callmeemily | I don't need fixing. [CLOSED]

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I don't need fixing. [CLOSED]

"Look, so, I got your message," Raleigh started the second that she opened the door to her apartment and Joel was there. There wasn't even hesitation, and she didn't say hello, either. Honestly, she doesn't even care, but she just assumes that Joel's very normal sounding voicemail just checking in was related to the fact that his name was on lease for the bakery, and it hadn't even been open in two weeks.

Really, she didn't care. She was just so tired. Every day was a little worse, and she just was sleeping all the time, wrapped in an old t-shirt of Spencer's and a pair of oversized sweatpants she'd gotten from Goodwill. "Don't worry, I'm making the lease payments, I've got money saved up." Not a lot, and way less now than she had, but she'd not gotten around to canceling the autopay.

"I'm not feeling great, so it's nice that you checked in, but you don't need to-" Raleigh stopped in the middle of her sentence, because that's when she realised that Joel wasn't alone. "What's going on?"

She opens the door a little more - not on purpose, not to let them in, but so she can see into the hall. They can see into her apartment, too, and where Raleigh's in front of them with greasy hair, dark circles under her eyes, and a tinge to her skin that says not-good things, her apartment's worse. There's old pizza boxes, clothes everywhere, empty mugs, paper plates-- not weird for a bachelor pad, but even at the worst of times, Raleigh kept wherever she was neat and pulled together. Worse still is her aura-- it'd been brown before, with almost all of the bright bits gone, but now it was more grey than not, even the brown was leeching away. All that she knows is that she wants to go back to bed, to tell the truth.

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Mira has been in charge of the research, but Joel knows enough to know pieces of Raleigh aren't where they're supposed to be. So far he hasn't figured out what's behind all this or where they can go from here, but he's hoping with Coop's help they'll be able to try some kind of spell and figure out the best way to deal with it. It's not likely a demon, it's not likely the same sort of thing he'd been through himself, which is probably for the best. Joel isn't sure they'd be able to do anything at all in that case, not when his own experience had proven to be so harrowing and the only thing that had been able to help him was the strength from Spencer.

He'd still needed to fight in the end. He had needed to beat the thing. No one else could help with that.

"Something is wrong," he says, knowing she's probably going to get mad at him, maybe even yell at him again, but he's beyond caring. He pushes his way into the apartment and tries not to look at her too closely, because looking at her like this is painful. He doesn't know what to do.

He'd promised Sylvie that he'd do everything he can to make sure they figure out what the hell has been going on with Raleigh, and Coop admits that he could have done a better job of it but the truth is, he's still been stinging from the shit Raleigh had said to him at Comic Con. He hasn't even seen her since then, and he hasn't been sure that he wanted to but when Joel and Mira had gotten in touch with him about really getting down to the problem, Coop couldn't say no.

He hangs in the doorway for a moment after Joel walks in, glancing at Mira with something resembling guilt in his expression before briefly meeting Raleigh's accusatory eyes and following his friend into the apartment. The look of the place surprises him, though he manages to keep his expression neutral, and there's absolutely no question in his mind now that this isn't just unexpected behavior. There's something wrong, seriously wrong, and he has no fucking clue what it is yet but now that all three of them are here, Coop's more confident that they can figure it out.

There's not even really anything he can think of to say, he just crosses the room to stand next to Joel and crosses his arms over his chest, a preemptive defensive measure against whatever it is Raleigh--or not Raleigh, as the case may be--comes up with to throw at them. She can give them her worst, he thinks, but this isn't Raleigh. This isn't their friend; and there's no way in hell they're going to give up on getting her back.

"Joel..." She's not yelling - she doesn't even really have the energy, she just sounds sort of annoyed and tired, to be honest. "What are you doing? I said-" and that's the second that Coop comes in, and her lips press together in a thin line. "Get out. Both of you, get out of my apartment." And then just to Coop - "I don't know why you even came here. I thought we were pretty clear on the you telling me to go fuck myself and me telling you to have a nice life that this isn't exactly a hangout space."

It's the most words she's spoken to anyone in a week and a half, since Davin came and took Oscar. Pulling the door open to get them out, she found herself face to face with Mira.

"What?" Swiveling around, she looks back at Joel. "Why did you bring them here? Just- Just get out. All of you. Okay? I just want you to leave me alone. Nothing is wrong, I'm fine, just... go." She can't even pull up the energy to sound angry, it's just pure weariness instead.

Since they went clubbing, Mira hasn't talked much to Raleigh, has sort of avoided it even when she knew this couldn't be her in any normal way. It just sort of flooded her with an anxiety and a lack of knowing. Despite how embarrassed and hurt she was, still is, and despite having at least some grasp on what might be going on, she feels like an awful friend, looking at her apartment -- looking at her.

If this was any other situation, she'd have abandoned her best friend in the midst of what looks superficially like overwhelming depression, and she can't shake that feeling. That maybe if she'd hung out through it, let her treat her however she wanted, it'd have prevented something. As stupid as that is, with everything she's reading about.

"I'm sorry," she says, pressing her lips together, and she uses Coop as a convenient box-out to get past Raleigh, her bag full of books. She starts picking up pizza boxes, stacking things briskly. "You don't have to talk to us, but we're not going."

Edited 2015-08-18 17:58 (UTC)

He's not above telling her to shut up again, even though he knows this isn't really Raleigh speaking, and his jaw tightens as she begins to speak. She starts in on Coop and he has to resist the urge to grab her by the arm and haul her off toward her room like a child throwing a tantrum, though there's a distinct lack of energy in her voice.

"Stop it," he says, his voice hard and tight as he begins to unpack supplies from his bag and place them in the area Mira is clearing away. At the moment he still isn't entirely sure what to try, but if this woman in front of them isn't Raleigh, it stands to reason she might be somewhere else. He's ruled out demon, this isn't the same as what happened to him, but there are other options. Some kind of displacement is possible and the only real thing he can think to try is some kind of locator spell. It'll tell them for certain this isn't Raleigh and hopefully point them in the right direction. "I'm done listening to you. Sit down or go back to bed if you don't want to be involved, but stop attacking Coop."

Then he turns his attention back to Coop and Mira, offering a candle and a box of matches to Coop. "Mira, can you get me one of Raleigh's shirts out of her room?" He's speaking as if she isn't even there, but he needs to focus. He can't let himself dwell on the fact that he should have done something sooner or the things he knows she's done to Coop and Mira both. All three of them have been hurt by this, but all he can do is remind himself that this isn't Raleigh.

Frankly, Coop would have preferred to leave. He watches Raleigh carefully as she turns to him with cold eyes, barely hearing what she has to say because none of it is worth listening to at this point, and all he can think about is how shockingly empty she looks. How cruel she's being to her friends. How fucking soulless she is right now. He keeps wavering between walking out the door and standing his ground, not because he's sad or hurt or whatever the hell she's trying to make him feel to get him to go but because he knows that if he bails on this, he'll be as shitty a friend as she's been saying he is.

That's not the kind of guy he is, the kind that leaves his friends to the wolves just because he doesn't want to be on the receiving end of verbal abuse. He doesn't, and he isn't sure what he'll feel when this is all over--because there is something to get over, something to fix, he's certain of at least that--because Coop knows that there's no way what Raleigh has said to him is random, that it must all be coming from a place deep inside her that she might not have been willing to access on her own; but for now, he's willing to stick it out for the sake of someone he's supposed to consider a friend.

Ignoring Raleigh, he takes the candle and matches from Joel, eyes flickering between his friend and Mira as she tries to pick up around the apartment. He gets it, understands that Mira needs to do something to distract herself from the way Raleigh's acting, so he doesn't comment on it before he turns back to Joel. "If this works, we calling it a victory or are we just screwed?" he asks with a wry smile.

"You can't just-" She tries to protest as the three people that she used to call friends just act like she's not even in her own apartment, and she gives up, her shoulders slumping as she sits on the couch, grabbing one of the decorative throw pillows that Coop had given her for her housewarming and hugged it to her chest, frowning.

When Mira goes back into Raleigh's room, it's almost worse than the front - there's clothes all over the place, as well as books, Oscar's old toys that she'd missed, stacks of bills and mail she hasn't even opened.

Where she is on the couch, she's watching Joel and Coop like a sullen child, but she can't really bring herself to protest anymore because they're just going to do whatever they want - but since they're in her house, she's not going to leave them, that's for sure.

"Probably both," Mira opines in response to Coop, "if you ask me."

If Mira hadn't had a clue something was deeply wrong before now, walking around the house - a house she's been in - would give her an idea, and even though she's still hurting and is certainly more careful with herself around Raleigh than she likes, it's disturbing.

Mira grabs the unopened mail with a frown, thinking that after the fairy tale spell, outstanding bills are the last thing Raleigh needs again and sorts them by postmark date without really looking at them, sitting the pile down more overtly on the bedside table to be dealt with later. She grabs a shirt from off the pile, trying to restrain the impulse to fold her laundry for her.

"Look, you can think we're total assholes," she says to Raleigh, as she comes back in unwilling to totally ignore her. "But you're -- not okay. You must know that." She isn't sure if this is any sort of Raleigh that has the ability or cares to self-examine that far. "And you can hurt us as much as you want, but you know we're not going to just leave you alone like that."

Mira doesn't stop to argue, instead handing the shirt to Joel and glancing at him for what to do next, chewing on her lower lip.

Edited (lolll forgot the reason she was even IN Raleigh's room) 2015-08-21 18:52 (UTC)

Mira pretty much has it covered as far as Joel is concerned. Raleigh can think they're assholes, she can get angry at them, but they're not just going to leave her like this, not when something is clearly wrong. Even if she can't see it or refuses to admit it. She seems like she's ready to give up, though, which is all Joel really cares about. So long as she doesn't get in the way, she can sit on the couch and watch them, that works just fine for him.

He spreads her shirt out on the flat surface of her counter in the place Mira has cleared things away. It's the only place to work in the entire apartment and he looks up at Coop, nodding for him to come over. "Can you light the candle for me? Be ready to burn the shirt when I tell you to." He's never particularly liked that this locator spells requires him to destroy something that belongs to the person he's looking for, but it's by far the most accurate he's ever learned.

With another glance at Raleigh, Joel draws his pocket knife out and makes a quick, shallow cut at the edge of his hand. He's never understood why people cut straight across their palms in movies, it would take forever to heal and it isn't as if it bleeds any better that way. Dabbing his fingers against the cut, he draws a quick map on Raleigh's shirt, the shape of Siren Cove, marking where they are in relation to the rest of the town.

For a moment nothing happens, then a light pulses to life where he's marked their location. "Now," he tells Coop. "Set the shirt on fire."

Raleigh has given up the fight, which is relieving enough in a way, but at the same time, it's worrisome. It's not like Raleigh is more than a fighter than a lover on a typical day, but she's been through so much that she's already proven she isn't the kind of person who just quits when things get tough. The mess in the apartment, the fact that he'd heard from Davin that she'd left her dog with him, the apathetic behavior--these aren't just things that can be fixed by leaving shit alone, this is something that they have to do to get their friend back.

There's no real way of knowing whether this spell is going to do any good until they actually do it but if Joel is right about this, if something funky happens after they do this, they're going to have to think fast about what their next step is going to be. They still don't know what they're dealing with, though Coop imagines if it Raleigh were at all dangerous, she'd have made that known by now. All they can is hope that whatever they come up with is the right thing.

So when Joel tells him to the light the shirt one fire, Coop doesn't hesitate. He lights the match and holds it to the fabric, letting it go once the flame catches, and watches with wide eyes as it burns until it indicates two separate entities--the Raleigh that's here with them and another one, far enough across town that it's nearly on the outskirts, and Coop slowly lifts his eyes to meet Joel's, then Mira's, then shifts his gaze to where Raleigh is sitting on the couch.

If it even really is Raleigh. It's at least a part of her, that's what this spell is telling them, and Coop wonders if the other Raleigh that apparently exists in the town consists solely of all her better qualities. If that's the case, they're going to have to find a way to bring them back together and that's probably going to be a more difficult task than they'd like to imagine.

"Okay. This is starting to feel like we might be royally fucked."

It's her shirt - one of her favorites, actually - that Joel's smearing with blood and Raleigh just sort of pinches the bridge of her nose between her fingers. She could call the cops - and tell them what? That three people who clearly knew her had broken into her apartment, cleaned it up, and then were messing with her stuff?

It didn't make sense anyway, so she sat there and watched them, until- until Coop set it on fire, the smoke miraculously not setting off the fire alarm. What got her out of her chair was him saying we might be royally fucked. She didn't think anything was wrong with her, but when she got close enough to see, it... made no sense.

"Why are there two lights?" The words are faint, but she's staring at the table with furrowed brows. "Why are you fucked?" She just doesn't get it, or why burning her shirt mattered.

Mira winces a little at Joel drawing in his own blood, but she'd have given up her own in an instance, and she finds herself watching Coop light the fire raptly with only a very little guilt about the shirt she'd chosen. She'll buy Raleigh a new one when they figure out what's going on with her.

There had been a lot more esoteric solutions for problems they likely don't have that had required Latin or Greek, one in Arabic, things she could have helped with, verb tenses and datives and all the things she yells at the screen about when they pop up on her favorite shows (usually werewolfy; the alien ones mostly don't have Latin). This doesn't need her expertise, and she feels really useless, research girl though she may be.

Her heart picks up when the lights separate and she lifts her eyes to meet Coop's, thinking quickly through everything she's been studying. She's not possessed, then, she's not the victim of some spell -- or she is, but part of her is somewhere physically else. Maybe a lot of her. "That's you," she says, a little blankly. "Those are -- both --"

She furrows her brow at the map. "Where is that?" she asks Joel. "I mean, approximately?"

Maybe her Latin translation is going to come in handy after all. They're going to need more than a locator spell if they're dealing with something that can steal Raleigh.

"The north edge of town. Near the outskirts. Almost not in town anymore," he answers, glancing first up at Mira and then over at Coop. This tells them something and the more Joel thinks about it, the better an idea he has about what might be going on. Raleigh is still here, but her aura is murky and dark, not what he's used to seeing at all. And yet Raleigh is also somewhere else.

Parts of her, anyway. He doesn't think there's two versions of Raleigh, because if that was the case, they would have seen her by now. They wouldn't always be presented with this Raleigh who's angry and impatient, the Raleigh who doesn't understand what they're doing or that something with wrong. If two real physical versions of her existed in this town, someone would have seen the other one by now. There's the possibility she's being kept under lock and key somewhere, but Joel really doesn't think that's their problem.

"Its a locator spell, Raleigh," he says. "And it's telling me there are two of you in town." She won't believe it, but that's fine, at least they have their answer. Looking back to Coop and Mira, he says, "I think something or someone might be siphoning off her... what makes her who she is. I hate to use the word soul just because I don't necessarily believe one exists, but when I look at her aura, it's not right. The energy that makes her up has changed and that just doesn't happen to people. Something's been taken from her."

Edited 2015-08-27 12:26 (UTC)

Coop's hands twitch at his sides, and he makes them into fists before crossing his arms over his chest, entirely incapable right now of standing still because it feels like something's bubbling just under his skin, an energy that he can't place because he's never really experienced anything like it before. It's not like he can wave a hand and make something happen, that's not how his magic works, but he can sense himself getting increasingly angry because what they'd figured is true: someone has done this to Raleigh, whatever the hell it is, someone has screwed with his friend and made her into this shell of herself that Coop has resented for weeks now, and it's not right. It's not fucking right.

In some ways, this is like how he'd felt when he'd realized someone had been responsible for taking away his powers on that island. He wants to destroy something, make someone pay, and he only ever really gets like this when it means his friends are in trouble.

"So we go to where the other one is," Coop says, stating it as a fact, as something that he won't let anyone argue with because what other option do they even have? Maybe an actual plan is necessary but hell, it hadn't taken all that long for Raleigh to degenerate into how she's been so logic says that there's a chance it could get worse. It could suck the actual life out of her, and Coop isn't going to wait for that to happen.

He points to the other light, the one on the northern edge. "We go there, and we get whatever it is that's been taken from her back." As far as Coop is concerned, he's willing to do whatever it takes to make sure Raleigh's whole again.

"That's.... that's not possible." She's staring at the two lights, but it doesn't make any sense to her. She's here, isn't she? All of her? "Is that-" Honestly, Raleigh can't tell the difference in herself. In other people, in the way they're reacting, sure-- but everyone's got bad days, everyone's got ups and downs. That's mostly how she views this, that right now she's kind of in a slump, but not that she's not here. Or split, or.... other.

That she's not all there. Not all herself. "Is that why I'm tired?"

That's all she can come up with, but she's not even angry. She doesn't have the energy to be angry, not anymore. She's just emotionally and physically exhausted, and maybe a little scared. She looks from Joel to Mira to Coop - to Coop who looks furious, and she's even more confused by that. She doesn't get why he cares so much, not after the last conversation they'd had. "How am I not myself?"

Mira hasn't been able to shake, totally, feeling a little uncomfortable around Raleigh -- even knowing something is wrong, and she also feels horrible about that -- but the two lights stir something in her, and Raleigh's exhausted, resigned reaction just hits her like a ton of bricks.

Someone is doing this to Raleigh.

She's glad Coop looks so angry, because it helps her focus, and she meets his gaze with absolute certainty. Of course they're going wherever that is. Of course they're getting the rest of Raleigh back, whatever that means. There's no other option. And it feels better, almost, to be able to be angry at someone else, want to tear into someone for what they've done, instead of the quiet, sick feeling of watching someone she loves turn into a stranger. Horrible, but at least something she can do something about.

"Probably," she says, quietly, looking at Raleigh. "Someone's taking you by pieces." It feels unfair to talk around her.

She glances back up at Coop and Joel, jaw set. "What are we, realistically, looking at?" she asks. "When I was reading, I came across -- demons, spells, all sorts of possession. But this isn't possession. This is," she glances at Joel. "Siphoning. I'm all for going in guns blazing -- Raleigh and I went after Dav and Spencer with a baseball bat, for god's sake, it's good you found them first -- but we should know what we might be up against."

Joel rubs his face tiredly, but he's nodding at the same time, answering all of them at once as best he can. Yes, they go to where that other light is. Yes, it's likely why she's feeling so tired. Yes, it's something more than possession. He's trying to establish what exactly it might be, but the only thing he can really come up with is another witch. Why they would target Raleigh is beyond him, but he knows people take offense to all sorts of things and at the moment the why isn't quite as important as figuring out where to go from here.

"It's another witch probably," he says. "This isn't easy magic, you can't just... just take pieces of a person without some real power." Which also means they're probably not just going to be able to walk into this witch's home and demand he or she undo what they've done to Raleigh. It's more complicated than that. Especially since they don't quite know what has been done to her yet.

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I don't need fixing. [CLOSED]

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