Trustful Companion
(Post-War) Cooper Howard x GN! Reader
Summary: Relaxing from your travels across the wasteland yet trouble seeming to find you both ruining a good drink.
Warnings: Guns, Held at gunpoint, Bar, Drinking/Alcohol, Violence, Slight Soft Cooper
Taking in the smell of alcohol cigarettes sitting at the mostly empty bar, thankfully allowing ghouls into the establishment; otherwise, it would have to be a shoot-and-grab mission for the both of you.
Hearing as the glass hit the wooden bar top, alerting the bartender to refill. Still looking over at the number of drink choices along the wall, knowing it would keep Cooper happy before the trip to the next bounty mission. Watching in the corner of your vision as the glass filled before striking to take it, seeing his hand stuck in time while you happily sipped away at his drink, taking in the sight of his shocked demeanor.
"And you call yourself a bounty hunter." Saying smugly, holding up the glass proudly, "Says my trustful companion," he replies, reminding you of the reason he keeps you around. Trust.
Placing down the drink in front of the man, still smiling like an idiot, finding your fun in catching the ghoul off guard. Swimming in that thought, having no notice of the two men behind you until feeling the nudge of their guns against the back of your heads.
Sitting still, watching in the corners of your vision, watching the bartender move away slowly, not caring for him, they spoke only to you both: "Didn't think they let this thing in here," the one farther from you says.
"Me and you both," Cooper says through gritted teeth, though it only earned a whip to the head, hearing as he groaned, not knowing whether from the pain or holding himself back.
"And this one, they have to be infected," the one behind you says, nudging the gun harder. Being in the spotlight, you fought the urge to roll your eyes. "Both of them could turn right now; we should take you both out right here, right now," Cooper's captor says, making his hand twitch against the glass.
"Not in here, boys," the voice of the bartender makes the attention turn, seeing as he held a shotgun in your direction. "You heard the man up," one of them ordered, leading you two to the door, guns now down to your back.
Feeling the cold outside nipping at your skin though as quickly as it came, so did Cooper's signal, moving swiftly to push the gun away from your captor, though not fast enough being locked into his grip. Turned seeing Cooper and the unconscious man on the dirt path, yet here you were, a gun held against your temple, waiting to blow.
"All of your caps, and I'll let them go," he demands, yet getting nothing from Cooper, the silence made a chill roll over your body. Looking into his eyes, seeing nothing—no plan, no signal, just nothing. "Make him talk," the man says, pushing the gun harder against you. "Give him the fucking caps already," you say, knowing he'll get them back after anyway.
Watching him slowly pull out his cap bag, dangling it in the air, "Come and get it," he says teasingly. "Go grab it and bring it back," the man says before pushing you to him, you walked grabbing the bag from Cooper.
Locking eyes with the ghoul, seeing the slight tilt of his head alerting you to his next action, quickly grabbing you before turning around taking the shot before blowing lead into the man.
"Fuck Coop, you couldn't have just given it to him instead of that stupid shit." You chew him out on dragging shit out. "Fucker could have shot me," you state, getting yourself together.
Looking up at him seeing his proud smile, the same one you had earlier, "I like to have a little fun too, darling," he says, but you quickly snap back. "Not when I'm dead, you won't!" "Oh please, darling, I ain't letting you go that soon," he teases. "Yeah, because you love me," you tease back, making him embarrassed.
"Shut up," he says, but you continue "You love me" singing into the night, earning a "Yeah, yeah" while walking off into the night, keeping close to him. Supposing that's another reason why he keeps you around. He loves you.
A/N: This is my second time writing this so I might release the other.
Hello, I hope you enjoyed if there is any grammar mistakes or misspellings sorry about that feel free to let me know in the comments, have a great day/afternoon/night!
𝙏𝙖𝙜𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙩: @emoguardian
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Cardiac Arrest, CPR, and the Reticent Volcano 🌋🎁
So yesterday I made a very interesting discovery while watching the TTPD (track) lyric vid that led to me having several epiphanies at once. If you watch the vid, you'll notice that for the most part the lyrics are in all caps save for a few lines. Of these lines, one in particular, “like a tattooed Golden Retriever,” caught my attention bc it has 2 capital letters--G and R--that you wouldn't have been able to see if the line was in all caps like the ones just before it. What makes it more interesting is that golden retriever is not a proper noun like a name or title so it shouldn't be capitalized according to English grammar rules.
This led me to search for the TTPD album booklet scans to see if this was also capitalized in the booklet and to see what other words were capitalized. Then after looking at the booklet it hit me--CPR(G)!!! Charlie Puth Retriever Golden. Everyone agreed these lyrics sounded a little odd compared to the rest of her lyrics and the shout out to Charlie Puth seemed kind of random. But now it makes complete sense why she wrote those lyrics. She was trying to draw attention to the capital letters CPR(G) that are repeated throughout the album. In this post I explained that Taylor mentions CPR in So Long, London bc they're all related to each other, they're a family. C=Cassandra=Taylor; P=Peter=her 2nd kid; R=Robin=her 1st kid; G=Gold/Golden=Karlie. If you look at the TTPD tracklist, Cassandra, Peter, and Robin are in the same order as CPR.
Taylor wanted to acknowledge her family in some way on this album and so she represented them w these 4 letters which are likely a stand-in for the Swift-Kloss family crest since I don't believe that showed up on this album. This is the key to deciphering several of the anon messages and understanding why some things are lowercase while other things are capitalized. For example, all of the volcano 🌋anon messages and the last 2 messages from (PR)esent anon 🎁 are lowercase with the exception of the words "Gold" and "Goodbye." This connects these messages to TTPD (track). "Gold" is highlighted like "volcano" to indicate that Miss Gold Rush is going to be a part of the atomic bomb Taylor is getting ready to drop. And the "Goodbye" being capitalized indicates that Karlie is indeed the "neighbor" in this message and in Fortnight as well as "the woman who sits by the window" in Peter that turns out the light/lamp. She is the one who keeps a lit jack-o-lantern 🎃 on the front porch while awaiting Taylor's return home from exile. These things single-handedly prove that 🌋 and present 🎁 anon are indeed legit bc how would a troll have been able to predict these things when The Anthology tracks were surprise dropped at 2am and weren't revealed w the standard edition tracks on Feb 5, and why would a troll even bother w such subtle details?? Plus no lyrics had leaked yet at the time these messages were sent so the only logical answer is that they must've either been sent by Taylor or someone close to her.
Side note: When I first wrote that post analyzing the present 🎁 anon messages, I had thought that the song Robin, and maybe Peter as well, was the gift/present to us kaylors that present 🎁 anon told us to look out for since P's and R's are repeated in the messages. However, I have since figured out that actually the poetry book For now, she slumbers was likely the gift since present 🎁 anon's messages mention the title of the book "for now, she slumbers" and "reticent volcano" which is the author's name as an anagram (see this post). Plus the March 4 message directly quotes the first poem in For now, she slumbers called "Two" ✌️ (If you want to read all the poems in order see this post). I explain in this post that the reason why this poem is the first one in the book is bc it's the key to understanding all the ones that follow and to understanding TTPD. The 2 ✌️ is probably the most important motif in TTPD bc it symbolizes the 2 different versions of Taylor and 2 opposing narratives abt her life that exist. Taylor Swift the brand vs Taylor Swift the person; the boy-crazy maneater that only writes songs abt her ex-boyfriends vs the tortured closeted queer poet that is forced to hide her truth behind metaphors and red herrings. Going back to the CPR of it all, I still believe my initial analysis of the present 🎁 anon messages was correct for the most part since the "reticent volcano" is likely a tell-all memoir that will explain the whole messy story and how and why she kept her family (CPRG) a secret. The purpose of the 🎁 and 🌋 anon messages was to guide us to both the poetry book and to CPR(G) which both foreshadow what her memoir--that she's hinted at w The Manuscript and The Story of Us--is going to be abt.
Now continuing on w the theory, as I mentioned previously, we have Cassandra=Taylor, Peter=her 2nd kid, and Robin=her 1st kid. And if you look at the pg in the booklet w The Manuscript, you'll see that there is a capital G in "Good Samaritan" which completes the CPRG set and is also the only capital G that shows up in this song.
And to tie it all together, if you look at the summary poem/epilogue at the very end, Taylor mentions cardiac arrest. This happens when someone's heart suddenly stops functioning and can be reversed by CPR! "I stopped CPR after all it's no use, the spirit was gone we would never come to." And this connects to You're Losing Me (From the Vault) which is abt the fans not seeing the real her or paying attention to her repeated queer signaling -> "I can't find a pulse, my heart won't start anymore for you, 'cause you're losing me." Taylor has given up trying to get her fans to listen to her (CPR) and has accepted that she may lose a lot of them when she reveals everything (CPRG). She is warning them that they are abt to lose the Taylor that they know, the old Taylor, bc she is going to have to kill her public persona and brand in order to be reborn as the new version of herself and move onto the next chapter of her life.
And to add even more evidence to this theory, CPR is often performed on drowning victims, and where does drowning show up in TTPD? Oh it shows up in The Bolter which just so happens to be sandwiched in between Cassandra, Peter, and Robin! -> "By all accounts, she almost drowned when she was 6 in frigid water...And she liked the way it tastes, taming a bear, making him care, watching him jump then pulling him under...as she was leaving, it felt like breathing/freedom" // "When I was drowning that's when I could finally breathe." Drowning also shows up in Guilty as Sin which I've determined probably represents the acceptance stage of grief so the drowning metaphor checks out (see this post) -> "Drowning in the Blue Nile, he sent me 'Downtown Lights.'" (Also check out this amazing video which explains the Blue Nile and religious connections). This connects to the 8th 🎃 message where Taylor chooses to jump into shark infested waters and sacrifice her image and brand so that her lover doesn't have to. So putting all these pieces together, this means that by giving up on trying to revive her relationship w her fans or to maintain her image (CPR) and by putting her family and her happiness first (CPRG), Taylor will finally be able to be truly free. She is going to let Taylor Swift the brand drown so that she can finally breathe. This connects to The Black Dog where she compares the red herrings/bearding/lavender haze/smokescreen to an old habit like smoking that she's trying to quit -> "6 weeks of breathing clean air, I still miss the smoke."
Now w all this context in mind, it makes more sense why Taylor has been emphasizing capital and lowercase letters and the number 4 recently. The hidden word hunt on Apple Music, thanK you aIMee, imgonnagetyouback, her retweets from 4/21/23-4/24/23 which happened in groups of 4, putting 4 letter words in all caps, etc. And now it's clear that "I keep these longings locked in lowercase inside a vault" is most likely referring to her explosive tell-all memoir, the reticent volcano, she's going to publish since 🌋 anon's messages were all in lowercase. "Restful, reticent, restraint" = locked inside a vault. Rep tv and the folklore and evermore vault tracks may also be included in this since these albums are in lowercase as well.
In conclusion, I think it is safe to say now that all of these anons are probably legit. In my opinion, all of these connections provide concrete evidence that these anons do foreshadow things and have ties to Taylor.
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