undergrounds | lord we know what we are, but not what we may be [closed to cooper]

Set a few hours after this thread.

Warnings: likely mentions of child abuse, sexual abuse, prostitution, domestic abuse, and criminal activities.

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There's a bit of grease on Nancy's jeans as she pushes open the door to Cooper's apartment, one arm carrying a large brown bag. She puts her purse down next to the front door immediately as she comes in, calling: "Cooper! I'm home- stopped in at the shops on my way home, thought I'd pick up some more gin, and that whiskey you like." He should be home- he didn't have a Night Council meeting, and since he'd been returned from the Other Realm, he'd been laying low. She didn't blame him.

She's fresh from work, clear from the smell of oil that clings to her skin as she puts the bag of alcohol on the front-hall table. The gin she'd grabbed for herself was the cheap brand she usually drank, while the whiskey, actually paid for, was from a higher shelf. She knew what her boyfriend liked to drink, and she wanted to provide it for him, when needed.

Once she turned to take her shoes off, that's when she noticed it. The tiny pieces of what she assumed had once been a vase, nearly pulverized. The alcohol is immediately forgotten about as she calls out again, a note of worry in her voice: "Cooper? What happened?" She steps further into the apartment. "Did Juliet break a vase?" She can only hope it was that. But this wasn't the first time she'd come home to broken vessels in her entry-way. Far, far from it.

As Cooper was about to learn.

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Nancy looks at her hand as though it has burned Cooper when he jerks away. He barely has to apply any of his vampire strength.

She presses her lips together, crossing her arms. "It's not like we've spent a great deal of time talking about our pasts-!" Still. "You've always known mine was bad. Look, I-" she glances away, closing her eyes. She had no excuse, she realized. No reason to have not told him that hey, I have a werewolf boyfriend who is in jail and I'm going to leave you for him the second he gets out because I love him more than I can ever love anyone else no matter how hard I try, and I"m sorry about it?

Except for every reason. That, and the deep, deep shame she felt whenever someone asked about her relationship with Bill. About the nature of it.

Nancy hunches her shoulders forward, dropping her head. It's so inexcusable, and she'd be furious, too, if Cooper hadn't told her about some important woman in his life, someone with that deep, base connection- perhaps his sire, she supposed.

"I'm sorry." She wraps her arms around herself. "I'm so sorry- You're right; I should have told you. I don't know how. I don't want you to know about that part of me, to be so disgusted with me you can never look at me again. That's why I haven't told you- I care about you so much, I can't loose you, Cooper." She reaches for him again, her green eyes filled with tears, "I love you. I love you so much. And that's why I haven't told you. If-- I don't know what you already know, what Dodger told you. He'd been there for most of it, could tell you near everything, I'm sure." She can't look at him, look at the judgement that was sure to cross his brow.

"He told me enough. I didn't want t'hear more than I had to. Christ, Nancy, I knew you'd had it rough in your past before, but this was something else!" He's still furious after what he's heard from Dodger about her past. It was sordid and dark, nothing that he had ever wanted to hear.

Some of the anger leaves his tone. "I'm not just mad at you and I'm not disgusted by what you did back then. Fagin didn't leave you a whole lot of options in your life." Just another reason he wanted to track down that old fae one of these days and devour him whole. Dodger had made it clear that this stretched all the way back to Nancy's childhood, getting involved with the fae.

"But when I think about how young you were, gettin' involved with some older creep like that, it makes me want to go find the fucker 'n rip his goddamn head off." He really would if he had any way to get inside the prison without getting caught.

She presses her lips together, looking down, even as he tells her he's not only mad at her. But he was still mad at her. Her boyfriend was mad, and she knew what that meant. She had to play it safe, safer than she was now, if she was going to avoid any sort of wrath. Even as Cooper's anger begins to fade.

Her shoulders are still up around her ears when she swallows thickly. "13, when I started- working," she mutters the dark truth. "12, with Bill." And before that... "But Fagin..." No, Cooper didn't want to hear more. She didn't want to say more. It was hard enough, forcing words around tears that kept falling.

He runs a hand over his hair, still too mad to start comforting Nancy as she cries. "Shit. I'm not sure if I want to throw up or hit somebody." Preferably that stupid werewolf and fae until both their faces caved in. She'd been through so much and he'd never known. He feels like an awful fool, the worst sort, because he'd never even bothered to ask. She's had all this in her past for years and he didn't know one whit of it till Dodger came strolling through his door.

"I just wanna know why you didn't tell me any of this. I could've handled it. You didn't need to lie 'n hide things from me." He probably would've reacted even worse than he is right now, but that was beside the point.

It's so stupid, she thinks, that he's even asking why she hasn't told him. Why did he think! Because this exact sort of thing would have happened. Nancy keeps her head low as tears burn at her cheeks.

"I didn't want to tell you," she says softly. "Because I've never told anyone. I don't know how. Bill's not a bad person, Cooper." He just does stupid things, and isn't sure how to show his feelings. He was never good with words, which was why the tattoo on his chest of her name which was all Nancy needed to know he cared.

"It's Fagin that's the worst."

Cooper's still fairly upset and he considers throwing another vase at the wall. God, things were all messed up now, and he had no idea how they were ever going to fix this. He wasn't even sure it was something that could be fixed. This was a big blow to their relationship. How did one get past the specter of a man that Nancy still had on her mind?

Then Nancy defends Bill. Cooper all but explodes into another towering temper of rage. "Not a bad person? Bull! He had you out on the streets when you were a child! 'N doin' God knows what else to you!" He folds his arms, standing up straight so he can use every inch he has over Nancy. "Did he hit you?" Dodger had alluded to as much without actually saying. "'Cause that ain't love, no matter how many times he said he was sorry."

Nancy lets out a small noise of fear as Cooper starts to yell. Her tears fall, and she recoils away from him, trying to make herself as small as possible.

"He didn't put me on the streets!" She tries, but it's no use.

Then he asks if he hit her, and Nancy nearly crumples. She nods tearfully. "He did love me. I can't expect- no one ever understood. It was there, it was always there, in how he looked at me and touched me- whenever he did, I deserved it, Cooper. But he kept me safe! Lord, did he look after me, took me out of Fagin's grasp where he couldn't touch me, neither." She inhales, deeply, raggedly.

"I love you. I love you so much, Cooper." She reaches a hand out toward him. "I don't see him anymore." It was too hard, to make her way into that prison, to see him behind bars, cooped up and angry. And now with Cooper, it was that much harder. Furthermore, she didn't want to see him. "Been years- since before we got together. You have to believe me." Love her. Forgive her.

lord we know what we are, but not what we may be [closed to cooper]

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