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Tweak says, "Fresh Blood - GAME ON!"

isabelle parker (bound_isabelle) wrote in bound_rp,
@ 2013-10-20 12:02:00

Entry tags:

complete, harmony steele, isabelle parker, private

i see the clouds that move across the sky
Date: July 26, 2012
Time: 8:00 am
Location: Memorial Parker.
Characters: Harmony Steele, Isabelle Parker
Description: Compliments and girl talk are good for the soul.
Status: Private, Complete

The last thing Isabelle wanted to be was up at the crack of dawn to take an opening shift for someone who had called out last minute. She had been up all night again, thinking about everything that had happened the night before. Cruz had helped Isabelle unpack and now her apartment was basically complete, but she was still nowhere near a decision on who she wanted to be with. She had continued to put things away, straighten everything, basically do whatever she could to not think about the situation. She knew she needed to think about them, but she really didn't want to. Cruz had left not too much later than he had come over, and Isabelle had spent the rest of the night tossing and turning, images of both Cruz and Alvaro flooding her mind.

She didn't sleep well, either. She had gotten the call from her father around 11pm to come in for the opening shift and she hadn't gotten to sleep until nearly 1 o'clock. A mere two hours later she was up, showered, had a cup of coffee already in her and heading to open. Their shop wasn't technically open until 5, but opening meant setting everything up, checking your registers and getting the coffees brewed and ready to go. It meant you had to be there at 4 am. If it had been the shop right next to her apartment, where she normally worked, Isabelle would have enjoyed the walk in the brisk early morning air to help wake her up, but she was at the memorial park location this time and the drive was difficult to bear. It wasn't like driving home after rescuing John and Lux, but it was close enough.

After four hours of work, getting everything set up, opening, and handling the morning rush of customers - mostly people on their way to work at the various shops and restaurants at the park, Isabelle finally was allowed to have a lunch break. Her father had said something about her having a short shift if he could find someone else, but no word had come in just yet. Isabelle zipped out of the shop as fast as possible, with another large cup in her hand containing an excessive amount of espresso and her purse, which held leftover spaghetti she had made for dinner the night prior. No need to reheat - Isabelle had a strange, strange love for cold pasta.

She found herself walking down the sidewalk along one of the main roads that led into Memorial Park, heading in the direction of the park itself as opposed to the many shops and restaurants that called it's outer sections their home. She wanted to sit by the lake which was a short walk from where the Coffee Shoppe stood, and hardly noticed a thing as she walked much like a zombie towards the lake.

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bound_harmony
2013-10-22 09:40 pm UTC (link)

Eyes full of early morning sunbeams. Hair full of cool wind. Head full of idle self-to-self chatter. That's how Harmony's mornings tended to go. She didn't have the personality of a morning person. In fact, those who didn't know that the witch preferred mornings might be quite startled to see her out and about before sunrise. It was like hearing a mime talk--just weird. This particular morning wasn't too different from most of her others: at her studio while it was still dark outside, hunched over hundreds of tiny jewels and piecing them together into something breathtaking. It was easy to lose herself in the work, but the inevitable headache that came from focusing too hard reminded her that she was due for a break.

Miss H-Bomb was on her Vespa (she had a car, but what was the point in using it in such a small city?), helmet-less because apparently she was feeling like a lucky punk. She had actually just swung by the Coffee Shoppe, perhaps missing Belle by a minute or two. With one big Earl Gray latte sitting cozily in a cup holder that Harmony had attached herself, she zoomed--well, perhaps zoom is an exaggeration at about twenty-something miles an hour--by Memorial Park, taking the scenic route. That lake in the morning... oh my, so pretty.

Speaking of so pretty. There was an unmistakable flash of fiery red in the corner of Harmony's vision. She turned a little, that bright gray gaze honing in on a dear friend. How exciting! Harmony smirked a little.

"Damn girl," she called out. Yeah, maybe a regular greeting should have been the first thing to pop into Harmony's mind, but Harmony's mind didn't work the way it was supposed to. It kind of made her do weird things, like call out to her friends in a man voice. Well, she tried to make her voice sound like a man's. In all reality she probably just sounded like a creep with a throat problem. Whatever! "Now, I hope you're heading my way, stompin' that sidewalk like it's a Parisian runway." If Isabelle looked her way by then, she'd see that statement completed with a sleazy up-nod. Oh, boy. At that point, Harmony could hardly manage the facade, dissolving into a small fit of giggles--yes, while still driving her scooter in the street. "Good morning, Bellsy!"

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bound_isabelle
2013-10-22 10:00 pm UTC (link)

She was a little startled at the cat-calling until she realized who it was. The drive-by compliments were not lost on her, even if they were from some sleazy guy cat calling. She would take it in stride. But it was her favorite mountain climbing buddy ever "H-Bomb! Look at you, all glorious and sunshiney so early in the morning." She smirked and slowed her pace - both of them were at a crawling pace now. She laughed at the sentiment of her stomping down the road like she was on a Parisian runway. Isabelle thought for a moment - that was probably the face she made when she runway walked anyway.

This brought her to cracking up as well. All the tiredness and confusion over the last two days hadn't completely killed her sense of humor. It was hard not to be joyful around Harmony - she always had such a sunny disposition. The girl shed light on things, for Christ sakes. How could you not be happy around someone with the name Harmony? "Morning, my love. I'm heading to go stare out at the lake and try and fix all my problems. Care to join me on that excursion? Can you girl talk with me and pretend you care about my boy troubles?"

There was no ill intent on that sentiment, no suggestion that Harmony didn't actually care. Isabelle knew that Harmony loved her. They were good friends even if they didn't spend a lot of time together. They were older now than they had been, and had their own totally separate lives. She pointed vaguely in the direction of a park bench and headed on over that way, waiting for Harmony to join her as she sipped her own over sized cup of energy.

When she felt Harmony get near to her she patted the seat and let out a long sigh. "You know Alvaro is back in town, right? He showed up out of the blue with a damn picnic at one of the caves we used to uh... hang out at at the beach." Hang out was a very P.C term for what they used to do in the caves. "And you know I've been seeing Cruz... Well, we made things official like, the night before Al showed back up." She launched into the story without even waiting for Harmony to really take a seat. Even so, she started to tear up as she did. It was obvious that was something that had been weighing heavily on Isabelle.

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bound_harmony
2013-10-22 10:24 pm UTC (link)

Aside from feigning a gag at that effing nickname, Harmony seemed happy to see Isabelle. However, going about five miles an hour on the side of the street was not well-received behavior. After having a grown man lay on his horn at her on-and-off for about ten seconds, Harmony rolled her eyes and pulled over out of the way. She offered the man who drove by a challenging scowl before securing her scooter near the sidewalk. They wouldn't be going too far from it, so Harmony wasn't too worried. Mild caffeine (because trust me, no one wants her having any more than a little) in hand, she fell into step next to Isabelle.

"No one should be taking on a boy problem solo. Not this early." Her knees were hardly bent before Isabelle began pouring her heart out. Harmony frowned as she took her seat, a little surprised to see her friend in such a state. She didn't say much right away, nodding here and there when Alvaro and Cruz were mentioned. When she saw tears in Isabelle's eyes, it was all Harmony could do to keep her heart from breaking a little.

"Oh, Isabelle..." She scooted a bit closer to the girl, extending an arm to wrap around her shoulders. "I'm sorry. That... is really horrible timing." She sighed. "Does Al know about Cruz at all? I mean, not that you owe him an explanation. He was gone for so long..." Harmony didn't say much more on that, since she hardly knew the circumstances. She and Alvaro didn't talk much. She had more questions, of course, more she wanted to say, but the last thing she wanted to do was overwhelm Belle when she was already so obviously weighed down. For now, she just wanted to hear what was on her mind.

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bound_isabelle
2013-10-22 10:37 pm UTC (link)

Isabelle scowled at the man who had honked. She had enough of a headache anyway without adding any honking horns. Isabelle was not a malicious person, but she had half a mind to make that person become severely unhappy for at least the rest of the day. However, she refrained. There was something in Witch Code about power and being good and Thou Shalt Not Use That Shit for Evil and all that. Reluctantly, she kept her cool.

Well you know at least until she started crying over her boy troubles. "I feel like Bella fucking Swan, Harm. Seriously. I do." She covered her face with her hands for a moment, wiping away the tears. She had no trouble leaning in to Harmony when the arm was offered and she let out a little sigh, enjoying the comfort of a friend, something she had felt had been missing from her life a little too frequently as of late.

"Of course Al knows about Cruz. Alvaro knows everything. He knows all the futures we could have together, all the futures I could have with Cruz. He's basically making me choose. How do I chose between that? Alvaro and I... well you know. We've always shared something different than everyone else. We could communicate in a way that we couldn't with other people." It was an heart-to-brain and back kind of communication. She'd feel his emotions and he'd read her thoughts. It was very knowing and understanding.

"Cruz and I..." She turned bright red and sat up, cradling her coffee in her hands now. "We kind of sealed the deal if you know what I mean." She was grinning a little now, embarrassed to admit it. Isabelle had had sex more than once, that was true, but she had only ever had sex with Alvaro before Cruz. She wasn't highly experienced or had a lot of knowledge on the topic. She was still rather shy when it came to talking about it. "Literally, the morning after we - you know - and then made it official, Alvaro comes back and tells me he loves me."

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bound_harmony
2013-10-24 07:02 pm UTC (link)

Harmony's laugh at the Twilight reference was short, half-full of humor. "Well, I'm glad I found you here and not crying on the ground in the woods." She absently rubbed Isabelle's shoulder, trying her best to pass on whatever good energy would help even a little. Sadly, that was a little easier said than done. Trying to find cheer around a sad empath was hard, especially when that empath was a friend who, in Harmony's opinion, deserved more than anyone she knew to be happy.

"Yeah," she said with a nod. Even from the outside, it wasn't hard to see that Belle and Al had something special. Usually, it made Harmony roll her eyes on the inside (and, let's face it, probably on the outside too), but it was undeniably pretty sweet.

"Oh, girl," she said, eyes widening a little bit. It was mostly an exaggeration, even though Harmony still kind of believed in the back of her head that Isabelle would always be pure and untouched. She grinned a little too, seeing how red the girl turned, shaking her head. "Sealed the deal. Such an old-fashioned way of putting it." The smile faded some when the subject took the inevitable turn for the serious, and Harmony couldn't help but heave a sigh.

"I'm seriously mystified as to how he came back at the worst possible time. I mean, nothing short of him walking in would be worse timing..." She paused, mentally chastising herself for maybe the first time ever. "...totally beside the point. Sorry." Taking a long, thoughtful sip from her tea, she looked out toward the lake.

"I dunno. You and Alvaro did have something unique, but... it feels like he was gone for so long. It doesn't always take a long time for a lot of things to change." She considered her words carefully, trying to arrange them in a way that wouldn't sound harsh. Usually, she avoided this step in the speaking process, but she cared about Isabelle's feelings. "The past... it's not always so reliable. You can't always use your feelings from the past as a way to guess your feelings of the future." She looked over at Belle again, meeting her eyes. "But for now, you know what you've got. You have someone who knows you and really seems to care about you for who you are now, someone who isn't going anywhere in a situation that's so easy to just run from." She frowned some. "Alvaro's a good guy, but you don't owe yourself to him. If you're happy with Cruz and you see yourself staying happy with him for at least a while... why try to revive old embers when another fire is already keeping you warm?

"I dunno," she said again, leaning back. "Sometimes it's fun to pick the exciting thing over the sure thing. But if the sure thing also happens to be exciting..." She shrugged, allowing the statement to finish itself.

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bound_isabelle
2013-10-26 03:08 pm UTC (link)

"Yeah, because I hate the woods." She laughed a little. If Cruz or Alvaro had lured her into the woods under some false pretense of fun the same way Harmony had when they went to the Mountains forever ago, and then left her there all heartbroken and torn up, she would probably kill them. Probably. We all know Isabelle is too nice for that though, right? Much too nice.

Harmony's response to her terminology only made Isabelle turn more red and she rolled her eyes at herself and hid her face in her hands again. "I know, I know. I get embarrassed just thinking about the real terms." She was such a prude it was kind of funny. She didn't mean to be that way, it definitely wasn't negative, but they weren't really words that she used frequently, or a subject she spoke about very often. Fortunately. She didn't really understand why girls gossiped about blowjobs so much like they were super, duper, totes awesome.

"You're mystified?" Isabelle rose an eyebrow. She was pretty damn sure that Alvaro had done it on purpose. There were no accidents with him. "He knows the future, H-Bomb." Isabelle knew how much that nickname grated on Harmony's nerves, but she was Isabelle and she knew Harmony didn't have the heart to really yell at Isabelle for hopping on her brother's bandwagon with that particular nickname. "He probably saw exactly how all of this played out up until he came back. Then, he saw every way it could play out." Sometimes, that could be really frustrating.

She listened to the way Harmony described what she had with Al, nodding her head a bit. It was special, wasn't it? Not even having to communicate with words... But at the same time, Cruz and Isabelle had a silent way of communicating too. He was nearly as in tuned with her feelings as she was to his, and he had no abilities to help cater to that. They just were. Isabelle knew she didn't need to owe herself to Al, but hearing it come from Harmony's lips made her feel a lot better about it. She had been worried that not everyone would see it that way. But there was so much more attached, too. What about their circle? Isabelle knew Al - there was a good chance he would never speak to her again after this.

"Do you think he'll try and leave our circle?" She didn't want their bond to break, she felt awful. But if John and Lux, who had hated and ruined their circle for so many years but managed to put up with each other and keep everything in tact for them, why couldn't Al do that, too? Isabelle felt the love they had for each other, even if they couldn't always feel it themselves. Sure, it was shrouded by frustration, betrayal, and so many other complications, but it was there. Stronger than the love Al had for her? She thought so, but she could never be truly sure with Al. He hid a lot of things.

"I don't think anything is sure. Who could be sure? Cruz loves me, but who knows what happens. What if his family hates me? They're very close, and I don't know how Cruz would feel about me if his Mom or someone totally disapproved. And Al... it is exciting, but only for me. Al already knows, it takes the fun out of it..." She sighed again, stomping her foot a little in frustration, since she wasn't really one to hit things or throw huge temper tantrums. "This sucks Harmony. Can't we date instead? I saw you driving on that scooter and well... you know how I feel about scooters!" She laughed, nudging her friends shoulder with her own. She really missed having her best friends so close.

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bound_harmony
2013-11-08 10:13 pm UTC (link)

"Good point," she mumbled, a frown darkening her face. With all of that in mind, it wasn't a wonder why Harmony wasn't exactly feeling happy towards him. She was sure that Al had his reasons, but he still wounded Isabelle--and even though a small part of him could see it from his perspective, it seemed a bit selfish. All of that, however, was quite beside the point. She wasn't here to think about him.

Harmony started to answer right away with an Of course he won't! when Isabelle seemed worried that he might leave the circle; however, she forced herself to pause for a moment to actually consider the answer before blurting out some sugar-coated reflex of a lie. She was silent for several seconds. Alvaro very well could leave the circle. Revenge and avoidance all at the same time--what scorned lover wouldn't jump at that opportunity? But then...

"If he did try," Harmony started finally, "and if he did leave, it wouldn't be your fault. That's entirely on him." The idea didn't make her feel good, but she didn't let on much to that. "And not a single one of us would want that possibility to be part of this decision for you." She looked at Isabelle, more seriously than she might have all conversation. "Absolutely not. Trust me, I know how important it is, but you can't always put yourself after the circle. Not always." She looked Belle in the eye for a good few seconds, hoping that her friend was really hearing her say that.

"That would be a very good point, except for one thing." Harmony smiled again as the result of a quiet laugh. "It's freaking impossible to hate you. I mean, I would have an easier time hating a baby seal." It would be a right struggle for Harmony to hate a baby seal, so that sentiment actually meant something. "You're great. I can say pretty confidently that you wouldn't have to worry about someone disliking you."

Harmony couldn't help but toss her head back a little and laugh. "I don't think the world is prepared for how cute we would look on a scooter together." She leaned over, wrapped both arms around one of Isabelle's and leaning her head on her friend's shoulder. "And I don't think I can handle the sight of a grown man crying over me stealing his girlfriend, so I'll just be around as a friend. I wanna see you happy... please be happy."

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bound_isabelle
2013-11-28 08:11 am UTC (link)

She didn't feel any better at the sentiment that, perhaps, Alvaro would leave their circle. Although if she thought about it from a more logical perspective, Isabelle could see too that it wouldn't be her fault. Alvaro had been alienated from their group for a long time, not by anyone doing it on purpose, but just by his natural personality and theirs. Isabelle had always included him, but it wasn't easy being Alvaro Hernandez-Abrams, and she couldn't fix things that were never meant to be in working order. But, since she was not thinking clearly, she sobbed again. "Oh, it would be. I would hate myself if I broke up our whole circle because of this."

She wasn't sure if there ever had been one, but she felt like she had been warned against dating anyone in her own circle. Things like this happened, and it could make or break a circle. She really didn't hope that this would be what broke them, after all they had already been through together. She was comforted, however, by Harmony's words. She laughed a little through her tears when Harmony said it was impossible to hate her. Isabelle was quite a likeable person, but she was sure that Alvaro's hatred for her could go straight through her natural charisma and friendly nature.

"Thanks, H-Bomb." She said again, so glad to have friends to turn to in these kinds of situations. "I know how much you love baby seals, too." She mimicked a little baby seal face, before breaking out into another laugh. She wiped away her own tears, trying her best not to smear any make-up as she did so though she was sure she looked a hot mess already.

Although she could agree the world was not at all prepared or ready for how adorable the both of them would look on the back of the scooter, she still faked hurt and disappointment. "I don't think Cruz would actually cry..." Alvaro definitely wouldn't, that was for sure. It might rain, but he certainly wouldn't shed actual tears. "Okay, fine. We'll just be friends. I'd hate to see any grown man cry over that, too. And I'll be happy, Harm. Seriously. Just... ugh. Maybe tomorrow. I think I need today just to mope."

She stood up, taking another sip of her coffee and glancing out at the lake in front of them. "You're a really good friend, you know that?" She said, turning to look at Harmony once more. "I'm glad we never stopped talking, because of parents and rules and whatever."

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