knowthyexits | (no subject)

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cook

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This has gone on for too long. Sarah's not ashamed of what she's done (even if she's slightly unnerved by the fact that she hadn't had her memories while she did it), but she still hadn't sought out Cook either. Three weeks since it's happened and she's tired of hiding. She knows Cook's general habits and so she knows where she can find him. She waits until she feels up to the task and then heads for the Hub to find him and put the issue to rest.

It's not that there is an issue. It's just that she doesn't want one incident to ruin whatever acquaintance-type of friendship.

"Cook," she gets his attention with a quiet comment, leaning her elbow against the bar and ignoring the fact that she can tell that she's lost weight. It's not something she wants to think about (especially now) and so she dismisses it instantly, keeping her attention on him. "Can I get you something? Beer? Wine?"

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It feels like she's trying to spin this on him, make it his fault what happened. So when he looks at her -- and he does look at her -- it's sullenly and with reticence. "What's there to talk about?" he says. "We fool around and suddenly the big bad woman who fights deadly machine men doesn't have the balls to talk to me? Nah. I know what that is."

She's sometimes not sure why it is that everyone thinks just because she can battle a whole army of personal demons and metallic monsters, that somehow she must be strong in all ways. She's never been good at this person-to-person stuff and she's hurting for it right now. "Cook," she says, giving him a dubious look. "I was normal, at seventeen. I wasn't exactly a social butterfly, but I was normal. Ever since then, I've been so far removed from society that I don't know how to do this anymore."

"You'd better goddamn believe it scares me," she half-growls at him. "So tell me what you think it really is, because you're wrong."

Some context Cook'll never provide: He doesn't know what the fuck Sarah means by "normal." All he knows is that that's something he's never been, never really seen and, should he see it one day, something he thinks is more fucked up than whatever they (he and all his family, friends and acquaintances) could ever be. He knows what he was at seventeen and has seen what Sarah was at seventeen. There's a difference; he's not stupid enough to miss that. But he doesn't see what part "normal" plays on this conversation.

He turns away at the last phrase, tilts his head back and pours the last drops of his beer down his throat. "Why, when we've already got each other sussed out?" Calling it a rhetorical question is being generous. There's a careless finality to it, despite the phrasing. He's wrong and she's scared. Done.

Sarah's withstood a great deal of pain in her lifetime, but this is proving to be almost as painful as having a knife driven into her. That, or it's almost as painful as a conversation with Cal when things don't really go anywhere. "I don't regret fooling around," she says cautiously. "But at the same time, Cook, I would appreciate if this was something that was between us. I need," she says, her muscles tense as she realizes exactly what she needs, "I need to feel like I have some kind of control. I wasn't in control, then. I forgot everything and I don't like that."

A laugh bubbles up out of him and he does a poor job of hiding it behind the hand he rubs over his mouth. "Right," he says to himself, gaze dropping to the bar counter. Take, take, take. All it ever is.

"I'm not gonna rat you out, Sarah," he promises with a look that would be teasing in another set of circumstances. Now there's a hardness behind his eyes. "Nothing to talk about, in my book."

She doesn't know how much she wants to tell him right now, but when Sarah rubs her thumb over the edge of her glass, she realizes that she needs to explain some things to him. Maybe she doesn't need to, but she wants to. "When I was seventeen the first time around, there was a man who came for me. I won't lie and say that you don't bear a certain resemblance to him," she admits, steady as she can be. "And I don't regret the time with him and I don't regret it with you, but Cook, tell me you understand that I don't know what to do with that now."

Cook stills, the rigid, uncertain stillness of someone who isn't sure what the fuck is going on anymore. It's pretty fucking obvious that what Sarah's saying means a lot to her; this isn't some story she tells to everyone and anyone. Cook would feel special, honored, touched, whatever the fuck someone's supposed to feel in this situation if it meshed at all with his own thoughts. But it doesn't. It hits him out of no where and he left blinking at her with wide blue eyes.

"Jesus fuck, Sarah," he murmurs. She doesn't get it, which is no surprise.

He doesn't know why, but he stills again, stares into his empty glass as he assembles his words. Things are fucked all over and Cook's only now beginning to see that he does have some part in that, some agency, not only to make things worse but to make them better. It's a new thing to him though, untried and untested, and every instinct pushes him in the other direction. To walk out now and save them both from the rest of this conversation. Only some things might be worth a small bit of effort.

"I understand," he says slowly, still not looking at her. That girl who looks like Effy flashes through his mind's eye. It didn't work. From the first second, it didn't, but he can imagine how twisted up he would be if it had. "You know what else I get? Your fear meant more to you than I did," he says, now fixing her with a look.

"Is that what this is about?" she wonders aloud, struck by the epiphany that she's been looking at this from the wrong perspective. She begins to think that she understands, but she can't be sure. She studies Cook with a look of trepidation and swallows back some of her pride as she tries to summon something to say that will make a difference.

The scary part is that she doesn't know if she can.

"I would die to protect you," she says quietly, pushing her drink away from her. "Cook, just because I didn't know what to say doesn't mean I don't care about you."

"Words are just fucking words, Sarah. They don't mean shit." Laced with profanity as much of what Cook says is, these words aren't angry. They're hard and weighed with a kind of bitterness someone as young as Cook shouldn't know, but they're not an attack on Sarah.

"I don't care what you fucking say." And yet, now that he knows, the abandonment doesn't hurt so much. She still did it. She still fucked around when she should have come to him. She'll do it again, most like. But people walk away from Cook. He hasn't learned how to walk away from them.

He stares down at his glass again, then pushes it forward and throws a signal to the bartender to refill him. "Don't ever pull that shit again," Cook says, his voice softening but not soft, the closest thing to forgiving her that she's gonna get.

"I don't like to promise to try," she says, her gaze flicking over Cook's face. "But I will go you one better and make a promise to do." She's not the easiest woman to get along with in the world and hardly the most outwardly loving, but right now, she wants closure in this. It's why she reaches one arm around his shoulders to bring him closer, pressing a kiss to the outer edges of his cheek before hugging him for a multitude of reasons.

--None of which she wants to talk about.

Cook is no stranger to hugs, not really. He's given plenty, initiated contact that the receiver doesn't always expect, and he's been on the receiving end plenty of times. Make no mistake, for all his standoffish attitude, Cook is a tactile person. But all those shows of affection, they've been with people his own age. His mother and his father-- Any time he spent in their company was wasted, the hugs and kisses hiding daggers.

And now Sarah's kissing his cheek and hugging him. He likes her and she's fit as hell, but she's also old enough to be his mother. It's fucking weird. Weirder still, it's kind of nice.

"Don't get all soft on me now," he says, forcing himself not to smile. He refuses to; letting her pull him into a hug is enough. "I only like you when you're being a badass."

Sarah eases back and shares a faintly bemused look with him. "What, so you're not allowed to like me if I take a moment and not be the kind of woman who gets thrown through a wall and keeps going?" she teases, out of his personal space as quickly as she'd stepped into it. "And Cook?" she warns. "What we did? Never happening again because you're my son's age," she says sharply.

He just laughs at her harsh edge, feeling something settle back into place. He can do this. He could do without, too, can always do without if he needs. But he prefers to do this, to keep things as they are here.

"You know, a good woman would be intrigued by that," Cook counters.

"Cook," Sarah warns, crossing her arms over her chest and giving him a look that says if he treads further, it's his own fault as to what consequences will come on the heels of such an act.

He laughs again, deeper this time, and ducks his head. "See?" Cook says, glancing up at her, head tilted to the side. "There's the bad ass I like."

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