coopdetat | animal adoption day [open to all]

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animal adoption day [open to all]

SIREN COVE ANIMAL SHELTER PROUDLY PRESENTS
ANIMAL ADOPTION DAY
ALL ADOPTIONS FREE FROM 10AM-4PM. FIRST VET VISIT FREE WITH SHEA COOPER, DVM.
BOOTHS, FOOD, PRIZES, AND MORE! SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2014 AT SIREN COVE BEACH PARK.

Coop's satisfied with the turnout today. He's been working on this event with Dylan for weeks and now that he's had the chance to talk to Les about what's going on with Joel, he feels a little more at ease. Not by a lot, friend-devouring demon on the loose and what not, but still, knowing they have some extra help has proven to be better for his sleeping patterns.

Besides, it's kind of hard to let his mind wander to darker things like that when he's watching kids points out their favorite puppies and kitties and bunnies and begging their parents for the chance to take them home. He's seen familiar faces and met brand new ones, a majority of them eager to get his advice on what's best to feed their new family addition, what the best heartworm medication is, what the best grooming tips are, all sorts of shit that he answers with ease with a giant grin on his face because this is what he loves doing. Watching little fluffballs bring joy to people's faces, it never gets old.

He can see Dylan assisting a couple with one of their older gals, a four-year-old Basset called Hettie who's the sweetest thing but hasn't had much luck in finding a forever home. Coop watches with a faint smile, pleased at the attention the dog's so deservedly getting, and doesn't really register that someone's tapping on his shoulder until it starts to feel more like they're jabbing him. He turns with a raised eyebrow, smile still intact because he's nice like that.

"Hi, yeah, what can I do ya for?"

[OOC: Feel free to use this as a gathering. Or an excuse to come harass this dumdum.]

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Sylvie is bored. She's so bored, sitting alone in her little cottage that she's just about done with everything, and she figures enough is enough. She's spent long enough waiting for him to come to her, only that was probably a stupid idea, because why would he? He said he wanted time, only he didn't specify how much time, and she was never really sure what she was supposed to be doing during that time.

The signs for the adoption day are all around town and it's the puppies that do her in in the end. She never could resist a dog's face, and she figures Coop can't want to murder her too much if she's holding an adorable ball of fluff, so. She goes. She walks into the park quietly and it's already a buzz, full of families with kids and people wanting to find the next member of their family. For a moment she seriously considers actually adopting herself, but she still doesn't know how long before she gets forcibly hustled out of this town. It can't hurt to play with them, anyway.

Head in the grass asleep, she finds this little guy and it's like that's all she even came for. She can't help herself, she crouches down and tickles his tummy, receiving a warm lick to the hand in response, and suddenly she's happy just to sit in the grass and play with him all day, regardless of who may or may not be running this whole thing.

Okay, so when he'd asked for time, he hadn't meant this much time. Coop hadn't exactly given Sylvie a frame or anything, he realizes this, but it still catches him off-guard to see her sitting in the grass with a puppy that looks just like one they might have adopted if they'd ended up getting married and honestly, it's appropriate considering what the dog had been named when he'd arrived at the shelter. She's smiling, and it fucking hurts because it makes him smile, too, how could it not when she actually looks content enough to be hanging out with this awesome little dog for the rest of the day? He doesn't want to smile when he sees her, though, and that's the biggest problem he's been wrestling with.

The shit that's been going on with Joel and being busy at work have kind of been massive distractions, and he's glad for that because he's pretty goddamn sure he'd be sitting at home thinking of her day in and day out if he hadn't had an actual separate life to contend with; but she's here now and it's not like he can turn around and just walk away. Besides that, they're going to have to talk again eventually, especially if she really does plan on staying here.

There's a part of him, maybe the smarter part, that tells him he should just leave her be. He should let her come to him if she wants but then again, he knows she wouldn't and it's not because she's necessarily afraid of what he'll say, it's because the last time they'd talked, he'd asked for the space. She's respected for a month now, and Coop can't deny that he doesn't appreciate that. So he sighs, rubbing his palms against his jeans before steeling himself enough to walk over to her.

"His name's Cooper," he says, unable to help his wry smile. "One of the managers at the shelter found him and her six-year-old named him after me. Anyway. Hi."

She looks up, startled when he speaks, though she's not sure why she's surprised considering she knows damn well that he's here. Still, for a moment she'd gotten herself sufficiently distracted with the dog - Cooper, of course its goddamn name is Cooper - and she almost forgot what she was here for. She rubs Cooper between the ears and smiles at Shea, and it's nice to be out in the sun with dogs and a smile on her face this time, rather than shaking nervously on a dark porch.

"Well, he does look like you," she says wryly before getting to her feet and dusting her hands off. "Hi. You look well, Shea."

"Insufferably adorable, you mean?" It would be so easy, he thinks, to fall right back into old habits. Coop's still not entirely sure why she's here, what her goal is, what she really wants, but he can picture it all the same. He's thought about it since they'd seen each other again that first night, what it would be like to drive over to her cottage and knock on her door so he can tell her that they can forget the past four years. They don't have to start over, they can't pick up right where they left off and everything can be as it was, everything can be good again.

It makes him feel like a head case. They can't pick up where they left off, they both know it damn well, and Coop still doesn't know how he feels about the prospect of seeing her so often because in a town as small as Siren Cove, it's inevitable. Until then, though, he can be civil. He can accept that she's here and see how this plays out. He can be the same person he is now without worrying about what she'll think about it. Maybe. Maybe he can do all those things.

"So do you," he tells her, and he wants to cringe because that is the actual lamest thing to say but it's not like he can take it back now. "There's, y'know, lemonade and pretzels and that kind of thing. Severely lacking in the alcoholic beverages department but family event and all. You maybe wanna go get something?" He gestures toward the booths. "It's like, two feet away, I promise I'm not just trying to get you out of here."

She glances to where he's pointing and hides a grin because it's almost, almost like it used to be, but at the same time so far from it. It's easy to fall back into the old banter with him, and it shouldn't be, but for some reason it is, and she doesn't know what to make of that. He still looks like he's a little reserved, but it's not as bad as it was last time, and she's grateful.

"I could always go a glass of wine," she starts, nodding. "I'll miss Cooper, though." She crouches down to plant a kiss on his furry head before getting ready to follow him along. "Lead the way."

"See, wine we've got, but I'd go with the red because the white we picked up isn't exactly up to standard," he warns, nodding toward one of the nearby booths where the two bartenders on duty are checking their phones. It's the lemonade booth that seems to be the most popular today, and Coop chalks that up to all the parents who'd brought their kids. It makes no difference to him, but he's glad there isn't a line when they reach the booth.

"And don't worry about Cooper," he tells her, glancing over his shoulder to find that someone has already taken to reaching down to scratch behind his ears. "Someone's going to snatch him up to a great home, it'll be good for him." He pauses, biting at the inside of his cheek as he glances at the bartender and orders a red before looking back at Sylvie. "What about you, were you thinking about adopting?" He doesn't know how long she plans to stick around and figures this is a good enough way of roundabout asking the question. "Because I know this vet, he's really good at what he does, and he's doing free first visits for anyone who adopts today. If you're lucky, you might even get two."

She decides to take his word for it, because that's she's always done, and orders the red. It's not the best she's ever had, but it's better than she expected seeing as she's drinking it out of a plastic wine cup in a park.

"Two animals or two vet visits?" She raises an eyebrow and smiles. She's surprised he'd be offering to see her more than strictly necessary, but it's Coop and he's always been a generous guy. "I don't know, honestly. I'm very tempted, but I don't know how long I'm here for. I don't really know... What to do now," she admits with a shrug. It's not all to do with him, she's been floating for a while now, and here is as good a place to float as Paris, with the added benefit of seeing his face. She doesn't know anymore whether this is the closure she needed and whether she should go back home, or whether being here and seeing him again means she has to stay, even just to have him as a small part in her life. She doesn't know what to do with herself or him, and she knows he has even less answers than she does.

Coop doesn't answer the question because he's distracted by what she says about not knowing how long she's staying in town. That first night they'd seen each other, he'd been struggling so much with old feelings pushing their way back to the surface, torn between wanting her to get the hell out of Siren Cove and wanting to take her anywhere just to remember what it's like to hold her again. Sylvie has been out of sight all these years but she hasn't been out of mind, though he'd become somewhat indifferent over the past year especially when he'd see something that reminded him of her or caught a glimpse of the photos he still has of her, of them in Paris, on his computer.

He'd mourned her like she'd died in a way, he realizes, and that's why it had been such a goddamn shock to see her again. He'd written her off as someone he'd never see again under any circumstances, and he never would have thought that she'd show up here. Whether it's for him, whether it's just to make herself feel better by telling him why, he still isn't really sure; he doesn't know that he really cares because it's been so fucking long that it doesn't seem like it should even matter anymore.

"Siren Cove's nice in the winter," he says, keeping his expression neutral as he takes a sip of his wine. He doesn't know what he's doing, doesn't know what she's doing, doesn't know what they're doing; but there's a big part of him that doesn't want to see her leave. Not so soon, not when there's so much to... There's just so much. "It's not like it compares to the lights along the Champs-Elysees but... I don't know. It's something. You should see it. If you want, I mean."

She's not dumb and she doesn't miss the way he's almost asking her to stay, almost letting her back into his life in whatever small way he can. This is his town and he's not rushing her to the nearest airport, and it's a relief that fills her and settles in her bones.

She mimicks his movements, sipping her wine and offering him a small smile. "It has its own charm," she says. She misses the rush of Paris, but this is nice, quaint, and she could get used to relaxing here. "Maybe I will need a puppy to keep me warm in the winter."

"A puppy named Cooper?" he asks, biting down on the inside of his cheek to keep from letting out a laugh. Coop finds talking to her so increasingly frustrating because this part's easy, the part where they can just be themselves and pretend like nothing had ever happened at all, like four years is nothing in the grand scheme of things when for Coop, it had been everything. He doesn't think Sylvie has any real expectations, but he doesn't know if that makes him feel better or worse because he can't deny that a tiny piece of him would like to think that she's come here to get him back. That she wants to start over even though he doesn't know that they can.

He lets out a sigh, knowing damn well that there's no point in dancing around the very large elephant that's going to be in every room they're in together for a long time, and he lowers his head to run a hand through his hair before looking back up at her. "Can I just be totally real with you for just a minute? I know you're trying, okay? I'm trying, too, I really am. And I wanna say that I'm sorry that I let all the shit that I've felt over the last four years catch up with me when I saw you, I just never thought I would again. I missed you, Sylvie, y'know? Even after everything, I missed you."

He stares down into his cup, swirling the red wine around and watching it ripple. He remembers bringing her breakfast in bed, the cheesiest tray of blueberry pancakes with an attempt at a smiley face drawn in syrup that had dripped into one massive blob by the time he'd gotten it to her along with scrambled eggs, a side of bacon, and a glass of orange juice. He'd always complete the tray with a flower in a champagne flute, his best substitute for a little vase, and she'd always tease him, call it his American specialty, but Coop would just smile because he'd known it had made her happy.

It's not like some of his other memories of their time together, fuzzy and scratchy like a vintage film, he can picture it with perfect clarity. "I think maybe it'd be nice if we could get to know each other again," he finally finishes, taking another sip of his wine. He doesn't know what it'll mean in the long run if she stays, but he wants her to. He admits that to himself in this moment. He wants her to stay.

The problem is, she doesn't know what her expectations are. She'd be lying if she said she'd had no hope at maybe winning him back by coming here, otherwise she wouldn't have come at all. She owed it to him to explain, not that she really has in full, though she doesn't know whether that's something she'll ever want to have to talk about. She owed it to him, but that was part of it, and the other part is bigger than that, an all encompassing emptiness that happened when she left him, that she's been trying to fill ever since and failing.

She knows something's coming when he runs his hands through his hair like he's always done when he's about to say or do something that's stressing him out. He'd done it before he'd proposed, and the thought guts her like a knife, remembering him on one knee with that stupid hopeful smile on his face. She has to stop thinking about it or she'll go crazy, imagining what she could have had. She wasn't betting on getting an 'I missed you' from him this soon, if ever, and maybe there's hope after all, though she's not about to start holding her breath. Still, it's nice to hear something other than small talk or anger. "I missed you too," she says quietly. "Always."

There's a moment of pause and she fiddles with her crappy plastic wine cup, almost empty. "I'd like that, too," she says in response, and glances back towards where Cooper is rolling around in the grass. "Maybe Cooper could... have a home with me?" It's an affirmation, a decision that she didn't think she was ready to make, but she's saying it before she can stop herself, and she realises that there was never really any debate anyway. So long as he's not putting her on a plane himself, she was always going to stay, because she can't bear to walk away again. It would kill her, and she's done punishing herself for the last four years.

There's a strand of hair that's fallen out of place, and it's taking everything Coop has in him not to reach out and tuck it back behind her ear. He's done that for her a countless number of times before, it's always that same strand that can never be tamed, but he remembers that on the night he'd proposed, he hadn't had to tuck it back once. It's silly to think of it now but at the time, late into the night before he'd fallen asleep and before Sylvie had written that note for him to find in the morning, he'd thought of it as a sign that maybe things were settling in the way they were supposed to for them. He'd been exhausted, he realizes now, from working up all that nerve to ask Sylvie to marry him and putting the effort into trying to make the proposal special.

He hadn't wanted some bullshit cliche like dumping the ring into a flute of champagne--which he doesn't get in the first place because it'll just be sticky, no woman would want to slide some sticky as hell ring on her finger because her boyfriend was too much of a dumbass to think ahead--or taking her to the top of the Eiffel Tower because fuck, they'd lived in Paris, that would have been the equivalent of doing something that required little to no thought. He'd kept it simple in the end, had invited some of their closest friends to dinner, never mind the fact that one of them, Luka, was a professional photographer and what did Sylvie mean that it seemed odd he had his camera ready for when they were sitting down to dinner, he was a professional photographer.

Coop had cooked a fantastic dinner, had set up their little dining room with those strands of white lights that gave everything a soft glow and had made Sylvie look exceptionally beautiful, not that she doesn't always look that way. She'd been talking to Luka's wife when Coop had pushed his chair back to get down on one knee and when Sylvie had finally noticed, Luka had started snapping the photos. He admittedly still has a few, reluctant as Luka had been to give them, and sometimes Coop will look through the pictures just to remember that at least for that first minute, Sylvie had seemed so happy. So genuinely excited. Still in love with him.

He studies her now without trying to make it obvious, though he's never been very good at masking himself when it comes to her, and he knows what he'd known from that first night he'd seen her. She's not here to try to hurt him again and in spite of the bitterness he may still feel from the way she'd left him high and dry, Coop doesn't truly believe that she'd ever intended to hurt him. They can be honest with each other this time around, completely honest each other, and she'd left him because of what he is but she'd come back anyway. She'd missed him, she's here, and for right now, she doesn't plan to leave. Maybe he ought to give her some credit for that.

"I think Cooper would be the luckiest dog in this park to get to go home with you," he tells her, tone nothing if not sincere. "Long as you promise to take really, really good care of him. Like, ridiculously good care of him, that dog's my namesake. He's very fragile."

For the short time they'd spent together, they've always been ridiculously in sync to the point of annoyance. She can remember wanting to hide things from him, birthday presents, dinner plans, a small surprise of his favourite pastry for dessert, anything, and he's always been able to see right through her. They'd never done secrets well - except for the obvious - and she realises as she's watching him think that they still don't. She can still read him like a book, and his eyes are fixated on that ridiculous piece of hair that she can feel falling in her face again. She knows what it means, knows he's thinking about the proposal before she even has to ask, and it's both devastating and wonderful all at once.

She doesn't know, looking at him now, how she could ever have walked away. That first night, all through dinner she'd been over the moon, desperately excited to marry him and buy a fucking dog and live happily ever after, and then they'd gone to bed and she lay awake, remembering what he could do and stricken to the core with fear about what she'd be getting herself into. It was stupid, so stupid, but it is what it is.

"I'm sure he's not as fragile as you think," she says, and she doesn't know whether they're talking about the dog or Shea anymore but it doesn't matter.

Raleigh's lost her own friend to a frantic owner who'd apparently been looking for her dachshund for months; but there's a woman sitting in the grass who's got the tiniest, fluffiest little ball of fuzz, and she can't stop the way she gravitates towards them, only hesitating when she gets closer. "He's adorable," she says from where she's standing, and she doesn't realise he's another rescue - she thinks that he's actually just Sylvie's dog, which is why she doesn't immediately plop herself down to play with him. "How old is he?"

Sylvie looks up with a smile, beckoning for the girl to come closer and pat Cooper. "I don't know, he's not mine," she says, scratching Cooper's back and watching his tongue loll happily. "He's cute though, right?"

"He's adorable," she says again, but this time more to the dog than to Sylvie, shifting to settle herself down. It's a little less graceful than most because of her leg, but she's still got it handled, immediately bending to ruffle Cooper's ears and give him scritches. "I really wish I could get a dog - eventually, just not today, I think. Do you have any?"

This is nice, Sylvie thinks, sitting on the grass petting a dog and having a simple conversation with a nice girl. Since she's gotten here it's been a run of awkward and hopeful conversations with Shea, laden down with hidden meanings and underlying intentions and this is just a chat about dogs, and it's lovely.

"Why not today?" She queries. "I hear there's a free vet service." Sylvie shakes her head. "I've always wanted one, but it never worked out."

Raleigh looks over at Coop. "I mean, I don't think I'd let him not let me pay, but... my roommates have a dog, and it's their house, and I just sort of... have a room, so it don't think it's the best time, you know? Maybe in a year or two." She shrugs, looking back at Sylvie. "You never know. Maybe my bakery will hit it big, and I could get two dogs," she says it like it's a big surprise.

"I'm Raleigh, by the way. I run the Orchard House Bakery in town."

Sylvie follows her gaze to Coop and doesn't say anything. She's not sure how Coop's friends are going to react to her, whether they even know about her, but from the way Raleigh is talking, it looks like she's about to find out. "You own a bakery? I'll have to stop by." She does miss the little patisserie around the corner from her apartment. "Nice to meet you. I'm Sylvie," she says, and holds her hand out to shake.

Raleigh smiles widely. "I do! It's by the Crossroads bookstore. I'd love it if you stopped by - you're French, right?" She wrinkles her nose at how ridiculous her question is, but she's not at all shy about the fact she's asked it. "I have a bunch of pastries that I make that I'm trying to make right - but I've never been to France, I don't know if you'd be willing to try them...?" She lets the question just sort of hang there, to see if Sylvie would be willing to QA some o the stuff that Raleigh's made.

Sylvie laughs, the question a novelty to her here. "Oui," she says with a smile. "I'd like that. I haven't been here very long but I miss home." She misses it for more reasons than the obvious, but she does like it here, and she'd like it even more if she could have a small slice of France with it.

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