The seeds we planted grew, but not like roses do

Isobel was willfully ignoring the feelings towards them part.  For all they knew, Sasha could be lying about that to try and make them feel better, or to get her off the hook.  That’s not what her face reflected, but then…apparently, she was a good actor.  The only thing Isobel knew, is that Sasha didn’t used to be a vampire, and now she very clearly was.  That garnered a slight bit of sympathy from Isobel, but not much.  “Oh, that’s great that you have a clean conscience now,” Isobel laughed humorlessly.  “You can take off from town all you want, leave me to think you were dead or ran away because you wanted to be rid of me that badly, but now that you’ve told me all the things you wanted to tell me, suddenly everything is great now.  Now that you’ve cleared your head, our relationship is all on me and it’s my fault if I get mad at you.”  Isobel knew they were twisting Sasha’s words, but at the moment, they could only see red.  

Isobel stayed silent as they heard Mike’s tone shift from playful to more serious in nature.  If a stranger had heard him, they might not have noticed it, but Isobel had been hearing his voice their whole life.  Not his life, of course; he was an old man.  Isobel hesitated on his words.  Mike actually might know a bit about certain changes that were…vampiric…in nature.  They remembered how tied up he was when his friend Vivienne was struggling.  But did that mean Isobel wanted to burden their cousin with their problems?  Not really.  Isobel wrested back and forth with the options, and eventually decided upon presenting the choice to Mike.  “It’s not…urgent,” they said finally.  “So, if you have a shift tomorrow, or just don’t want to deal with it, I get it.” And would probably be relieved if he said no, “But if you, you know, didn’t have anything else to do tonight, it’s okay if you hopped into one of my dreams.”  That was also a big if, depending on if Isobel actually fell asleep at some point tonight.

"I know," they said as a reply, smirking.  Before these last couple of weeks, Isobel would have had a hard time believing this statement of Lark's.  It felt like Lark was all over the place; everyone knew her, she'd always had a cause she was chasing.  There was a saying about living in another person's shoes that crossed their mind, but now that Isobel lived as Lark for a couple weeks, they realized Lark was much more of a homebody than she let on.  It came with the territory: not allowed to go outside during the day, and not very many activities at night.  Isobel had kept their stir-crazy feelings at bay during the weeks, but like a lot of things from their experience, it was fresh in Isobel's mind.  "Oh."  It hadn't completely occurred to Isobel that Lark would be unwilling to talk to them about their body-switching. But no, that wasn't what she was saying.  Isobel shifted uncomfortably.  "I guess, I just had a question to ask you.  About feeding?  That would be the...part of the experience that was particularly frustrating for me," they mirrored Lark's words.  "Like, I don't know."  Isobel lowered their voice, spilling over their words before they could take it back.  "Do you ever...enjoy it?  Even though you hate it?"

Isobel needed a fuck-me-up drink.  After all this shit they had going on in their head, in their mind it was better to try to escape than face their problems.  It wasn’t great to drink alone, but they didn’t want to drink with anyone they knew.  There was a guy at the bar, and based on his copying, he seemed to be wanting to have a good time.  Isobel could work with that.  “Same here, man.” They returned the smile to the stranger.  “I ordered a trash can.  I hope you don’t have anywhere to be tomorrow.  Do you want me to explain it, or would you like to be surprised?”

Isobel wasn’t taking the situation too well.  For one, they knew full well if Millie hadn’t got there in time, they could have very well gotten shot, or much worse.  They hadn’t watched what they were doing, and now, because of them, Millie was getting heat for something that wasn’t her fault, and Isobel had put themselves in a position where their sister could have also gotten hurt.  The screaming from not only Morgana but also Lilith was worse than anything that happened at Isobel’s shop.  But, like all situations that involved Isobel’s feelings, they were trying to keep it hidden.  But it was getting difficult as the day wore on.  They walked out of the coffee line, latte in hand, and turned sharply at someone coming in their line of vision. “What?” Isobel asked sharply.

Isobel had to step back mentally just to process this wall of information.  All they could really do is stare at Stella—Sasha—while she explained.  "So you...we...I don't know, Sasha.  I feel like, if our whole relationship was a lie, I don't know if I can believe anything you say." And yet, her explanation made much more sense than her original story.  Stella/Sasha told Isobel about her family, but when they made the attempt to contact any of them, they came up completely empty.  She said she was a writer, but she never wrote anything.  But there were several things that didn't add up in Isobel's mind.  "What’s so special about Traceless that you were assigned to spy here? And the-the feelings you had for me?  If you had feelings for me, and you had an assignment here, then why did you leave?"

@nighttcrrors

“Um...” Isobel immediately knew why Mike was asking. Dreams and sleep were specifically their cousin’s thing, and if this was any regular night they would be all for Mike doing his dream hopping. But lately their dreams weren’t about flying or meeting celebrities. The dreams seemed to always touch on that particular time when they were in Lark’s body. When Isobel... “No, I’m fine,” Isobel snapped. “I-I mean-yeah. I’m good, there’s nothing going on. Nothing to worry about. Sorry to wake you,” they added.

Isobel smiled politely, a little hesitant.  They weren’t sure, even if Isobel managed to spit out what they wanted to say, if Lark would understand.  It was a small risk though; Lark was a good friend, and an even better one now that they’d both gone through...that experience.  “I’m doing okay,” they didn’t quite meet Lark’s eyes.  “Sure!  I mean, unless you had something going on?  Sorry to pop in out of the blue,” Isobel shoved their hands into their pockets.  “But I was hoping maybe we could talk about... what happened.  I’m not so great with the feelings thing, but I think it would be better so that it’s not awkward between us?”  Isobel had a little more to talk about than just that, but they figured they could lead into it.  The perfect plan.

Isobel put the kickstand up, surveying their ex-girlfriend.  It was very difficult to make out any colors with the night so dark, but there was something that looked like dark liquid on Stella’s neck and shirt, and though this wasn’t really what they expected, it wasn’t exactly hard for Isobel to figure out what was going on.  “I don’t think you need to, not about the blood thing anyway,” they responded, wrinkling their nose while swinging a leg over and standing up.  “Since when are you a vampire?  Or have you always been one and I didn’t notice?”  It wasn’t like theirs and Stella’s relationship was the healthiest, and Isobel was starting to recognize that as a pattern in their string of exes, but that was a topic for another time.  “You can explain where you’ve been.  I haven’t seen you in what, several years?  I tried to look you up, but it’s like you ceased to exist or something.”

Isobel was feeling stressed, which was now becoming a permanent fixture of their personality.  Since going back into their body, they'd felt the initial relief that turned into ongoing nightmares and then, the headache that was opening their shop again after two weeks, and thanking the gods that they'd had customers that were booked in advance so they'd still have a store to come back to.  Isobel had skipped lunch to do bookkeeping, and was nearing the end of doing that when they heard a jingle from their shop, a knock on their office door and Millie coming in to take a seat across from their desk without any announcement.  In truth, Isobel hadn't given that aspect much thought.  And the bits they had, it hadn't added up to anything that made sense.  They finished writing down a number in a column as they said, "I think it's the new moon they turn into mermaids.  Don't quote me on that." Isobel looked up.  "I don't know, this all feels like an inside job, you know?  It felt like a direct attack on werewolves, and I think someone racist is trying to pull the strings to get us out of town.  Did you bring lunch with you, by chance?"

"Our abilities are definitely inherited," Isobel answered Ulani, leaning against one of her counters.  "But at the same time, we don't really inherit the same stuff; it's like in our pack we all just get the same amount of magic...stuff...and then whatever our genetic code decides what it wants to do with it, that's what happens."  Isobel did their best to explain something that wasn't necessarily explained to them.  Their mother preferred Isobel stay in the dark and their father went along with it, they, would rather die than go to Lilith about personal problems, and JT had more important things to do.  Millie was amazing to talk to about everything, but she couldn't summon ghosts to talk to them like Isobel could, which is why Isobel was here, talking to a relative stranger about something very personal.  "These aren't offensive questions," they gave an attempt at reassurance.  "It's just—it's weird to talk about it? With someone who's not Millie.  My sister.  As a witch, how does it work for you?  Do you choose to see ghosts and things?"

“No, I don’t need--are you listening to me?” Mike must have been deep asleep, and there wasn’t much telling what was going on with him, whether he was jumping around in someone else’s head or just enjoying being in his own.  Either way, Isobel figured it was a lost cause trying to get through to him.  “Ugh, never mind.  You can continue whatever it is you’re doing in there; it’s not like I’m getting to sleep tonight anyways.”  They weren’t going to admit this to Mike, or even to their own head right now, but maybe it wasn’t him that was keeping her up.  It was probably Isobel’s mind stressing about the past couple weeks.

This body switching thing had to be one of the weirdest things that had ever happened to Isobel. And they turned into a wolf at least once a month. As they spent the weekend thinking about it, they realized they had been putting a mental guard up from Lark and the other werewolves in that border, so they couldn’t see just how out of their element they really were. Isobel was freaked out, and not really from being Lark—it was from having to feed. Isobel knew it was necessary; they didn’t have the control Lark did. But the feeling of it, the taste… Isobel walked out of their house in the middle of the night, got on their motorcycle and sped towards Lark’s house, figuring she’d be up. They got to the door and knocked, hoping that it would be her that answered and not Steffi. Steffi was always hot and intimidating, and Isobel didn’t have all their wits together at that moment.

The night was quiet, the town of Spurlos usually calm after the sun went down. Save for the large groan of Isobel's motorcycle engine as it sped down the roads in disregard to people sleeping, their hair flying every which way.  Isobel had a lot on their mind, namely about getting used to their body again after being out of it for a couple weeks, and almost wasn’t paying attention to the bright blonde woman walking on the side of the road.  As their bike sped past the woman, Isobel whipped their head back to get a closer look at the face, and then immediately slammed on the brakes and turned around.  As they approached the woman, it wasn’t a mirage or anything.  “S-Stella?” Isobel sputtered.  “What the fuck happened to you?”

Isobel had no frame or reference or understanding of this statement.  Since they were as old as they looked--well, usually--they couldn’t mentally understand not seeing what they looked like for a hundred years.  “Jesus.  Well, don’t worry, you’re gorgeous.”  They listened to Lark’s explanation, thinking this was all very convoluted, and yet--she had it down to a science.  Isobel didn’t want to throw any more of the large wrench they’d already thrown into Lark’s schedule, and so she said, “...I don’t want to kill anyone, either.  I guess the best thing to do is probably to stay in your house until this guy comes for blood.  Hopefully it’ll get figured out like, today, though, and we won’t have to worry about it.  I’ll be honest, though.  I had a couple clients booked today, so this sucks.”  There was no way Isobel was going to be able to go to Las Vegas today.

“Right,” Isobel replied simply into the phone before Lark hung up the phone, seeing what their brain knew was Lark but was shutting down at seeing themself with another person’s eyes.  “Shit, do I really look like that?”  Isobel took their phone from Lark and handed the woman her own.  This was so weird...  “So, what did you mean by sourcing blood ethically?”  Isobel admittedly didn’t know a lot about the knitty-gritty of how vampires lived.  And that was a little bit on purpose; Isobel didn’t really want to know about the act of drinking blood and surviving.  But now that they were fully confronted with the problem, they’d wished they maybe knew a little more.