Pruning and Tending (IC)

[Electra]

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.

[alderwitch]

It took Taylor some mental bracing. She rapidly punched in the numbers of Stesha's into the phone and cancelled the calls multiple times. Pressing one hand against her stomach like it would keep the nerves in place, she paced the living room with quick impatient strides, shaking her head indecisively before she tossed the phone down on the couch.

Before she could changer her mind, Taylor teleported to the apartment and lightly wrapped her knuckles against the door, "Stesha? It's Taylor. I was hoping we could talk."

[Electra]

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.

[alderwitch]

"Hey, thanks," Taylor said, relieved not to have the door slammed in her face. She stepped in and smiled faintly at the flowers covering every surface. She left her hands tucked into her pockets as she turned around. "I won't keep you long but I wanted to come apologize about, well, the way everything unravveled. I'm not going to try and justify anything, but I wanted to come offer any answers to any questions you might have. Its the least I can do."

Taylor glanced up, her dark eyes sad and a bit resigned, as she clarified, "About any of it."

[Electra]

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."

[alderwitch]

"Ish." Taylor admitted honestly. She'd promised to answer all of Stesha's questions. And if this was what she wanted to talk about, Taylor would tell her. "After you left, Elena showed me what happened from Jack's memories and then Moira confessed that she still wanted Jack. Its left my self esteem a little battered honestly. I know I'm loved but I can't help drawing comparisons and coming up short."

[Electra]

"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?"

[alderwitch]

"I've never told anyone what Jack is. The mystical community tends to think of volunteering other peoples secrets as the ultimate taboo. I think I'm just so used to secrets at this point that it honestly and sincerely never occurred to me. I promise that it wasn't any sort of deliberate act of exclusion." Taylor apologized, lifting her shoulders in an unhappy shrug.

"I didn't know that he bit you although it didn't surprise me since he did the same damn thing when we started dating. Once I found out, well, there were words. He hasn't done it since, to anyone. Which Elena confirmed," Taylor volunteered the last as she still wasn't certain how much weight Stesha gave her words.

[Electra]

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?"

[alderwitch]

"The short answer is that I really do love him," Taylor said, leaning her hip back against the couch arm, "The longer answer is more complex but just as truthful. Jack isn't human. For the last few years he's been emersed in the vampire culture which enforces using humans as a means to survive at best. There is so much humanity that he's forgotten and needs to be reminded of. I don't mean that as an excuse, but as an explanation. Jack is always striving to be better than what he has become, he just has such a terribally long way to go."

Taylor paused, choosing her next words carefully. Her gaze was fixed down on the coffee table and slightly unfocused as she looked inward to find the words to try and explain something so very complicated, "I get how much strength that takes, how rare that is, and I admire it. I'm not human anymore either, Stesha. I'm no vampire, but I don't eat. I forget to breathe. It scares the crap out of me. I've been Phantom for a handful of years, so I have to wonder how human I'll be in ten, or twenty or fifty. Or a thousand."

She ducked her head up, her eyes very sad and oddly ageless in that young face as she admitted, "I am so very alone, Stesha. I don't fit with anyone. Not my family, not other super heroes, and certainly not my mortal friends. I don't feel alone with Jack."

[Electra]

"Being human isn't just a matter of your body's processes, Taylor," Stesha replied softly, turning to look back at her. "How many of us are in that same boat, to a greater or lesser extent? Look at me, I don't need to eat or sleep, I can't even breathe oxygen anymore. Derrick doesn't even have a body most of the time, and he's spent the past few decades exploring places no other human being might ever go. Maybe that makes us different than human, I guess, but that doesn't make us good or bad. It's what we do consciously that makes us that."

She pulled a long-stemmed tiger lily from a vase and played with it idly, the flower's petals brightening and unfurling as she spoke. "You might be inhuman in some ways, but it's ways that don't matter, like how often you breathe or when you eat. Jack's inhumanity is that he doesn't care about humanity, or only cares on a very abstract level, and that's really a different thing entirely. I know you care, I saw how you agonized over what to do when Moira disappeared, and I know sometimes the work you do is impossibly hard. But you don't have to let it isolate you. Nobody should get married to anyone just because they're afraid of being alone. You have friends and family, people who care about you very much. But you have to reach out, too."

[alderwitch]

"Stesha, I left my brother in hell because I had to save the world first," Taylor said very softly, her dark eyes infinately sad in her pale face, "I argued against Moira coming back because that's what I am. Not what I do, what I am. The physical examples are just the outward manifestation of that. In my own way, I have no more choices on my behavior than Jack and they can be just as harsh and unforgivable a crime to mortal sensabilities."

She spread her fingers out, palms up. The gold band of her engagment ring glinted in the light, "I can't look the other way if Moira starts to breach the Pact. It won't matter how she or anyone else feels. I will fight her just as hard as I fought the demons, and anyone that stands by her and I have no choice about it. I can't walk away, not ever. It isn't something I expect anyone else to understand or forgive. Jack may not agree with my stance but he can understand in a way that few others can how that sets me apart."

[Electra]

Stesha was silent for a long few moments, turning the flower over in her hands. "Maybe you're right that I can't understand," she admitted. "I know all of you operate on a different level than I do. I just hero on evenings and weekends, and I like it that way. I don't want to have to save the world every day. Maybe that means I'll never quite be one of the club. But I think you're underestimating your friends if you think only Jack can understand doing your duty when it's hard and it takes sacrifices and you don't want to."

She sighed, putting the flower back into its vase and ignoring its momentary attempt to lunge back into her hands before it quieted. "I want you to be happy, Taylor. If Jack makes you happy, then I'm happy for you. But everything I've seen of him tells me that he's not going to make you happy in the long run. This all happened so fast, and maybe not for the right reasons, and sometimes people who are good heroes are still not good people. I just... I think you should think about it, and make sure this is what you want. I don't want him to hurt you."

[alderwitch]

"Oh, Stesha, it's not about a secret club. You have more in common with Dark Star and the Scarab and the rest of the heroes of Freedom City than I ever will. You help because you want to. Because you're a good person and if you ever decide to stop, it will be because its what you think is best. I gave up my free will for things like that when I accepted the oath to become the Phantom, that's what I meant. I don't have a choice in what I am anymore. I'm okay with it, I accept it, but the last thing I want is that for any of the rest of you. Its not that I don't think you can understand it, its that I don't want you too see what I see. Its why I don't try harder to explain when accusations get thrown. There's an innocence that you have, that Dark Star has, that even Scarab has. It's so rare and so very precious. My heart breaks everytime I have to take one of you with me and I watch that idealism erode. We need more Centurions than we need Avengers."

Taylor frowned, trying to find the words to explain it as her voice grew more halting and stumbling. She was so very bad at exposing herself emotionally but this was the second time that Stesha had mentioned a club and Taylor could tell that the idea of it pained Stesha, so she soldiered doggedly on in the effort to explain things she'd rather have not vocalized, "Its like I can come visit you there but I don't live there anymore. I can't and be able to do what I do. As much as I love that idealism and everything it represents, and as much as I need people in my life who can remind me what its like to believe wholeheartedly, I need someone who can understand the dark side too. I need someone who can accept me for what I am. I have a chance to be happy with Jack, I love him, and I may never have that chance again. I have to take it, even knowing the risks. No one knows better than I do the fall that Jack courts everyday with his existance, but I'd rather have my heart broken than continue to hide it away. That goes for my friends too, Stesha. I am trying to reach out but it is so very hard for me."

[Electra]

"Maybe it's hard because you're too hard on yourself," Stesha suggested, finally going back and taking a seat on the couch. "None of us are so innocent or pure of heart as you make us out to be. I'm no Centurion, and I doubt anyone you know is going to claim to be, either. That requires something that's probably more than human, not just human. Do you think it might be that you feel so comfortable with Jack because you know what he is and feel that he has no room to judge you the way you judge yourself?"

[alderwitch]

Taylor shrugged at Stesha helplessly, "I don't know. I don't really analyze it anymore. For whatever reason, I both love and trust Jack and it makes me happy in a way I never expected to find. Everyone finds it hard to believe, I know, but he really does return the feeling."

Waving her hands as if to brush the topic away, "I really didn't mean to get into all of that. I just wanted to appolgize for any hand I had in the farce the other day and see if I could make it up to you. Is there anything else I can answer?" Taylor hesitated then added gently, "You can ask me about any of the vampire stuff if you have questions bothering you.

[Electra]

Stesha tugged on her hair uncomfortably, wrapping the thick braid around her hand a few times as she considered whether or not to even ask. She didn't really like questions where she had to worry that the answer would just make things worse. But it was time to try and get a little clarity. "When he, you know, when he bit me, I don't really remember any of it. The before and after, but I don't remember it hurting. Can he mess with people's minds like the vampires in movies, to make them not feel things, or not remember them afterwards? And how long does that last?"

[alderwitch]

"There are different breeds of vampire and there's a wide variety of abilities betwen them so the answer varies depending on the vampire. As far as Jack, yes, he can both mess with people's minds and their emotions when he's, ah, feeding. That's a pretty common gift for vampires as it helps them survive in secret. Any emotions he creates fade over time but the editing of your memories is more or less permanent barring intervention. Jack could give you back all of your memories of that night, as could Scarab. But, he doesn't gain any power over your from having fed from you. He can't control your mind, or tell where you are, or thrall your emotions now any more than he could before he fed from you."

Taylor reached up to fiddle with the necklace around her throat, her fingertips brushing over the pulse at the hollow of her neck unconciously as she did so. Her cheeks were turning pinker and pinker as she forged onward with what was obviously an uncomfortable topic for her, "Even when he's not messing with people's heads, its not painful most of the time. It's a usually concious effort on a vampire's part to hurt someone with their bite. Its only because Jack jerked back that there was even a mark afterwards."

[Electra]

Stesha continued fussing uncomfortably with her hair while Taylor spoke, strands beginning to work their way free of the braid from her twiddling. "I remember him jerking back," she admitted when Taylor was finished. "And then he just took me home. I don't think I could've stopped him after he bit me. Why did he stop?" If Jack had had some sort of odd crisis of conscience, she wasn't sure she wanted to know, but it did seem like an important piece of the puzzle.

[alderwitch]

Taylor wrinkled her nose up, her face squinching in distaste. She still wasn't sure if Scarab's trip through Jack's memory lane was a good or a bad thing. It did give her the answer to Stesha's question. Jack might be peeved about the frank discussion after the fact but in Taylor's book he owed her friend a little bit of honesty. "Well, it was a bit of a mixed bag really as far as his emotions went and I'm sure he'd like to offer you an appology for his behavior but what startled him is, well, you don't taste like a normal person. Your plant based abilities I guess change the flavor. Once he jerked back he was a little bit horrified about the fact that he couldn't just go on a date with a nice girl without, ah, that."

[Electra]

"So he knocked it off because I tasted bad?" The look on Stesha's face was hard to interpret. "That's... interesting, I guess. Knowing about what he is does explain a lot of what confused me about that night." Just thinking of Jack as an asshole had left a few holes in the narrative still, knowing that he was both an asshole and a vampire looking for a meal pretty much explained everything, as little as she wanted to think about it. She wasn't going to share that insight with Taylor, though, because that would be rude. "Has he bitten anyone we know besides me, and you, and Scarab, and maybe Moira?"

[alderwitch]

"I don't think so, and he hasn't bitten Moira. He's not even sure what her immortal blood would do to him," Taylor muttered, her face scrunching up again. The relief she felt at not having her blood compared to Moira's as well wasn't something she wanted to examine even a little bit. "Most vampires can't wander around in sunlight but Jack can, he's just weaker then."

[Electra]

"Yeah, I've seen him in the daytime," Stesha said ruefully. Remembering that, she suddenly sat up straighter. "Oh. I guess the vampire thing explains a lot about that orgy he wanted all the black roses for. And the girl explaining that the cake was going to be served on the velvet fainting couch. I wonder who the cake was." She grimaced at that, running her hands up and down her arms. "Gross."

[alderwitch]

"Orgy? Cake? Ew." Taylor's expression screwed up in distaste as she made a mental note to pester Jack about any other vampire customs he'd forgotten to mention in his 'oh, just some politics' summaries of his vampire day, "Honestly, Jack is the most humane vampire I've ever met. Most of them really are monsters in human guises. Jack thinks his people can find redemption, I don't think its actually the case for most of them."

[Electra]

"How many are there in Freedom City?" Stesha asked. "Are there enough that we see them every day and just don't notice it? I never would've thought of Jack as a vampire until he told me. I knew he wasn't human, after the invasion, but it doesn't seem anything like the movies. Are they all over the place and I'm totally ignorant of it?" That was a very unpleasant thought, whether or not her blood tasted bad.