Raleigh Harper / Emily Watkins (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
callmeemily) wrote2014-11-25 10:46 pm
callmeemily) wrote2014-11-25 10:46 pm
Closed: Coop
The moment she hangs up the phone, Raleigh's closing the bakery.
It doesn't matter that it's not closing time. She quietly asks the people there to leave - says she has an emergency and she needs to go. Her heart's pounding in her throat, because what Spencer said made no sense.
The house is a mess, it's damaged, and Joel's in the hospital, but when she said that she'd come, that she'd be there, he said that they need space. Just for tonight, Spencer and Joel need space, and she'd just stared at the phone when she'd hung it up.
There's a part of her that gets it. There is. Spencer and Joel have something between them that she's never had, and she knows that. If there's such a thing as true love, if there's love at first sight, they've got it.
But then there's the other part. There's the other part that's scared and confused. Spencer and Joel are her family; they know her better than anyone else in this town, and she thinks of them as siblings, and to just get such an odd explanation - that the house is a mess, and not to worry, and Joel's in the hospital and he'll be alright, but they need space tonight- she doesn't even know what to think. If it had been Matt, nothing would have kept her away, but now... because it's Spencer who asked, she has no idea what to do.
There's no way she's going to the hospital - she might be confused, but there's no reason for her to fly in the face of what's honestly a reasonable request. She's scared; Spencer said Joel would be fine, but that doesn't explain why he's in the hospital to start with. Still, she closes up shop and goes home, because... because. Because where else would she go?
She walks up the steps to the porch with trepidation, tugging out her keys to unlock the front door. After she opened it, she heard someone; a footstep, maybe, but she freezes in the doorway, her heart in her throat. "Hello?"
It doesn't matter that it's not closing time. She quietly asks the people there to leave - says she has an emergency and she needs to go. Her heart's pounding in her throat, because what Spencer said made no sense.
The house is a mess, it's damaged, and Joel's in the hospital, but when she said that she'd come, that she'd be there, he said that they need space. Just for tonight, Spencer and Joel need space, and she'd just stared at the phone when she'd hung it up.
There's a part of her that gets it. There is. Spencer and Joel have something between them that she's never had, and she knows that. If there's such a thing as true love, if there's love at first sight, they've got it.
But then there's the other part. There's the other part that's scared and confused. Spencer and Joel are her family; they know her better than anyone else in this town, and she thinks of them as siblings, and to just get such an odd explanation - that the house is a mess, and not to worry, and Joel's in the hospital and he'll be alright, but they need space tonight- she doesn't even know what to think. If it had been Matt, nothing would have kept her away, but now... because it's Spencer who asked, she has no idea what to do.
There's no way she's going to the hospital - she might be confused, but there's no reason for her to fly in the face of what's honestly a reasonable request. She's scared; Spencer said Joel would be fine, but that doesn't explain why he's in the hospital to start with. Still, she closes up shop and goes home, because... because. Because where else would she go?
She walks up the steps to the porch with trepidation, tugging out her keys to unlock the front door. After she opened it, she heard someone; a footstep, maybe, but she freezes in the doorway, her heart in her throat. "Hello?"
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That hadn't been difficult to say no to, and Spencer hadn't asked him to do any cleaning but how could he not? There are still places on the floor that are wet and the hallway reeks of liquor from the bottles that had broken; there's still blood on the wall from where Spencer had been thrown back and hit his head, a jagged crack from where his body had been slammed. There are two holes in another wall by the bathroom, like they'd been punched through, and more cracks like another body had been thrown--Joel's, probably, because the guy had definitely not been in good shape. The demon had put him the ringer for fucking sure, and Coop cringes at the memories of what he'd seen as he straightens up to meet Raleigh at the door.
He's already managed to heal most of the cuts he'd gotten from the glass the demon had thrown in his direction, though some of them he hadn't been able to reach and others had been too deep to heal completely. He's got one of Joel's shirts on, a looser one, just because he hadn't wanted to be wearing anything bloody or cut up when Raleigh got home, which he thinks is fair enough. He's pretty sure Joel had chosen not to tell her--or even his sister--about this, had kept it pretty under wraps except for Spencer and the select few people he'd thought could help banish the demon. He doesn't know what he's supposed to tell her, if he's supposed to tell her anything, because by the time he'd thought to ask, Spencer had already been carried away on the stretcher and loaded into the ambulance. So he'll play it by ear, that's fine, he does it all the time. He just hopes he manages to do the right thing without making Raleigh feel any worse than she will from coming home to... this/
"It's Coop," he calls out to her, rounding the corner with a broom in one hand and tray full of glass in the other. He offers a crooked smile, nodding down at the glass. "Don't be mad, but I think we partied a little too hard today."
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The place where it jumps first - Mark - is something she's not even going to voice. If it was Mark, Spencer would have told her - and Spencer would probably have been in far worse shape, but she rubs her arms with her hands, and she tries to smile a little. "And nobody called me? You know I'm the life of the party." The words are completly flat - they don't even sound remotely real, but she's finally moving forward, and it's the cautious way that a cat tries to scope out a new room, peering around corners before going into rooms, no sudden movements.
"Were you here? When-" She doesn't want to tell Coop that she's got no idea what's going on - she's sort of scared that there's a reason that Spencer didn't tell her, and if there's not.... if there's no reason, then she's not sure she wants to know that right now, either. "When it happened?" That's what she ends up saying, and she can smell the liquor just soaking the floor, but when she stops, it's because she's staring at the blood on the wall. She swallows thickly, and her chin wobbles as she finally asks, "Is he okay?" Finally turning to look at him, Raleigh looks like she's seen a ghost, but she's worried, to be honest. She's worried for both Joel and Spencer, and she's got no idea Coop's even hurt.
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"I was here," he answers, following her gaze to the blood on the wall, and he wishes he'd thought to try to scrub that away first. The glass had seemed more of an immediate concern--and it was, he knows he'd made the right choice there but it's kind of hard to reconcile that logic with the look on Raleigh's face--but standing in the hallway with a pan full of it while her attention is focused firmly on that wall, Coop feels like a complete moron.
He carefully sets the pan and broom down and takes a step toward her, wiping his hands on his jeans before hesitantly reaching one hand out to rest on her shoulder. It's meant to be a comforting gesture, he's not sure if really is. He's not sure if there's anything that could really comfort a person in a moment like this. "And yeah, he's okay. Both of them. Joel's got a broken rib, he hurt his hand, there's-- I'm not sure about the rest, Spencer was a litte frantic about it on the phone, so I couldn't make it all out." His eyes flicker to the bloodstain then back to Raleigh. "Spencer, his shoulder's dislocated and he hit his head, but they're okay."
He wants to sit her down and tell her everything, beginning to end, but it's not his place. There's a part of him screaming that it doesn't matter, that if their positions were reversed, he wouldn't care who told him what happened as long as someone told him. This is Raleigh's home, too, after all, and as well as Spencer might have meant when he'd called her to tell her not to worry, Coop knows her well enough by now to know that just a phone call like that could never fly. He doesn't blame his friend, everyone who knows Spencer knows what--who--his priority is, but Coop can see the bigger picture here. It's written all over Raleigh's face.
"It's over," he tells her softly, squeezing her shoulder. "That's not an explanation, I know it's not good enough but I can't answer everything because Joel needs to be the one who does that, and I know you're freaked out but... Just know that the thing that caused this is over, okay?
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He says both of them, and her eyes flare wider. She hadn't realised that Spencer was hurt, especially not that hurt - a dislocated shoulder isn't a scraped knee, and him hitting his head - she's pretty sure it's not him bumping into something, or else Coop wouldn't have mentioned it.
There's blood on the wall, and it's either from Spencer's head, Joel's hand, or that something else, and Raleigh pulls in a deep breath. "Are you okay?" It's not what she wants to ask, but she doesn't even know where to start, looking back around the mess of the room, knowing it's not even all of it.
He says it's over - he says that it's over, and that he can't answer everything - and by that, she knows he means what happened, and her eyes are shiny as she looks around the room again, and her eyes keep going back to the blood on the wall. "I- I, uh. I knew something was the matter. I mean, I live with them both, and there was something wrong, but- but whenever I'd ask him how he was, he'd say he was fine, or they'd talk about the other stuff going on with them-" She realises then that her hands are shaking, they're shaking and it's because she's staring at the blood on the wall, and she presses them flat on her thighs so that they'll stop.
"I live here," she says finally, quietly, and she's never sounded so lost the entire time Coop's known her. "I thought- I know it's Spencer's house. I know. I just thought-"
She doesn't know what to say anymore, and she takes a deep breath. "I- I can help you clean up." It's all she can think to say, because Coop's already said that he doesn't have answers. "I mean, if you're hurt, I can get it?" She sounds just as unsure as she feels, because she doesn't know what else to do. She finally looks up at him, looking away from the wall for now. Away from the blood.
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"I'm fine," he tells her, and it's not the whole truth because there are some deeper cuts on his back that he hadn't been able to fully heal--it's possible, too, that they need stitches--but he's not leaving this house tonight unless Raleigh does. It's not all that painful anyway, the cuts just sting a little and they're nothing compared to the hell Joel's gone through today and even Spencer's worse off than Coop is. He wouldn't really feel right going in to the hospital to complain about something that doesn't amount to much at all. So yeah, he's fine except for all the ways he's not, and it isn't just tonight that makes it that way but those few nights he'd spent in the cave thinking about all the reasons why he's surrounded by so many great people and yet somehow still so alone.
That's not useful here, though, and he wants to be useful because his role in this little demon banishing shindig had been pretty minor. Spencer had called him first, but he's not the one who knows how to do anything. Les and Nerium, they're the ones who'd gotten rid of the thing for good, and Spencer... Well, he's the reason the demon left Joel's body in the fucking first place. Coop? He'd made a few phone calls, he'd woken Spencer up from being smashed into a wall, and he'd held him up so he could work his whole true love mojo on his husband. Now he's here because he wants to be able to say he'd done something today that really mattered. Making sure the house doesn't look like complete hell the next time his friends come back, that matters. Being here for Raleigh when he knows she's scared, that matters.
"I was thinking of trying to scrub at the wall next," he says, sighing as he looks back at the bloodstain. "Spencer, he-- Well, that's where he hurt his head. But he is okay, Raleigh, I promise. Doctors ran an MRI because of how much he's been knocked around lately and everything came back clean, he's more pissed that they weren't letting him see Joel yet than anything else." He pauses, staring down at his feet for a long moment because he suddenly doesn't know what else to say. "I-- Look, if there's one thing you can be sure of, it's that those two guys adore you. If they kept you in the dark, it's because they thought it was the right thing to you, and I know maybe that isn't good enough but it is what it is, right? So if you want to help with the cleanup, that's cool, it's your place, too. But if it's going to be too much, there's nothing wrong with that and we can just, I don't know. Turn the TV on or something. Bake a cake, whatever."
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It's hard. It's hard, because all she can think...
Coop says a lot, he says a lot that all makes sense, and Raleigh nods, and she's hugging herself, and she sort of hates what she says instead of what she should say. She knows she should nod, that she should be okay with it, she just keeps looking at the damned wall, and her voice cracks. "He could have died," she said it quietly, and she looks at Coop, and she just feels lost. "Both of them, really, but Spencer, with the wall like that, he could have died."
It scared her; it scared her so much, and she's not angry that she didn't know, she's just- she's reeling, because when Spencer said that the house was a mess and stuff was broken, she didn't think it was this. She didn't think that his head would have been hit into the wall that hard, that they'd both had injuries like this. She doesn't even know how to wrap her brain around that; what a life without them would be like, and that's maybe why she's so floored, or surprised. Spencer is such a keystone in her life, now; it's been a little more distant for the past month or so because of just... life in general, but she really does think of him as her brother, and it's terrifying to think of coming him and finding him, lying on the floor.
She hates that she's trying not to cry, and maybe- maybe for once, she thinks that maybe she should take what Coop's offering. He's offering to be there for her, and that means something. She turns, and hugs him - not realising that his back is messed up, she hugs him as she says, "I'm so glad nothing happened to you."