Petunia 'Coop' Cooper (driveeveryroad) wrote in thefield, @ 2009-08-18 12:49:00 |
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Entry tags: | adnan, coop, z - 1st tribe - day 33 |
What Are We?
Who: Coop and Adnan
When: early afternoon
Where: The beach near camp
Rating: PG 13
Even after talking with Bazzer, Adnan had spent most of the day away from camp. He'd decided that work could wait another day, even after losing one. And if any of the other guys felt like cutting some wood, he'd marked out the lengths he needed anyway. He just needed some space, so he walked, hung out with Tripper until the dog had presumably headed back to his mistress, took a swim, watched the grazers ... just spent time in contemplation. He was well-aware that he might've impregnated this -- wonderful so far -- woman he hardly knew the day before. It was something that weighed heavy on his mind. Despite the very careful flings he'd had on the road, for a roof or a ride, Adnan took the possibility of fatherhood seriously. Starting a family was something he'd always wanted to do, he just didn't know if this had been the best way to do it. Unintentional, passionate, heat of the moment, with someone he wasn't one-hundred-percent sure on.
So he needed to talk to her. That was a given. It was just how. When he felt like he had what he wanted to say in mind, he walked back to camp to look for her. It was better to get it out of the way, get things laid out in the open, where they could discuss them. Adnan followed the path back to camp, still only clad in jeans and his boots.
Coop wasn't in camp but she wasn't far. She'd woken that morning to find Adnan was gone (but his jacket was tucked under her head as a pillow) and that wasn't strange. However, she'd quickly learned that the lumberjacks hadn't gone off to find trees at all that day. None of this phased Coop, as much as she was eager to see her new lover again. She was thinking much more clearly today and wanted to clear the air. Not that she thought it needed much clearing. In Coop's world, well, she'd already made her decision about Adnan before the pollen, hadn't she? She'd even told him - though not in so many words - that she couldn't spend the night with him without having sex of some sort with him. In blew the pollen and too away the possibility, replaced it with a definitely, and now she was...content. Well, sore, but still rather zen about their decision.
It was when they were rounding up the afternoon meal and there had been no sign of Adnan, or her mutt for that matter, that a frown appeared on Coop's face. She'd walked to the spring and back and even checked the watering hole. Not a dark haired soul in sight other than Marcus and she steered clear of him.
Helena had distracted her for a little while with a fun little gift. The tiny Asian woman had knitted bikini tops for the ladies who wanted them. It was kind of a relief to have a piece of clothing other than her voluminous cotton dress. She'd been given thigh high knitted socks which she hadn't really needed to wear yet, and now a pinky red knitted bikini top that tied at back and neck.
It came in handy later in the evening when, while poised on a rock in the shallows of the lake, she eyed a wriggling blue scaled body moving toward her. It was damn near agony, learning how to spear fish, but she'd needed something to occupy her. She couldn't spend the afternoon combing the island for Adnan, after all. She'd folded the smocked top of her dress down to her hips and knotted the long skirt up between her legs to form a ridiculously puffy pair of flood pants. Looking nothing short of odd and glorious, she held her breath and waited for that fish to come just a little bit closer...
It didn't take him terribly long to find her. All he really had to do was look for that big splash of red. And the dog, the dog was a dead giveaway too. Adnan approached from the direction of camp, walking to the edge of the water and stopping. It looked like she was poised and ready to strike with a sharpened stick. He smiled faintly to himself, scratching Tripper behind the ears as the dog trotted up to say hello to him again. He didn't say anything until after Coop had made her move, taking the second to admire the play of muscle in her back. "Did you get it?" he called to her once she'd struck.
Coop whirled fast enough that she almost irreparably upset her balance on that rock. She over compensated and jammed the sharpened wooden spear down into the soft lake bed and recovered with a surprised expression on her face. By the end of it she was laughing at herself and shaking her head. Heaving a defeated but good natured sigh, she stepped down off the rock and sloshed toward him on the shore. "No, but at least I didn't get myself this time." She gave him a cheeky smile and skirted the dog to wrap one arm around his waist and give him a quick hug. "What have you been up to today?" she asked. He had a mildly sun-baked smell to him, pleasant to a girl who'd found herself pretty chemically drawn to the guy. His dark hair was wind-mussed too. She didn't want to demand to know where he'd been and so she'd settled on a mildly curious inquiry to how he'd spent his day. It was far too early to admit she'd been worried when she hadn't seen him. Even if, in this place, a missing person was justifiably worrisome.
Adnan gave her the hug back, taking her cue and making it a one-armed thing. He wasn't sure what that meant, but he was making an effort not to over-analyze everything. It was difficult to avoid, however, when he'd been grinding his gears for hours on end. "Mostly just walking around," he told her truthfully with a faint smile. "I wore your boy out for you." Adnan reached out and rubbed at the panting Tripper's head. He looked at her face and her tanned shoulders and wasn't at all positive he wanted to have this talk. She'd been attracted to him before the pollen at least, but ... what if that was all it was? Could anyone build anything lasting in this place? " ... I think we probably need to talk," he said, making sure his tone was gentle and more asking than demanding. He slid his hands into his pockets, as they wanted to run over the knitted fabric covering her chest.
Both of Coop's brows rose at his direct tackling of the issue that had apparently been on both of their minds all day. She had been about to thank him for taking care of the dog. She'd had no idea where Tripper had run off to and she decided she would have to make him a longer lead and tie him up at night. Still, if he'd gone on a long walk with Adnan, that was ok by her. "Sure," she said agreeably. "Did you...want to tell me what you've been thinking about?" she asked with a touch of caution. "Just so I know where you are coming from?" She gestured toward the rocks a little further up the beach so that they could sit.
Adnan walked to the rocks she'd indicated and sat down, leaving plenty of room for her. He clasped his hands in between his knees and quietly took in a deep breath. There was so much to worry about in this place, their very survival was on the line, but this felt important. He hadn't much realized before how necessary human contact was until there was just the small pocket of them in the middle of an alien world. As if the assurance that there were other people out there had been almost enough in the past, back home. He thought about how to start, and settled on a question first. "What was yesterday to you?" he asked, meeting her eyes directly.
Coop's eyes widened slightly as she leaned her spear against the rocks and set herself down. His body language clearly said that he was uncertain and didn't feel entirely wonderful about the previous day. "Well," she started to buy herself some time. "I don't feel bad about yesterday. It's not something I would have done if not for the pollen, but..." She shrugged her brown shoulders. "I can't really regret being with you, Adnan.". The smile she gave him was hopeful despite the fact that he seemed to feel negatively about it. She rushed to explain. "I kind of...think it would have happened sooner rather than later. Don't you?"
That was something of a relief to him, and it showed on his face a bit, as he took another deep breath. He'd been worried, he fully admitted, that it hadn't meant anything to her. Or well ... meant less than it had to him. He wasn't foolish enough to claim they were in passionate love yet or anything like that. He just hadn't wanted to be a symptom of alien pollen. "I do think so, yes," he said with a nod, brown eyes moving to her once more. "I don't regret it either. I just ... was unsure of where you stood." He offered her a faint smile back, as she looked worried. "I want to be prepared if ... you know. You're pregnant." There, it was out. That p-word that carried so much with it, both good and terrifying.
Coop's compassionate expression stilled as he brought up his fear. It wasn't that she had forgotten that she'd possessed the same worry it was just that she'd hoped that he'd forgotten her bringing it up in those diaphenous moments before their physical joining. "Ah..." She started lamely. "It's possible..." But they both knew that. They were both young, in good enough health and had come together more times than she could actually clearly remember the day before. "We're just going to have to wait and see," she said gently as she reached out to claim one of his hands from where he had tucked it between his knees.
Adnan nodded, aware that they wouldn't know right away. He might not've been raised with any knowledge of how womanhood worked, but his time in the States had more than made up for that. He gave her hand a warm squeeze as she claimed it, eyes still focused on her's. "If you are, I want you to know that I will fully support and care for you," he said, expression sober and serious. "I doubt it will happen, but even if we find we can't stand one another, I would die before I abandoned you and our child." He paused, took a breath, looked out at the water, then brought his eyes back to her. "You should know something, though. About my family." It was time. Past time, if they were going to be making love, she should know the weight it carried for him.
Coop's heart thumped hard in her chest when he said the words 'before I abandon you and our child'. It was...intense and real and all of a sudden a lump that felt like panic stuck low in her throat. The utterly insane question of what she might do to ensure that she wasn't actually pregnant rose before she could quash it. In order to hide that sudden and (she knew it was) fully irrational thought, Coop chuckled. "Going to bring home the bacon for us?" Her tone wasn't the least bit skeptical. She'd been observing her tall, dark and mysterious new friend pretty closely since they'd met. Adnan more than proved his worth in this place. A second reaction better than the first one chased and replaced her fear of motherhood with a touch of pride in the man. She didn't know him very well yet but she found that she did believe him. If there was a child or even many children over the years, since Coop has always felt she'd have a big family when it was time to settle down, Adnan would stand by them and fiercely defend them if he had to. She sighed softly, tension draining away that she hadn't been aware she was holding on to. Her fingers squeezed his back and she gave him encouraging smile. "What should I know?" Maybe some sort of genetic disease?
He didn't smile back. Couldn't, really, with everything so close to the surface. Something in him tried to balk, stop himself from revealing his softest underbelly. Even though he'd told Annaliese that day by the stream, that was ... different. There was nothing at stake there, he kept his emotional distance from it, as he usually did. "They're dead. All of them. Slaughtered by the Iraqi army. I wasn't in the village at the time, which is the only reason I'm still alive. I did their funeral rites myself, burned the bodies before I fled." He swallowed and grit his teeth for a second as his voice wavered, looking down at their linked hands before he got control and looked at her again. He wasn't positive what his point was, besides the feeling that she needed to know this, if she was going to be involved with him. "Family means more to me than words can possibly express," he said, voice husky with emotion. He was aware that this could possibly scare her away, baby or no baby, but he had to get it out. It was only fair that he not hide anything from her.
That revelation was so completely unexpected for Coop that he might as well have punched her in the stomach. She, too, had a very unpleasant and up close experience with the death of a very dear loved one but that had only been one. And it had been plenty bad enough. She didn't want to but she dropped her dark eyes from his as water flooded them. Though she still held firmly to his hand she turned her face away to look out toward the water and focus on just breathing. She was alive, he was telling her. She and perhaps a little seed of life inside of her that was a piece of him. Crazily, she wondered if he'd heard her quiet and faraway hope that she could crush that seed before it really grew and that's why he was bringing this home to her now. No matter what, Coop knew, she would have to see the consequences of her actions through without meddling. Burdened with an overabundance of conscience, she turned back to him and somehow, though a couple of fat tears had been loosed down her cheeks, she managed a watery smile. "I'm sorry that happened to you," she said, her voice husky with barely restrained emotion. Why did she have to feel for him so strongly? She didn't understand it.
He watched her react to his revelation, and nearly lost it himself. Adnan hadn't truly cried for his lost family in almost a year, if he was remembering correctly. He generally was at peace with what had happened. Or at least with the fact that he couldn't change it. It was one of those things that had to be accepted, lived with. He reached up with his free hand to gently thumb the tears off of her cheeks, though there were bright ones standing in his own. He shook his head slightly as he did so. "I'm not seeking your sympathy, but thank you," he said, tone much more tender than the actual words were. "I just want you to understand. Why you and a child would be everything to me. It's how I've been shaped." It was a little late to ask her if she could handle that; if she was pregnant, she was pregnant, and there were no other options. If she wasn't ... well, they could go from there. He didn't even have to ask her if she understood. Adnan could see that she did in her eyes. He let go of her hand to wrap both arms around her and pull her in closer, almost cradling her.
Coop let herself be pulled and helped it along a little further. She climbed into his embrace, scraping her shins on the stone as she did so but paid it no heed. She didn't like to touch on her own tragic memories but if he shared, she was going to have to. She pressed her damp face into the crook of his neck and shoulder for a minute, breathing him in and trying to get her wildly racing emotions under control. "I lost my father when I was twelve," she told him in a roughened whisper next to his ear. "Shale and Forrest were at a Scouts weekend and mom had taken Rye with her to Winnipeg to see her sister. It was just me and Dad and Friday night he had a heart attack in the yard. We didn't have a phone then, no neighbours for ten miles of dark forest and our old Ford was too tricky for me to manage at that age." She sniffled before continuing. "So there was nothing I could do. He just died and I couldn't even drag him into the house. I had to get his shotgun and a blanket and just...sit on the porch. Stand guard for the weekend otherwise the animals would have gotten him." She held on to him, her arms around the trunk of his body so tightly that she had to remind herself to loosen her grip on him or else she might actually hurt him.
Adnan listened, his dark brows drawing together with pained sympathy as her story went on. He wrapped his arms more tightly around her and clung back, though he was more careful lest he crack something. She felt so fragile for that moment, it made his chest ache. He'd at least been a man when he had to deal with losing his family. Barely a man, granted, but twelve was painfully young. "Oh hêja, I am so sorry," he murmured to her, despite what he'd said to her earlier. Without thinking about it, he started to rock her some, one hand moving up to smooth the back of her short hair. Picturing her that way, skinny and terrified, shooting to keep animals away from her dear father's body ... it made the tears that had stuck in his eyes spill over. He sniffed and turned his head enough to kiss the side of her jaw, doing his best to comfort when he knew there really was no comfort. Not for that kind of loss.
Coop could not give herself completely to grief and let herself fall apart in his arms. It might have been nice, to open herself up to him that much and let him demonstrate what a caring man she could tell he was. It was just that the tragedy was more than half her life in the past. That, and her father had gone naturally, if terribly young. "It happened a long time ago and...and I still had my mom and my brothers. I mentioned before that mom pretty much stayed home with us after that. Our lives sort of became...more normal." She sighed and just let the rest of her memories leak away as he held her. "How did you...make it...after your family was gone?" she asked. Maybe now that the intense physical portion of their getting to know one another was passed (for the moment), maybe they could get to know each other on a deeper level.
He was prepared to sit there and hold her as long as she needed to be held, but part of him deep inside admired her strength even in the face of what was undeniably a horrific memory. That was good, she was going to need that. They were going to need that, some intuition told him. He didn't answer her question for almost a full minute, as he honestly wasn't positive himself. There had been so many dark days after he'd packed what he could carry and ran. "I focused on survival at first," he murmured eventually, arms still solidly around Coop. "Getting out of the country. It wasn't easy to do. Luckily people knew my father, had been on good terms with him. More than I ever imagined. There was so much I didn't know ..." He trailed off briefly, then refocused. "Then it was just ... day to day. Learning English, getting work, not staying in one place too long. I lost my faith, so I turned to philosophy. I don't ... sometimes I don't know. How. The hole never goes away, but it gets easier to bear."
Coop nodded under his chin when he came to an end. "Yeah, I guess so. I can see why..." She swallowed passed that panicky lump again, ignoring it this time rather than indulging it. "Why family of your own would be so important to you. In the realm of handling this kind of grief, you're probably better off than the rest of us. You've had some time to scab up and heal. Not all the way, like you said you probably won't. Maybe it's like learning to use a muscle that was horribly damaged in an accident. You'll use it in some capacity but probably not like it was. The rest of us..." She sighed. "We've all just lost our entire families and all of our friends. I'm amazed..." She lifted a hand to wipe away a few more tears that tumbled. "I wonder how all of us can get up in the morning at all."
Adnan nodded, understanding that. He did draw a distinction between being separated from everyone and all of them being dead, but he didn't point it out. There was no need. He kissed her head gently again, giving her a gentle squeeze. "We're all focusing on survival," he murmured quietly. "Making sure we can live in case there is a way back to them. It's human nature." It made him worry, in a way, for when the time came that they were all relatively comfortable and had rooves over their heads, and full bellies, and were safe enough at night. He thought a wave of depression would overcome a lot of them, and he didn't look forward to that. He knew how dark those times could be.
Coop sniffled and sighed for a little while longer and then it turned to nuzzling. It felt like she just couldn't help herself. His hands were comforting and the timber of his voice with it's lilting accent soothed her more than anything else in this world, save for maybe the sounds of Tripper's doggy dreams. Which the mutt in question seemed to be having just then in the region of Adnan's feet. It made her smile, thinking her new lover must have kept the dog fairly busy all day for him to konk out like that. "I think it might happen, too," she told him. "If we can arrive, it stands to reason that we can leave somehow."
Elk City, Ontario, echoed in his mind again. He wouldn't forget it. If they all suddenly woke up and were back home, he would go there and he would find her. Or, if she wasn't there, he would wait for her. The sureness he had about that surprised him a little, but not as much as it might have two days ago. It was insane, but the very place they were existing in didn't make the most sense. It felt real and intense, and he was going to hold on to it. He closed his eyes and leaned into her nuzzling just a bit, one hand moving to rub the bare skin on her back lightly.
She sighed and lifted her head to look at him. Her gaze ticked back and forth between both of his eyes, a couple of shades lighter than her own but still warm and dark. "So you'll be the first to know if I start to suspect that we may have started something more than a great friendship." Was that all it was? Even so soon, was that the best word she could come up with? "I completely understand why it's important to you." She heaved a sigh. "I'll be terrified though. I don't think I'd be able to be even half as calm as Rowan is being." She gave him the strongest smile she could manage which only came about as close as a candle flame flickering in the wind. "I guess it's inevitable, though." She certainly was in no rush to get out of his lap. His hands on her felt almost as good as they had the day before it was just that half starved need that was gone. She couldn't see them resisting each other indefinitely, not now.
Adnan felt it was more than just a great friendship already, but he fully realized that could be tied into his own desires about family and a nature that had always had an edge of romanticism to it. "You'll be fine," he assured her, sounding positive of that. "You're a lot stronger than you give yourself credit for, I suspect." And he would be there every step of the way, making sure her needs were absolutely met and she was safe. Even if it meant leaving the larger group for somewhere else. If it came to that, he would do it. One never knew, and one knew even less in this place. He offered her a smile back that wasn't much larger than her's, but was more steady. He didn't repeat for her to let him know, though it was sitting in his throat to be said. He knew she would, and he would do his best not to hound her about it, asking. After a second's hesitation, Adnan leaned in to kiss her gently. Almost to test the waters.
Coop tipped her face up to receive the kiss and her lips lingered on his for a few heartbeats and she had to admit, it was wonderful. She even liked the faint tickle of his stubble. She could tell that some day soon he would have graduated into a full beard unless he asked to borrow a razor from one of the men here who had one. Cross was always clean shaven or nearly so. When the kiss ended she leaned back a little bit and cocked her head. "How do you feel about your beard?" she asked, curious. Most of the truckers she knew practically measured their worth as a human being by the length and luxuriousness of their beard. Her fingers found their way to his cheeks, stroking the short wiry hairs.
He quirked an eyebrow at her, a surprised little smile crossing his lips. "My beard?" he echoed, reaching up to scratch at the other side of it a bit. "It's itchy." Adnan chuckled. "How do you feel about it? Say the word and it's gone." He wasn't sure how he would accomplish that, but surely somebody had a good knife that he wouldn't absolutely butcher himself with. And if she didn't like it, well ... he didn't have to kiss himself, did he? Assuming that she wanted to keep up this kissing pattern they had going on. It was hot, anyway. His heritage ensured that he was indeed growing a thick impenetrable force around his face.
Her face arranged itself into a nearly comical mask of scrutiny as she looked at him from both angles. "Well, it really does make you look manly, I have to say." She gave him a little grin. "It's scratchy on the face but feels kind of nice just about everywhere else." Stroking her fingertips along his jawline to feel the texture of the growth, she half closed her eyes at the memory of the divine feeling of his nuzzly kisses on the backs of her knees and the insides of her elbows and thighs. "I think you should keep it for a while longer if you can stand it. If it's too hot though, don't suffer."
"Maybe I should shave it into chops?" he posed with a little grin. He reached up to rub the dark hair on either side of his jaw. "Enough to tickle with, but not around the mouth." Adnan thought he would probably look ludicrous -- who could actually pull off chops? -- but he wanted to see her smile again. He planned on keeping the beard for a bit, since she'd said something. He'd never put much thought into what types of facial hair women might find attractive, he usually just shaved every couple of days and was done with it, but if she liked him with hair on his face ... he'd give it a shot.
Coop's smile grew bigger than ever. "I can't actually picture you with chops." When she giggled her nose scrunched up a little bit and her dark eyes danced. She wasn't the kind of woman who could hide her feelings very well and Adnan just made her feel good. "Maybe it'll get cold here and you'll be glad you have a thick beard to grow," she pointed out.
He also vowed to show her him with chops when he actually did shave. Just to let her get a look before he took it all off. Her smile drew one of his own out of him, though it was subdued. More serene than anything. He felt like a sort of weight had been lifted. He didn't have to hide anything from her, at all. "I'd bet on it," he agreed with a slight nod. He wouldn't be surprised if they had a full range of seasons in that place. "Though I can basically grow it out full within a week, so you can have whatever variety you want." He nuzzled into her neck just a bit, breathing her warm scent in.
The rasp of his fuzzy cheek caused her to shiver just a bit but she leaned into his affectionate gesture. Coop liked to cuddle when she was sitting still long enough to accomplish it. She tended to be aggressive in her affections though, and the poor young man would discover that sometimes you just couldn't start something with her without finishing it. Yes, she decided, she would show him if he persisted in titillating her with the silky and yet prickly hairs on his jaw. "Just as long as you grow one long enough for me to hide under if it gets really cold," she said with another chuckle.
Adnan chuckled deep in his chest and lifted his head away from her neck. He wasn't trying to start anything, she was just irresistible when it came to touching her. He wanted to do it all the time, in different spots on her body. Get to know it like it was his own. But if he was honest with himself, he didn't want to tempt fate. There was a chance that she wasn't pregnant, and part of him wanted to have that settled before he went about risking it all over again. "I'll have made you a bed with lots of blankets by that time, remember?" he informed her, a little smile playing with his lips.
She sat back just a little from him. "Are you kidding? I think about that future bed day any night!" She chuckled at the little tease, her eyes closing with a blissfully dreamy expression stealing across it. "Then I can prove to you that if sleeping were an Olympic sport, I'd have dozens of gold medals." It was a lifelong joke, that Coop could sleep through the apocalypse, a marching band and an F5 tornado all at the same time. Adnan had to have an idea of that already, since he seemed to have no trouble carefully rolling her off of him in the mornings so that he could get up. She didn't think there had been a morning yet where she woke before he did.
He thought he would enjoy seeing that day immensely. He didn't say so, because it probably sounded overly sappy, but he wanted to give her that comfort and feeling of safety. If he could do that, he'd done his job. It was a quiet, private goal that he was going to do his damndest to fulfill. "We'll see if I can beat you on that day, I'm quite a sleeper myself, given the right circumstances." He chuckled faintly and ran a hand over her lower back. "But come, let's see if you can catch dinner, yes?" He tilted a small grin at her and gave her rear end a pat.
She was up on her feet again, narrow spear in hand. "No luck so far," she said. "I have no idea how people do this." She checked the point on the end of the straight wooden twig to ensure it was still as sharp as she could get it from rubbing it against the rocks. Satisfied, she skipped down the beach and back into the water, her voluminous skirt knotted into pantaloons that made her look terribly disproportionate. It was easy not to worry too much about what she looked like here. No mirrors, no shiny comparrisons. On some level she could barely voice to anyone, she thought it was nice to not have those things to worry about. Just life to be concerned with. On second thought, she thought she might whisper that thought to Adnan later, when they were curled up under their cart.