dear_mun | on being reserved | canon is martha marcy may marlene.

( the human mind is not like a book, because people do not think in lines, and charles is more or less used to the scattered quality of thoughts and their imperceptible shifts that occur with the most minute of stimuli.

her mind is not like that. her mind is a cacophony, and it's charles that's struggling to keep up. )

Hello.

( start simple. he senses threads of paranoia running through her mind. best not to frighten. )

[ Cooper can hear music and he can't at the same time — he can see lines drawing themselves between light and dark, the light too bright and the dark too all-consuming. He can hear owls calling, too, somewhere in the distance, a constant who? who? who? that makes him wonder the same thing. He is himself and he isn't. His limbs feel heavy, like they've been weighed down, like he's walking under water. Every move is a struggle — when he tries to speak, the words come out slow and tangled.

(He has to get out.

Deep in the back of his head, he can hear, that gum you like is going to come back in style.

And somewhere even deeper, he can hear, in a voice that he doesn't recognize, where you going, Marcy May? He doesn't mean to echo the question, but the words, difficult as they are, are out before he can stop them.) ]

Ｗ−ｈｅｒｅ　ａｒｅ　ｙｏｕ▒ｇｏｉｎｇ？▒▒

[ If Martha frightens, it's hardly Charles' fault for it's her that's doing the frightening, not him. There are terrifying things that go bump in the night, but that's not because they're strange or alien with slavering jaws, but because they are familiar, commonplace and insidious: a black SVU parked in a driveway, an innocent hand on her knee, eyes that smile. (Hello, Martha. You look like a Marcy May to me.)

Her mind is here and elsewhere at the same time, but his eyes are blue enough to hold her attention and keep it.

Martha's posture sinks, threatens to collapse inward onto itself like the heart of a very dense star. ]

—who're you? [ She doesn't recognize him. Good. That's good, that's safe.

Martha fidgets. ]

[ Where you going, Marcy May?

She shudders and when she does, her mind does too. (Where are you going? What are you doing? I'm concerned about you, Marcy May. I'm concerned.) But Martha doesn't know this man and he has no right to be concerned; she's doing the very best that she can. She is a teacher and a leader and—

Martha shakes her head, defensive. ]

Nowhere. [ That's the point. ] I'm not going— [ With you. Back there. Home. Home. ] —I'm not going anywhere.

Edited 2012-01-24 17:10 (UTC)

[ Somewhere, there's a man wearing his face. A man wearing his face and his name and his badge, all of them vehicles to harm, to hurt, to kill. And here — wherever here is — he's trapped, and for one of the very few times that it's ever happened to him, he experiences fear. (Not them, he thinks. Not Twin Peaks, too. There are enough people, after all, that he's hurt. Caroline, for one, and Annie, for another, and Audrey, too — and thank god that she hadn't ended up dead. But it had been his fault — it had been because of him that she had become involved at all and it was because of his carelessness that she had almost been killed.

If he doesn't get out of here soon, he suspects, his collateral damage count is going to jump.

(Please help me, he wants to say. I need to get out of here.

So maybe he doesn't know who she is. To him, that doesn't matter much. She's the only line he's got.) ]

Ｗｈｏ’ｓ　ｔｒｙｉｎｇ　ｔｏ　ｍａｋｅ　ｙｏｕ？

[ Who's making you go, who are you afraid of? It's a multitude of questions, rolled into one. Are you trapped, too? ]

[ Martha may have gotten away — no more Marcy May, no more Marlene, no more barn across the field with its moaning late at night — but no matter what Lucy says, she isn't free.

She's still trapped, trapped inside her own head and the fragmented circles of memory and delusion that seem to have eclipsed any hope of a contiguous reality. She's here and she's not; she's lost and she's found. She's Martha and Marcy May and Marlene.

(Are you sure you want her to help you, Dale? Are you?) ]

Everyone. [ Martha shakes her head, her hands twisting the ends of her sleeves, fingers wringing her knuckles white. ] Everyone wants me to go somewhere. [ Come here, Marcy May. Be quiet, Martha. Who was it on the phone, Marlene?) ] And I just want—

[ She inhales, tries to focus herself. What was it that Patrick had told her? ]

I want a chance. A chance to prove what I am. [ Her voice grows firm, but even then, still wavers. ] I'm a teacher. And a leader. But I can't go there, there's nothing and I can't—

Edited 2012-01-24 20:16 (UTC)

[ Arthur's brows draw together into a sharp frown. It's not that she's young. It's that she looks— unprepared. ]

Hey. You okay?

[ It's then that Cooper realizes what's going on. They're both trapped. Trapped by different things, perhaps, but trapped nonetheless.

(What're you gonna tell 'er, Dale? Does she know what you are? You could put your hands around her scrawny throat and wring the fucking life out of her in two seconds, snap her neck like a chicken. Have a real good time.

In Cooper's head, a man with long, greasy, lank hair howls and laughs. He is a shadow, Dale thinks, but a shadow that's still potent enough.

You're never gonna get out of here, Special Agent.

In Cooper's head, a girl with long, blonde hair laughs and cries.

In Cooper's head, he tries to blot the others out, with thoughts of cherry pie, of black coffee, of Douglas firs, of a girl with short black hair and a beauty spot by her eye.) ]

▓▒▒▒░Ｉｓ　ｔｈｅｒｅ　ａｎｙｗｈｅｒｅ　ｙｏｕ　ｃａｎ　ｇｏ？

I'm fine.

[ There are words for what is wrong with Martha. (Delusion, paranoia, posttraumatic stress disorder. There are doctors of that sort of thing, but she's never gone to one and, if she has her way, she never will. They're parasites, looking to suck real honest to goodness life out of people. But not Martha, no. Never her.)

Her hands wring. She tucks a strand of her unruly hair behind her ear as she shakes her head. This is a young woman hardly fit for day to day life. God only know's what Prolecto will do to her. ]

I'm fine.

[ (Who are you trying to convince, Martha?) ]

[ It strikes him that he's heard those words before. To varying degrees of severity, sure (I'm fine while there's hands pressed to a bleeding chest wound; I'm fine when there's exhaustion in the eyes and ghosts on a man's heels; I'm fine when things weren't fine, hadn't been fine, not since she awoke). He knows what this particular lie is supposed to sound like. Cities like Prolecto aren't good for people who speak that language. ]

Okay, [ he says, because arguing is not the point.

Sliding his hands into the pockets of his slacks, Arthur tilts his head. ]

Headed there too?

[ There's a man in Martha's head too. A man. Men. (Hands, mouth and teeth.) One man is bleeding all over a fancy rug in the front hallway of his apartment. Another one is smoking a cigarette he shouldn't on a porch that isn't is. Another has a gun. Another is whispering let me help you but she can't move.

Maybe they're all the same man, she can't tell.

(You're my favorite. I won't lose you.)

She'd laugh at his question if she knew how. Fact of the matter is, she can always go in. (Martha's fallen this far, why not let the dead drop take her completely?) But the way in is just as unclear as the way out, sometimes.

Martha blinks. Someone else's words fill her mouth. ]

Death is the most beautiful part of life.

[ Death is somewhere, isn't it? ]

[ Martha's got a bitter smile, which is a shame because once upon a time, she had a really pretty one — unexpected and beatific and occasionally a little embarrassed. (Martha used to be a lot of things, before she was Marcy May and then Marlene, and then Martha again.) Sometimes, she can still muster it, when the worst has passed over her like a storm and she's calm again, no rough waters for miles and miles (seven days worth of halcyon peace before another tempest rears). ]

Don't really have a choice, do I? Do you?

We'll see. [ His mouth quirks. He doesn't have a choice, sure, but Arthur knows how these things work and sometimes things don't go according to plan. Sometimes, luck is on Arthur's side.

Not that he believes in that.

He considers her for a beat. His gaze isn't meant to be scrutinizing— observant, more than anything else. Information is his trade, true, not people, but there's a certain overlap between them and anyone can see that she's nervous. No; scared. It's in the jitter of her hands and the way she talks and Arthur, he has enough brain cells to make logical conclusions as much as the next person. ]

They're not gonna follow you there, [ He tells her. Arthur doesn't really bother to clarify what he's talking about. It's not a guess; it's an estimation. ]

Edited 2012-01-24 23:45 (UTC)

[ She looks like Caroline.

(It's the eyes, Cooper thinks. Blue, wide and sad. And the high cheeks and the mousy hair. She says words that sound like they've been pulled from a can and he can feel his ribcage collapse.

She was a pretty one, wasn't she, Coop? Caroline? Fucking gorgeous.

He doesn't want her — not in that way, he barely knows who she is — but he realizes, in a roundabout way, that it doesn't much matter what he wants. Anyone who comes into contact with him becomes a target. It's a horrifying thought, in many ways, and he can't help but remember what Jean Renault had said — that things had changed only once Coop had come to Twin Peaks.

Was that true? he wondered. Was it he who had brought misfortune with him?)

She looks like Caroline and when she speaks he can feel a bolt of panic shoot through his chest. ]

Ｉ’░ｄ　ｓａｙ　ｔｈａｔ　ｌｉｆｅ　ｉｓ．　Ａｌｗａｙｓ　ｆｏｕｎｄ　ｉｔ　ｗｏｒｔｈ　ｌｉｖｉｎｇ．

on being reserved | canon is martha marcy may marlene.

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