seemed like she really needed it. "Was I a job and then you realized I was broke?"

It does not come out accusing. Instead, he laughs because it is such an easy answer. He feels kind of dumb now.

She is a con artist.

"How good are you?" Because obviously he immediately wants to know specifics.

[scaledtokill]

Robert liked to think that he had a special connection with his children. It was entirely possible that most of it was based on their pure hatred of him but all the same there was a connection. What brought him to April today though was just dumb luck. He just happened to see her at the boardwalk and the rage in her is almost palpable.

It immediately upset him that someone had done something to his daughter to make her feel like that. He knew that the person who had hurt her the most was himself but the nice thing about having few morals is you could pick and choose which ones you wanted to listen to.

When he got closer he noticed that something was wrong. Something seemed very... off about her.

"April?" he called out. "April, what's the matter."

[seas_open]

"My powers are gone," she says, her voice flat. There are other people on the boardwalk, humans and witches and probably other sirens, but she doesn't care who hears her at this point. If the entire world ends up finding out she's a siren, she doesn't care, as long as she gets her powers back.

"I can't do any of what I'm supposed to be able to do," she tells him. She hasn't tried to change form, but she already feels it. She already knows it won't work. "Someone did something to me."

[scaledtokill]

That was not good. The ability to take a Siren's song, or whatever it was that you wanted to call a Siren's abilities, was big time magic. Anywhere outside of Siren Cove that would limit the number of people that could do that. Here though? Here there were lots of people who could do it or had connections to people that could.

"You made someone very, very angry," Robert said. It was probably no surprise to April. It was the nature of who they were and what they did. But someone had taken his daughter's song and that was not alright. "But I promise we'll get it back, April."

Tentatively he reached out t place a hand on her shoulder before he thought better of it. He wasn't entirely sure it would be welcome.

[seas_open]

"I make a lot of people very, very angry," she answers. "It's sort of what I do." It's not exactly her job description, but she knows part of what she does when she cons men with a lot of money is piss them off once she's gone. The men, their families, their wives. She does her best to avoid men with children so they never have to bear the brunt of her damage, but she's under no illusions about what she does.

"But I haven't done a job in over a year," she says. "It has to be older than that if it's revenge for a job." And the number of people she's conned is countless, a long list she won't ever remember all the names on.

[scaledtokill]

"I'll look through what information I have about your past work and see if anyone sticks out," Robert said. He maybe be a controlling asshole but apparently that might come in handy this time. There might be clues in some of the tabs he'd kept on her as to who might have done this to her. Even then, it might not be for a job, he was sure that April could upset people even without work being involved.

"When did you notice your powers missing? When was the last time you used them?"

[seas_open]

The fact that he knows so much about her work should piss her off and there's still a little corner of her mind that flickers with irritation. It's something she's going to remember, something she might use against him later, but for the moment she realizes she doesn't really have many options and she doesn't have a lot of help. Robert already knows who she is and what she does, none of this is going to be a surprise to him.

None of this is going to be a disappointment to him.

"Yesterday," she says. "I use them all the time for little things. I got a free coffee yesterday afternoon." With someone else she might be worried they'll judge her for that use of her power and she's sure Lara wouldn't particularly like it, but she doesn't think her father will care one way or the other.

[writtenby_caden]

Caden is glad to be back in Siren Cove for awhile, far as it is from home. He does like this sleepy little Maine town, and it has proved to inspire him, just as he hoped. There's more to it than meets the eye, a town full of secrets and mysteries, and he does like it. The creative spirit in him can't help but to like it.

He's at the boardwalk just to soak it all in and pick up a few nice bottles of wine from a shop he's grown to like when he happens to see April out of the corner of his eye. They hadn't had any particular plans to meet up today, which was fine considering just how much time they had spent together out in California, but he's not going to say no to seeing her.

The closer he gets to her, the more he realizes that something has to be wrong. April rarely lets emotions be so plain on her face, and now it's clear that she's upset. "Hey," he says as he approaches, brow furrowed in concern. "What's wrong?"

[seas_open]

At the question her fists clench, tightening until they hurt, then she releases them and turns to look at Caden. It had been an attempt to quell her anger, but it doesn't work and when she looks at him, it's clear she's still furious. Not with him, just furious in general, and when she draws in a breath and then lets it go, it's shaking.

"I can't do anything," she tells him, though she realizes that might not make any sense to him. "My powers. They're gone."

It's impossible, she doesn't know any reason why she might have lost them, but there's no denying it. Every time she tries to get what she wants, people just ignore her.

[writtenby_caden]

For a second, Caden is taken aback by the anger in her expression. He knows that it isn't with him, especially after what she says. He frowns in confusion and reaches out to rest a hand on her shoulder.

"Are you sure?" Caden can't help but to ask, although she's obviously troubled. Something is wrong. "You can try them on me."

He doesn't even hesitate before making the offer. Caden trusts April, even with this.

[seas_open]

"Caden, go kiss that woman standing by the coffee shop who keeps looking at you like she wants to eat you up," she suggests, her voice gentle and inviting. The musical tone is just gone from her voice and while she still sounds like herself, the way she sounds when she's using her powers doesn't come out any longer. Two days ago if she had told Caden to go kiss someone else, he might have been confused by his own desire to do it, but he would have done it in the end.

Now he doesn't move. And that's fine, she prefers that he not go kiss someone else, but he'd asked her to use them on him and she can't. She doesn't have powers anymore. They're gone.

[writtenby_caden]

Some wild, irrational part of Caden does want to go kiss that woman, if only because it might make April stop looking so upset. It's a thought that flits crazily through his mind and disappears, and it wasn't April's powers that put it there. He stays rooted to the spot and watches her, brows furrowed in confusion. She still sounds like herself, still lovely, but that musical tone that always puts Caden at ease is missing.

"Okay, we should--" Caden cuts himself off, because he doesn't know what to do. This is completely over his head, but he wants to help. He reaches out to take April's hand and squeezes it, looking at her earnestly. "Let's go back to my place, okay? We can call Coop. Or Joel. Maybe it's a witch that did it."

It's Caden's first thought, even though he doesn't really know anything about how this all works. Could a witch take a siren's powers? Is there a spell for that? He thinks of Ursula from The Little Mermaid for another dizzy moment, and shakes the thought away.

[seas_open]

She doesn't want to ask Spencer's husband for help, at least partly because she's certain he won't give it to her. He has to be a nice enough man if he's married to someone like Spencer, but he doesn't like her and she's never done anything to make it any easier on him. It's probably better to call Coop or Les, but she just nods, taking Caden's hand and squeezing it in return.

"Alright," she agrees. "Maybe Les. He's powerful." And he seems to know a lot about this town, information others might not be privy to. Most of the time she isn't sure how he knows as much as he does, but if he can help her, she isn't going to question it.

[coopdetat]

It isn't often that Coop actually comes to the boardwalk, mostly because there never really seems to be any point in coming somewhere so crowded with tourists in the summertime when he has his own stretch of beach right in his backyard. He'd only ended up here today because one of his patients' owners had told him about her five-year-old's dreams of becoming a singer and that she'd be setting up shop out here for the afternoon.

So Coop had shown up because whatever, kids are cute sometimes and besides that, Kath has been a longtime client so a little support for her tyke isn't the biggest sacrifice he's ever made. Unfortunately, it only takes him about ten minutes to decide that he doesn't think Kath's daughter's going to be on Ellen anytime soon so it's with a fake victory cheer sent her way that he bails and goes for some ice cream.

When he catches sight of April, he brightens because he'd already known she and Caden were back in town, but she hasn't come back to work yet so really, it's kind of just nice to see that she's still alive with his own two eyes. He orders a second soft serve cone and heads toward her, arching a brow when he notes the way she seems to be staring at the ocean like it's wronged her in some way.

"This is what you're avoiding work for?" he asks when he reaches her, giving her a small smirk and a wink. "You know, maybe if you look at it more like you're going to fuck it up, you'll scare that water into making better waves for me to surf. Also, here, I got you ice cream."

[seas_open]

She wants to be angry. She wants to find whoever is responsible for this and make them pay for it, because that's the only possible explanation as to why she's lost her powers. This doesn't just happen to sirens, someone has to be behind it. With the idea that she might no longer have her powers, that she might just be reduced to a human comes the sort of fear she hasn't felt in a long time. Her powers are what kept her going through her years in foster care, they're the only reason she escaped unscathed, and now they're gone.

But Coop has brought her ice cream. Try as she might, it's a bit difficult to hold onto her anger in the face of that and she turns to look at him, the rage bleeding out of her expression until she's looking at him and the ice cream with a vaguely disturbed frown. "Thank you," she says, reaching out to take the cone from him before she looks back out at the water briefly. If her powers are gone, if they're really gone, she won't be able to swim like she used to and it's that thought more than any other that upsets her.

"My powers are gone, Coop," she says, her voice strangely flat. It feels weird to say, leaves a cold space in the pit of her stomach. "They're just gone." Nothing can make that any better, not unless she can find the person responsible and make them pay. A little bit of rage flares up in her again and her hand tightens on the railing, her nails pressing against the metal until she's afraid one of them might snap off from the pressure.

"I mean, hi," she adds a second later. "It's good to see you." And as angry as she might be, she still means that. If she were to leave Siren Cove, there isn't many people she would miss, but he's one of them. Whenever she considers leaving, it's thinking of people like Coop that convinces her to stay for a little while longer.

[coopdetat]

"You so did not mean 'hi, good to see you,'" Coop says, rolling his eyes, though it's meant to be good-natured. "Let's go back to the whole 'your powers are gone, Coop' thing because the one time something like that happened to me, a bunch of was were like, marooned on a bullshit island after going on that bullshit cruise last year so it'd be really good to get to the bottom of whatever the hell's going on with you."

Coop realizes this isn't necessarily the best comfort he could offer, and he's capable of offering some pretty damn good comfort most of the time, but he doesn't think April's looking for coddling. Maybe the ice cream had made her look a little less homicidal but he can hear it in her voice, see it in her eyes, there's something empty about her right now that he's really not a fan of having to witness. This isn't the April he knows, the April who always looks so goddamn confident in her own skin, whichever one she happens to be wearing, and Coop's never seen her in her siren form but it's not like that matters.

There's always been something under that surface, something he's never been able to put his finger on because she's so guarded, and Coop's always respected that. Everyone's got their issues, everyone's got the rights to their secrets, and he figures that if she wants to tell him shit, she will. It's how he's always operated, not because he doesn't care but because it's worked for him, and it's worked for his friends. Right now, he'll be happy to stand here in silence with her if that's what she needs but if there's something, anything, that she can think of that might have led to her powers being gone, he'll be there to help work that out, too.

Whatever she needs, Coop will provide as best as he can. He's just a great boss like that.

"Hey," he says, this time a bit more gently, "if you want me to help you figure this out, I will. Just know that, okay? And if you want me to keep my mouth shut and let you be angry, I'll do that, too. Not for long, though, you know I have trouble staying quiet."

[seas_open]

She rolls her eyes, but the expression is more playful than annoyed as she licks the ice cream and tries to figure out what the best course of action might actually be. Fighting this on her own would be preferable simply because she doesn't like to be indebted to anyone and even though she trusts Coop, it still makes her a little nervous to think she might owe him down the line even if she doubts he would ever look at it like that. People in general have often proven to be untrustworthy and as a result she doesn't trust them, but it's been easy with Coop right from the start. She's not sure she'd ever say this to him, but he's made things easier for her in ways she doesn't even entirely understand.

"I do want to figure it out," she says. "I can't be without my powers, it's... it feels wrong." Her powers have saved her more times than she can count. They've kept her safe in the most dangerous of situations, they've given her confidence and a way to get out of anything that makes her uncomfortable. They literally kept her out of dangerous hands when she was being passed through the foster system and made it so she could keep other boys and girls out of abusive situations as well, though she knows she hadn't been able to save everyone she encountered. She's not a hero by any means, her desire to have her powers back are entirely selfish. If she truly cared that much, she would have stayed in Canada, become a social worker, used her powers for actual good instead of using them to make money. She's not fooling herself into thinking she wants them back for some noble purpose.

She wants them back because she feels vulnerable without them. Susceptible to any dangerous person out there in the world.

"I don't know how to be without them," she says after a moment, finally looking over at him. "It feels dangerous. It makes me feel like I can't defend myself."

[coopdetat]

"It happened to me once," Coop tells her, catching a drip of ice cream before it manages to slip all the way down the cone, and he glances at her before shifting his gaze back to the ocean. "That cruise last year, after the boat exploded, we all ended up on this island, right? All these people were hurt. They were crying and bleeding and begging for someone to help, and I've got the power to heal, even if it's not all the way, and what can't I do? Fucking heal."

It'd been a hell of a blow, and he remembers what Joel had said in his pained stupor about feeling like he was missing a limb because his magic was gone, too, and Coop sighs. "So it's not the same thing, but I kind of get it. Relying on powers to get you through certain things and not having them when you feel like you need them most, I get that. And I don't know who the hell would mess with you like this, but I promise you we'll figure it out. I'm very well known for keeping my promises."

He pauses because he's not sure that's actually true but at the very least, he's definitely not known for breaking them.

"Anyway, I'm well known for following through when I say I want to help my friends. You ever feel like you need someone to back you up in the meantime, you can always call me. I know you've got Caden, but you've got me, too. Don't forget that." He takes another lick of his ice cream before shifting to face her more, leaning his elbow against the rail. "Okay, so first thing's first, I guess. Have you pissed anyone off lately who'd want to take your powers?"

[seas_open]

"That's shit," she says. "I'm sorry." Because it is shit. If he felt anything like she feels now, it has to have been terrible and she doesn't use her powers to help anyone but herself. Coop is a good guy who wants to help others, who uses what he can do to make people feel better. She knows he uses his powers to help Spencer's husband find him when he was missing and there are times when she wonders if she would ever do something like that. The reality is that she likely wouldn't. If she was able to help someone, unless there was something in it for her, she probably wouldn't bother, because it isn't like very many people have bothered to help her.

Not even her own family.

"Not lately, not that I know of, but I've pissed off a lot of people over the course of my life," she answers, figuring she might as well tell Coop the truth if he's going to offer to help her. "I've taken a lot of money from a lot of different men and I doubt any of them were particularly happy about it."