seas_open | [Closed - Caden, Coop, Les & Robert]

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[Closed - Caden, Coop, Les & Robert]

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.

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"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."

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."

"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?"

"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."

Coop only nods his agreement because this whole thing right now isn't about him, it's about what's going on with April. He'd had his time to feel like crap, like there'd been nothing he could possibly to do help anyone when it's the only thing he'd wanted at the time, but the thing is, he'd gotten his powers back. He can heal again, he can dreamwalk again, he can do all the things he's supposed to be able to do, and April is the one left without that same comfort. Sirens' powers are different from witches', but they're still effective on each other if there aren't protective charms in play, so he supposes it could be anything responsible for taking April's powers away from her.

Which makes the whole thing a hell of a lot more difficult but that's not going to keep Coop from trying to help.

Granted, he doesn't expect her to admit to pretty much being a con artist, so he lets a long moment of silence pass as he blinks dumbly at her while he continues to look at his ice cream, if only because he doesn't want the goddamn thing to melt all over his hand. He's sure he looks like a full-blown moron right now, standing there trying to process what she's so casually told him, but he's not really sure what else he's expected to do.

"Okay," he says slowly, "okay, so I'm a little fuzzy on the details but that on its own pretty much sounds like a decent reason for one of those guys to want revenge. I'm thinking I'm going to need a little more sharing time, though, you know? Just to like, maybe clear a few things up? If you're up for it, I mean."

She almost laughs when Coop just stares at his ice cream and as it is, the corners of her mouth turn up into a small smile. It's more than she's managed all morning and somehow it doesn't surprise her even remotely that it's Coop who manages to make it happen. It's always been easy to be around him, to be free of expectations, and he's strangely been the one to encourage the most open and honest relationship she has in Siren Cove. Robert might know more about her, but that's only because he's kept tabs on her through the years, which is still sort of creepy. Les and Caden both know a fair bit, too, but it's hard to avoid sharing things in a relationship -- which she has to admit she's in -- and she's done her best not to be completely closed off. It's a struggle at times, but she's doing what she can.

With Coop it's different. She doesn't think she'd be able to explain it if she tried, but she knows if she'd had a friend like him a long time ago, she might not be quite the woman she is today. If pressed, she wouldn't be able to say if that was something she would prefer or something that would undo everything about her that she likes.

"Agreed," she says and the prospect of coming clean should maybe be a little more frightening than this, but she's tired. Her powers are gone and she feels strangely empty without them and she's tired. Eventually she's going to have to tell Caden and as much as she doesn't want to, because she doesn't imagine he's going to react well, maybe she can think of this as something of a trial run. Coop can ask what he wants and she can be as honest as she's able and maybe it'll build up to what she'll need to say to Caden. "We can do that. I'll... do my best to explain."

"Bench," he says, waving vaguely in some direction or another, Coop isn't actually paying attention because he's tilting his head at April now and trying to envision her conning the more insanely rich assholes out of their money. It's really not that difficult, and he thinks maybe this is the kind of thing people should probably frown upon or something, but he's gotten to know April too well over the course of the year to think poorly of her in any way.

In all fairness, she hasn't tried to con him, so that's probably easier for him to say than those other dudes. He's pretty sure they must have all deserved it, though.

He starts to walk to the nearest empty bench, gesturing for April to follow, and lowers himself down with a sigh that's more indicative of his mental preparation for what she'll be telling him than anything else. "Okay," he says, taking a bite of his cone and snorting at how ridiculously inappropriate the sound of the crunch is in the face of something that's probably somewhat serious. But it eases the mood a little, and he's able to lean back against the bench with the tension that's built in his shoulders slowly fading away. "Okay, I'm totally listening."

Now that they're here, now that they're sitting down and she's presented with the actual opportunity to tell someone all that's happened, she finds she doesn't really know where to begin. She sinks down onto the bench beside him and concentrates on eating her ice cream for a moment as she tries to decide what might be the best place for her to begin. It honestly all starts with her childhood and she doesn't want to go that far back, she doesn't want to start telling Coop about what it was like growing up in a series of foster homes or that she learned to use her powers by making sure no one hurt her or the children she was with.

"I didn't know I was a siren," she says. "Not until I was in my teens. My parents... well, Robert fucked off and my mom was an addict, so my sister and I were taken away and I had no idea, but I knew I could do things. I could make people do things just by telling them to and when you grow up in foster care..." She trails off and shrugs. "There's a lot of reason to tell people what not to do, anyway. There was no one to really take care of me, no one to help me figure out how to go to college and when I realized what I was and that I could just make people give me their money, that seemed a hell of a lot easier than trying to find a legitimate job."

And it was. It is easy and she loves it. She doesn't feel guilty, she doesn't see any reason why she should.

"I don't target men with children," she says. "I don't target good men. The people I've taken money from have generally been assholes, but that also means they might be more inclined to take revenge." She pauses, then smiles faintly and looks over at Coop. "I'm still wanted to New York and Alabama."

Coop can't really relate to any of that, he's never known a life that hasn't involved two loving parents who've wanted absolutely nothing but the best for him. They'd helped him pay for school, they'd supported him in his move to France, and they'd taken him back in until he'd managed to get the clinic up and running when he'd return to Siren Cove with a heart in desperate need of repair. Occasionally, his mom still needles at him about when he's going to finally try to settle down again because he'd been so close once, and Coop often has to resist the urge to shout at her that the fact that he'd been so close then is exactly why he doesn't want to get that close ever again; but he always manages to resist because it's never coming from a hurtful place.

When he'd discovered his own powers, his parents had gently talked him through what it meant to be a witch, what it meant to be responsibilities that other people don't simply because he was powerful in ways they could never be. April hadn't had that, she hadn't had a support system that taught her using her powers to manipulate whenever she wanted would be a bad thing; but she'd learned it herself.

She only targets certain people, the kind of men who don't deserve all the fortune in their lives because they hadn't achieved it in an honorable way. Coop takes issue with that just by hearing it because he's a guy who does things because they're right, at least he tries to be, and he knows he's not perfect by any means but he takes comfort in knowing that he's April's friend. Not just another potential target.

"You did what you had to do," he says, his voice steadier than he thought it would be, and Coop firmly meets her gaze. "But you were alone then. You're not alone now, you have people who want to look out for you. People like me, because I give a shit about what happens to you. So if any of these guys are coming at you for revenge, if they're responsible for what's going on with your powers, then you can count me in on taking any goddamn one of them down. It doesn't matter to me what you've done in the past. Doesn't even matter what you might do in the future. All I know is that you're my friend. Nothing you've told me changes that."

It isn't at all what April expects to hear and for a moment she just looks at Coop as if she's trying to read him. She doesn't think poorly of him and she doesn't think he's the kind of person who just abandons people when they do something he might not particularly like, but what she's just told him is rather huge. In some states she's still considered a wanted criminal, she's broken the law over and over again, she's amassed a good amount of money based solely on her lies and for some reason he's still sitting next to her, not only telling her he'll still be her friend but that he'll help her with whatever she needs to do in order to get her powers back.

April has no idea what she's ever done to deserve such loyalty, but for a second she can't quite believe it's being so freely given.

She's suspicious of it, but not because of anything Coop has or hasn't done. It happens because she's spent her life on her own, the only person she can trust or rely on, and while this isn't the first time he's offered something else, while he's not even the first person to offer such support, it still takes her off guard for a moment.

"I haven't done a job in a long time," she says. "Not since I came here." She doesn't think she needs to defend what she does, but she wants him to know that anyway. "I don't know what I'll do in the future, but I do know that I like working for you."

She pauses, then smiles a little and she doesn't know what to say to make him understand that what he's said means a lot to her. She's never been good at anything like this, expressing herself when it's genuine, making people understand when she cares. Finally she says, "At least I didn't give you a fake name."

"Can't blame you," he answers, shrugging a shoulder as he leans against the bench and casually drapes an arm over the back with an exaggerated stretch. "I'm pretty fucking fantastic, if you hadn't already noticed, I think I'd like working for me, too."

Coop's turned to teasing to ease any tension, to squash any sense of discomfort or uncertainty or even suspicion April might have toward him now that he knows more of the truth about her past. She doesn't need to give him the gory details if she doesn't want to, and he'll never ask for them because they're her stories to tell and her choice of whether she wants to talk about them or not; but what he says remains true, she's his friend, and Coop would do anything for the people he cares about.

"And hell, I don't know for sure that you didn't. You could be like, I don't know. Mable Cross. June Chandler. Avril Lavgine. What do I know? Going to need some receipts here, my friend, I probably should have demanded a social security card before hiring you."

"You could just ask my father," she points out with an amused grin. "He's the one who named me, after all." She has her mother's last name, but she's certain it's Robert who picked her first name. It's not the sort of thing she's ever asked him, she only has a feeling, but given her mother's issues, she's pretty sure the woman's interest in her daughter had begun and ended with the night she'd been conceived.

Usually she doesn't want anyone she knows to converse with her father, but somehow she has a feeling Coop is one of the few people who could really hold his own under Robert's scrutiny. He and April are only friends, which would make it a little easier she expects, but she also just doesn't imagine Coop would care much one way or the other what Robert thinks of him. Which is how it should be. She doesn't care what Robert thinks of her most of the time and she's his daughter.

"Though with his reputation, he'd probably just lie about it anyway," she says with a smirk. "I do have a birth certificate somewhere." Not somewhere, she knows exactly where it is. Everything April needs to exist and disappear at any time is always kept in her bag. Her identification -- both real and fake -- and everything else she would need is always on hand for a quick escape if one is ever needed.

"Think I'll pass," Coop says with a smirk. "I'm great with parents, moms love me. The dads never seem, too, though." It's not often that he actually meets the parents of any of the people he's sleeping with, but it's a small town and there have been some partners who'd been less accepting of the fact that he hadn't been interested in starting a real relationship than others. He gets it, sex means different things to different people, and that's why he's as honest as he is before falling into bed with someone. If people think he's an asshole for that, he figures that's understandable, simply because it's not like everyone has the same view as he does.

There's a flicker in his expression then as he thinks of what Raleigh had said to him, of how she'd talked to him like he'd done something wrong by not wanting to risk their friendship for what could have led to a fuck, and Coop knows she's not herself right now but the words still sting. They still make him wonder if there's a part of what she's said that's actually right.

But that's not where his head should be at right now. It needs to be here, with April, with a friend in need even if she might never outright ask for help.

"Do you think your dad could help with this, though?" he asks, straightening up against the bench before leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees."I mean, he could probably find out who did this, right? If he's able to figure that out, we can really start to make a plan to get your powers back. Because we are getting them back."

He sounds so sure of it that April can't help but believe him. She may not be entirely convinced Robert can help her, not because he isn't capable but because she doesn't want to owe him anything, but there are others. Coop sounds determined and she knows Les isn't going to just stand by and let something like this happen to her. It's perhaps a little petty, but she feels good about that, knowing Les will help her regardless of her strained relationship with his girlfriend.

And knowing Coop will help, too, means a lot. She looks over at him and shrugs deeply. "With my father, you never really know what he might be willing to do," she says. "He claims he cares and wants to help, but I can't help but think if that were true, I wouldn't have spent my childhood in foster care. I don't trust his help. It feels like it comes with strings attached."

Maybe she's wrong, maybe these are just her issues at play, the lack of trust she has for most people coming back to bite her. But if there's anyone to blame for that, she thinks it might well be Robert. April doesn't like to think of her life like that, as something broken that can be blamed on the bad behaviour of her parents, but there are times when it feels fitting.

What she says about her dad isn't unfair, and Coop is sure he'd have a hell of a hard time trusting a guy who would do that to him, too. He wonders if maybe there's a way to turn the tables, find enough leverage to make Robert help, but he realizes that he doesn't even know where to start with doing something like that. He's not a conman, he's never lied to someone for material gain--except for that one time he'd tricked a friend in elementary school into giving him a Star Wars toy, but he'd ended up being forced to give it back--and this isn't the kind of world he's ever been interested in being a part of.

And yet, he's willing to be part of it now. For a friend, for someone he's come to care more deeply about than maybe he'd even realized, Coop really does want to do what needs to be done to make sure April's okay. In a way, he thinks that should be a frightening realization, to understand what lengths he'd go to for someone important to him, but it turns out that it isn't. If anything, it only makes him understand himself better. The kind of man he is, the kind of man he's always intended to be, this is all just a part of that.

"Well, maybe you'll have to figure out a way to con the conman," he says, "and maybe it won't be easy, but that's what people like me and Les and Caden are for, we'll have your back." He shouldn't speak for the others, he knows that, but Coop has to imagine that they'd never walk away from April. He's learning more and more that it's an insanely difficult thing to do.

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[Closed - Caden, Coop, Les & Robert]

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