Electra

Rank 11 sidekick, guess I'd better keep saving up my points if I want to get him in January. :lol:

Stesha looked away, tugging uneasily at her braid. "I owe you an apology too," she said finally, looking back to meet Taylor's eyes. "You were right not to believe Moira's story, but I did. I had no right to say what I did back at the restaurant, about you not caring. I thought... I thought you were being cruel, but I was wrong. She told me what really happened. But if he bit you too, and lied about it, why did you stay with him? Moira may have been lying, but you and I have both seen the way he uses people, takes advantage of them. How do you forgive him for that?"

"Yeah, I remember that feeling," Stesha murmured, turning aside to fiddle with yet another flower arrangement. "Moira just... she wants what she wants, and doesn't always think about it, I guess. But I don't think she's going to do anything more with Jack. Nothing about that turned out right at all, plus, there's what he is..." She sighed, looking away. "Okay, that's another question. Why didn't you tell me what Jack is? Why was I the last one to know of anyone?"

Stesha clasped her hands behind her back, nibbling on her lower lip. Talking with Moira had blunted the sharp edge of anger and betrayal she'd felt for Taylor and left her feeling mostly, well... stupid. A little mad still, but mostly worried and foolish. "Are you okay?" she asked, after a few long moments of silence. "I know the things Moira and I said were pretty upsetting."

Stesha hesitated for a moment, wrist deep in a bouquet of some sort of alien hydrangea. Speaking of unaddressed issues, here was one of the big ones now. She took a deep breath and went to the door, pulling it open. Taylor hadn't brought Jack with her, thank God. "Hey Taylor," she said, a litle guardedly. "Come on in." She stepped back to let Taylor into the flower and plant-filled living room.

Stesha and Taylor make up.

Even though it was her day off, Stesha had spent most of the day puttering with flowers. It was always more rewarding, though, when they were your own. Derrick had filled her entire house with flowers as a make-up present, not just the "this place looks like it's full of flowers," but the sort that without her powers, she wouldn't have been able to navigate from one end to the other. It was a very sweet gesture, and though they still needed to have a long talk, her initial anger had started to ebb. She'd sent most of the flowers to the local nursing homes, assisted mightily by her teleportation, and kept only a few hundreds of her favorites. Now they covered every bare surface and filled the apartment with exotic scents, but she could walk on the floors and sit on the chairs. Keeping busy with the flowers also let her avoid the nagging feeling that there were issues yet unaddressed.

Stesha stepped forward and gave Taylor a hug, presenting her with a little bouquet of white roses tied with a scarlet and gold ribbon. "It's a big day," she said with a smile. "Your mom deserves most of the credit, she did all the organizing in no time flat. If I ever decide to start a business or plan a war or something, I'm calling her." She turned and shared a smile with Mrs. Chun, the smile of people who have finally pulled off an impossible task. "Anyway," she went on, "here's your toss bouquet. I wasn't sure if you'd picked one up already, and I figured you'd want to keep your flowers from this morning. The stems are weighted, so it'll be easy to throw." With a quick wink, Stesha added, sotto voce, "Throw hard, I'll stand in the back."

As Taylor left the pool area, there was a shriek of protest from the creatures still in the pool. Bitey began thrashing his way towards the side, while Clingy shot onto the tile walkway like a seal leaving the water. Both of them hastened to the door Taylor had gone through, creeling and hitting it with their little, though surprisingly strong hands. "Hey, she's coming back!" Stesha told them, hurrying over. "She only left for a minute to get more food." This reasonable explanation did not seem to resonate with them. It certainly didn't stop the yelling. Stesha scooped up Clingy, trying to reassure her, but it didn't seem to help much. "We better figure out something before they get any more attached here," she said wryly.

"That's it?" Stesha demanded when the silence stretched on. "You slept with Jack, you lied to me about it, you lied to Taylor about it, and it was 'not one of your stronger moments?' That's crap Moira, and you know it." Stesha pulled away and got up from the chair, walking across the room to the windowful of plants. "And I am glad you're back, and I do still want to be your friend, but I don't know how to not be really angry at you about this. I told you a secret that hurt about Jack, and you used it, and you lied about doing it." Her voice cracked. "And now I find out this other secret about him, and I don't know what to do, or who to talk to, or even who to trust, because now I know that no one's been telling me the truth about anything this entire time."

Stesha had arrived hours before the reception and was still busy with last touches in the banquet hall when the guests began arriving. Her wedding present to the couple, well, to Taylor at least, had been the use of all her skills and connections to get the hall looking like a winter fantasy with only two weeks notice. Mrs. Chun had secured the hall, and then she and Stesha had put their heads together for some very intensive planning. Stesha had been cagey on her source for unlimited flowers on short notice, but it had certainly helped the schedule, and after Joseph's wedding in the fall, Taylor's mom knew her well enough to trust her. It had meant some long nights forcing dozens of white roses in her living room, but Stesha was very pleased with how it had all turned out. Calling in some big favors had gotten the vases, ribbons, and all the wedding accessories as well, for which Stesha suspected she'd be working baby showers and bridezilla weddings for a year. It was for a friend. She was still moving table decorations around as people began filtering in, finally giving up and taking a deep breath. Being done with all the preparations meant having to focus on the fact that Taylor was actually married to a vampire, which was the last thing she wanted to do. It was time to celebrate, not necessarily to think about the reason. While she waited for Derrick to arrive, she collected a glass of champagne and went to socialize with the few people she knew who had arrived. She was easy to spot in the crowd, her violet gown subdued compared to the waterfall of green hair that she had let fall in loose curls all the way down her back this evening. As she spotted Ace and Moira, she began working her way in their direction.

"I believed you," Stesha said again, the anger in her eyes creeping into her voice. "I made a fool of myself because I believed your story. I begged Taylor to believe it was true, and I was upset and hurt on your behalf when she didn't. But she was right, and I was wrong. You knew what you did would hurt my feelings, so you lied about it, like that would make everything go away. Now Taylor won't believe anything anyone tells her about Jack, and she's going to marry him even though he really is a monster. Really made everything better, didn't it?"

Stesha stared at Moira for a minute, lacing her fingers together tightly in her lap. "Wait... you told me you didn't remember what happened. You said that you couldn't have said yes or no, didn't you? You said you wouldn't have done it if you'd been in your right mind. I believed you. Why would you lie about that?" She didn't speak louder than a murmur, but her eyes were already darkening with confusion that edged back toward anger. "Or is the answer to that obvious already?"

Stesha didn't hug back, precisely, but put her head against Moira's shoulder for just a moment, leaning in. "It's not your fault," she told Moira, stepping away to close the door. The living room looked a little bit odd, with green vines filtering the light coming through the window and all the plants looking as wilted and tired as their gardener. "You did your best to tell her what happened, and she didn't want to believe you. As for the thing about Jack, well, you didn't know it either, did you?" That last was said in search of reassurance that she hadn't, in fact, been the very last one to know.

There was no response for a little while, leaving Moira to stare uncomfortably at the friendly plush turkey wreath that Stesha had hung on her door for the season. She was just about to knock again, or leave, or do something else when the door finally opened a crack and Stesha looked out. She'd obviously been crying, and been in the shower as well. Her green hair hung braided in a thick, wet rope down her back, and looked odd without its usual dressing of flowers. Stesha stared at Moira for a minute, almost too tired to think what to do. Crying hadn't really made her feel better, but it had dulled the sharpest and most overwhelming edge of what she'd learned. It had also been kind of exhausting. But Moira was her friend, and Moira hadn't known either. Jack had said that much, she was pretty sure. She opened the door wider. "Hey, come on in."

Erin snorted at that, her face relaxing a little more as she shook her head at him. "You're such a neat freak," she told him. "But it's a deal. I'll meet you in twenty minutes at the garage." She took off at a ground-eating lope towards the dormitories, the cold wind helping to dry the last of the sweat from her workout. Maybe things were still weird, but for the first time since coming back, she thought they might actually turn out okay again.

Erin plucked the keys from the air. "How about now?" she suggested. "Won't be much traffic at this hour, we could go out to the highway and see if I can pick up my first speeding ticket," she suggested. "More fun than just wandering around campus in the dark." It was as much of a peace offering as she could manage without things seeming even more weird and awkward. And it was more fun to drive with someone else.

It took a moment before Erin realized the fight was over. Even as the gate shut, she was spinning around, looking for any demons that might be sneaking up behind them. But everything was quiet now, everything was still, everything was safe. She bent nearly double, resting her hands on her knees and breathing hard as she tried to get her bearings again. She was covered from head to foot in blood and dirt and demon-spit, but was otherwise surprisingly unhurt, aside from the lingering ache in her chest. "Everybody okay?" she asked hoarsely. '"We all still here?"

There was another quiet moment as Erin thought about that, thought about what to say next. She had a few more questions about exactly what it meant that someone else had a little bit of her soul, but she didn't want to make him any more guilty. They hadn't gone to all the work of trying to keep him out of hell to make James miserable on earth. Swining around the side of the uprights, she dug into the outside pocket of her knapsack and tossed him his car keys. "Here," she said with a little smile. "Speaking of happy memories, I still want a chance to drive that. We were too busy trying to figure out how to get you out of hell for me to have a chance to enjoy it."

It's even better when you realize that this is the same "How I gets the blood" story he's been telling all along, except that this self-righteous recitation was immediately preceded by evidence that it's basically been a lie. Can't imagine why people have a hard time believing him. :lol:

"Oh." Erin blinked, then was quiet for a minute, thinking about that. Part of her figured she should probably be upset, or at least worried about that. Having one's soul taken by demons was the sort of thing one did get warned about in church and pop culture, certainly. But it wasn't like she was really using hers at the moment, or had a lot of concrete plans for it for the future. She wasn't sure her fate wouldn't be the same whether she was whole-souled or not. And she was glad to be alive. "Does it grow back, then?" she asked curiously. "If it's not a permanent loss?"

"That seems so weird," Erin replied, "I don't think it's something I could forget if I tried. Even the part where he did... whatever he did that turned me weak for a minute, I couldn't move, but I can still remember it." She passed a hand over her chest. "It felt so strange, and then when you helped me and everything came back, it felt like losing something. I can't even explain. But it's clear in my head, like it just happened, you know, day before yesterday or so."

Stesha was quiet for a minute after the Scarab's departure, staring down at the counter. "You can go if you want to," she told Dark Star, not looking up at the expanse of empty darkness that currently comprised him. "I'm not going. I think I'd rather be alone right now anyway." Leaving the mop and bucket in the middle of the floor, she left the kitchen and went into her bedroom, gently closing the door behind her. It was an empty gesture, one that wouldn't stop him seeing in, let alone coming in, but it was a gesture nonetheless. The plants had stopped moving now as well, laying sulkily on the floor or hanging over the sides of their pots.

Stesha teleported back into the yard, stepping out of one of the few bushes that hadn't been torn up, burnt out or trampled in the fighting. Hugging her arms to her chest, she looked at the empty space that had been a killing field just moments ago, then to the hint of sunlight finally visible again in the eastern sky. "They went away," she murmured softly, through lips that seemed numb and slow. "We're going to live." Folding her legs under her, she dropped to the battered earth and wept, her face in her hands.

"Thanks, Derrick, I-" Whatever Stesha had been about to say was cut off abruptly as Scarab made her exceedingly graphic argument. She stood motionless for a moment, the mop slipping from her nerveless fingers and clattering to the floor. As the vision unfolded and the vampire fed, she grabbed the edge of the counter with both hands as bile rose in her throat. "What do you want from me?" she demanded, obviously no longer talking to Dark Star. "If you already know, what more am I supposed to tell you? I don't even remember!" Clumsily pushing her mind back against the strange presence, Stesha called up everything she remembered of her evening with Jack, how pleased/excited/nervous she'd been to be asked out by an attractive, charismatic man for the first time since moving to the big city, the adrenaline rush of her first real brush with villainy, how impressed she had been to realize he was a superhero. That led into the heady and innocent pleasure of the way he had kissed her, first in the alley behind the super museum, then in the deserted movie theater, followed by fuzzier memories of the awkwardness and confusion as he'd suddenly broken away and taken her home, only for her to find her neck embarrassingly black and blue later. All of that was overlaid now with revulsion, knowing now what she hadn't then about him and his motivations for the whole encounter, and shame that she had missed it and let it happen and even been sorry later that he'd dropped her. "That's it!" she said aloud, grabbing a paper towel and scrubbing her face clean of the tears that had started falling during the memory. "Is that good enough? Can you just leave me alone?"