InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "It is known."

Blossom was not an angry girl. She wasn’t.

Logic and reason, those were two very important staples of the science community. And Blossom tended to follow them very well. So, logically she knew there was a reason that Tyler stood her up. And she’d been through a lot of them on Thursday night.

His dad might’ve had a last minute something that Tyler couldn’t avoid and he hadn’t had the time to text her to let her know. A last minute assignment might’ve come up and he hadn’t remembered they’d made plans. An emergency of some sort, maybe an accident and Tyler had been too busy or worse to call or text Blossom.

She’d just been stood up and blown off, hadn’t she.

At first she was mostly sad, a little embarrassed and upset, but that gave way into anger and annoyance. Then came Friday morning and Blossom wasn’t sure where logic and reason ended because she was a victim to her first Orange County weirdness overload. The weekend brought some very strange things and eventually Blossom understood that logic and reason didn’t apply to everything. The bonus of the whole thing was meeting another new person who’d been through all these nonsense things and getting to spend time snuggling an adorable little girl.

Of course that all straightened out and the end of the weekend brought her back to her own body and her own life, Blossom had to address those issues again. At least she’d mostly gotten through the day without running into anyone who’d tease her. She’d just get through the day and go home.

It just sucked so bad.

Tyler had spent the weekend trying to prepare for his next transformation. He’d sent a message to Derek, the one other werewolf he was aware of on the Network, and had spent the next few days trying to find a suitable location for the next full moon. Somewhere isolated, somewhere where he could lock himself up and chain himself to the walls without worrying about breaking free of his binding.

He hadn’t had much luck. And the worst part was, he kept feeling like he had been forgetting something important. The feeling nagged at him all weekend, though he did his best to ignore it. After all, whatever it was, there was no way it could be more important than dealing with the immediate problem. After four days of looking for a place, however, Tyler decided that he really did need to go back to class. As much as he wanted to ignore everything else until he had this figured out, he couldn’t let his life fall apart in the meantime.

It wasn’t until he got to school, and saw a flash of red hair in the crowd that he remembered exactly what it was that he had forgotten. “Shit,” he breathed to himself, and then started jogging toward the girl in front of him. “Blossom! Hey, Blossom!” Tyler called, hoping that she wouldn’t be too angry with him.

Oh how lucky she wasn’t. Of course it had meant that the conversation was going to happen, she couldn’t just ignore someone yelling her name at school. It wasn’t like there were other girls around called Blossom. Curse her unusual name.

Taking a deep breath, Blossom plastered on a smile, hopefully one that wouldn’t stir up too much attention and ignored the fact that she’d probably looked a little unkempt from the lack of sleep she’d gotten making up excuses for him. “Hello Tyler. How’re you today?” Okay, so at least he had the decency to not just ignore her entirely, but c’mon, it was totally a bit late for that.

“Busy weekend, lots going on, things on my mind. Like wasted trips out to diners in town for no reason at all.” Okay, so her ‘I’m angry at you’ was decidedly passive, but it wasn’t like she wanted to make a scene.

Well, that wasn’t so bad. She was obviously a little annoyed, but she didn’t seem that angry. “Blossom, I’m so sorry.” And then he realized that this was where he had to explain what happened, and he really hadn’t thought about how he was going to do that yet. “Something came up,” he finished.

Something came up. Really? That was what he was going with? She’d built more elaborate excuses for him while she was showering so that Bubbles or Buttercup didn’t figure out she was being a sad pathetic mess about a boy. “Oh, well that makes everything better.”

Hadn’t she just gushed about how much she liked this idiot?

“Listen, Tyler, all it would take is a text, you could’ve just told me that something else happening and… it’d be fine.” She’d have been a sad little mess, but not a pathetic pining one at least. “We had one date. I’d have just have liked to know you had no intention of turning up for the second one.” Why lead her on? Why? Cruel.

Tyler gave Blossom a pained look, his eyebrows furrowed. It was occurring to him that if he wanted to keep dating Blossom, then he was probably going to have to tell her what was going on. It wouldn’t be fair to keep dating her with her having no idea that he turned into a man-eating wolf once a month. She was right, they’d only been on one date. That didn’t really mean anything, and it wasn’t like Tyler hadn’t blown off girls before.

But he’d never really liked any of them, and he did like Blossom. “I did intend to go,” he said earnestly. “Really, I did. But then…” I totally forgot was not the way to smooth this over. “Can we go somewhere? To talk? It’s a little crowded here.”

Blossom wanted to flounce off, she really did. But she wasn’t a flouncy person, and again that logic and reason popped back up. So, if he’d wanted to come, why not? Which meant, “Yeah, okay. C’mon.” It wasn’t hard to find a lecture hall that was empty, it was still the beginning of the day. Everyone was starting to pile in for classes, still dragging their feet from a lack of coffee or chaotic weekend. Placing her bag on the table at the front of the room, Blossom faced Tyler, ready to hear what it was that was so brilliant that meant he’d completely forgotten about their date.

“Okay, talk.” She really wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, but… Well it wasn’t like other girls didn’t talk.

This really didn’t need to be difficult, he tried to tell himself. He’d seen other people on the Network talking about being werewolves in the dreams. He hadn’t seen anyone talking about becoming a werewolf in real life, but that’s the kind of thing that was supposed to happen around here, wasn’t it? Caroline had also told him that she didn’t usually try to keep it quiet, and that people usually took it well. He hoped that was the case here. “You have dreams, right?” Tyler asked. “The ones where you’re a superhero?”

A small frown tugged at Blossom’s brows, “Yeah, my sisters and me, we’re crime fighters I guess.” Pre-school crime fighters in a city that seemed to constantly need saving, but still. She knew that things came over from the dreams, Bubbles was still crossing her fingers for it all, and the animal talking thing that she did now. It was something the three of them were sort of waiting for now.

“Were you out fighting crime?” That didn’t make sense, why ask that question, Blossom?

Tyler couldn’t help it; he laughed. It was probably the first time he’d laughed all day, but he managed to stifle it quickly. “No,” he said. He was still smiling a little, though the smile quickly faded. “I just… I had this dream on Wednesday. Have any of your powers crossed over here?”

Arms crossing over her chest, Blossom was getting the feeling that this was a slightly more complex discussion than she’d first anticipated. “Not yet, not for me, I’m not sure about Bubbles though.” She had been dreaming longer so it was possible. “Did something happen with your dreams?” And okay, she was slightly more accepting of that being a possibility.

“Yeah, I…” he took a breath. “I dreamed the other night that I triggered this… werewolf curse,” he said, really hoping he didn’t sound as stupid as he thought he might. “And when I woke up I realized… that I guess I triggered it here too? And last night was the full moon.” He looked at Blossom’s face to gauge her reaction, a little nervous though doing his best not to show it. She was the first person he told who hadn’t known it was going to happen before he did.

Blossom had come up with a lot of things; accidents, fires, friends having emergencies, parents needing something, school, work, class. All these elaborate things. But werewolf hadn’t really come up. “A werewolf curse?” On the scope of things that wasn’t the weirdest thing she’d heard, but it wasn’t too far off it.

“You… turned into a werewolf?” That probably gave him the best excuse ever to not call or text about their date, it certainly would be one of those things that just entirely narrowed the attention down. “Did you… I mean… Are you okay?” Shock was settling in, a little bit of disbelief, but then her sister was dating a vampire so it wasn’t that shocking.

“I… yeah,” he said, though he was still freaking out. About how last night had probably been the worst night of his entire life, and he was going to have to go through the same thing over and over again. “Yeah, I’m fine. I mean, at least I just got to go through the whole transformation thing right away so I didn’t have any time to … worry about it or build it up in my mind.”

Blossom nodded her head, although she wasn’t entirely sure why she was nodding her head, “Ripping the bandaid off, yeah.” She supposed that was at least one good portion of it, not building up the what if’s in his mind. “Does this mean that… I mean, I guess this means that every month now you’ll be…” Turning into a big vicious wolf? “I mean, you’ll go through it all again?”

As far as monthly issues went, werewolfism was probably one of the worst, at least if some movies and shows were to be believed. “Oh, were you by yourself?”

Tyler nodded and swallowed heavily. He didn't know if he could go through it again, month after month, over and over again. “Yeah, that's how it works. Every full moon.”

He shook his head at that. “No, I had a couple of friends from high school who helped me,” he answered. Well, Caroline was a friend from high school. Stefan was a guy who Tyler had kind of seen in the halls, and they weren't much closer now than they had been back then. “They have the same dreams, and they're further ahead so they helped chain me up.”

“Chain you up?” Okay, reasonably, that made sense. If the transformation from man into… werewolf was difficult it would likely be violent afterwards, and then there was the whole mindless rampage thing that people would’ve wanted to avoid, surely. But still, the thought of getting chained up was just a little worrying.

Settling back to rest her butt on the desk, Blossom was arranging everything she’d thought and now the stuff she was finding out and well, at least she’d stopped being angry. “I’m so sorry, you didn’t get hurt or anything, did you? I mean, aside from the ‘grr’ but… That’s such a dumb question.” At least he had friends who were dreaming with him, right?

Tyler nodded. “It’s to stop me from killing anyone,” he said after a moment. He didn’t want to admit that, but Blossom deserved to know. “I don’t have any control once I turn. I don’t even remember what happened that night. I didn’t get hurt but I… bit one of the people who came to help me.” He still hadn’t seen Stefan since that night. “He’s a vampire, and I guess in my dreams werewolf bites are fatal to vampires. He’s okay,” he quickly assured her, “but I could have killed him.”

Things Blossom was learning; werewolves were a thing, and okay that wasn’t too far out there considering vampires and super heroes, but still. Werewolves were a thing and her almost-not-quite-but-potential boyfriend was one of them. Once a month said ANQBP boyfriend was going to become a dangerous and potential killer. Additionally, Blossom was finding that she was mostly worried for him.

“So, you’re going to need to go somewhere safe and be locked up once a month,” she wasn’t about to make a period joke, “so that you don’t hurt yourself or anyone else, and that’s why… You didn’t call me.” Okay, Blossom was no longer angry that she did not get the news about the date being a no-go. “Okay, I can understand that, and I’m sorry I got mad at you for ditching me.”

But… “So… what does that mean for… you know, um… Future dates?”

“Yeah,” Tyler said. “With everything else going on I completely forgot we had plans until I saw you today. Otherwise I would have called sooner. I would have been pissed too if the positions were reversed though.”

Tyler swallowed. This was the part of the conversation that he had been dreading. After all, who wanted to date a werewolf? “Well, I think moon watching is out,” he joked with a nervous, crooked smile. “I understand if this is too much, but I wouldn't have told you if I wasn't hoping you'd still like to see one another.”

With an explanation, Blossom was a lot more understanding. She figured that it was pretty big and life altering, and now she’d need to readjust how she gauged things because the OC did these weird things to people -like body swaps. “Well, I mean I could’ve texted you earlier to make sure you were okay but… Crazy weekend.” As a mom, but really, Sharon and Viv had been pretty fun to spend time with.

“Um, well, I think that… Maybe if we were careful about timing?” So, he was a werewolf, somewhat dangerous, yes, but she might start shooting lasers from her eyes one day, it was all relative, wasn’t it? “I would really like to reschedule our date thought. And plan future ones around your lunar issue?” Smart, funny and nice guy wants to date? Should she really turn it down because he gets furry once a month?

“You too, huh?” Tyler asked. “What happened to you?” Now that he had most of what he needed to say off his chest, he was eager for a change of topic. Besides, he really was interested in what Blossom had been up to. It wasn’t something he was used to when it came to the girls he’d dated.

“We’re safe until May 21st,” Tyler said. He had the next three full moons memorized. “I’d really like to reschedule our date too. How does tonight sound?” It was last minute and he doubted she’d be able to make it, but it was something normal after a weekend of crazy, and he wanted to spend more time with her.

“Body swap,” Blossom just shrugged. As far as things went, her little issue was way less traumatic and life altering than his, other than confirming to Blossom that one day, in the distant future, she’d probably want a kid. Way in the future. “I became a mom, but only for the weekend, Viv’s got her real mom in her own body now.”

Wow, he was just… “Tonight’s great!” Okay, maybe she should try and seem less like she didn’t ever do anything. But… “I just need to check with my dad, I was gone all weekend, but I’m pretty sure I can wing it if I promise to make dinner tomorrow for the family.” And the Blossom mega watt grin was back on her face at least.

Tyler hadn’t done too much reading on the Network over the weekend, but he had logged in a couple of times to talk to Derek about dreaming about werewolves and had seen some confusion about people being trapped in the wrong body. It had seemed like a weird topic to come up, but Tyler hadn’t put much thought into it. At least, not until now. “You got body swapped with a mother?” Tyler asked, both his eyebrows raised incredulously. “That.. sounds like it was an adventure. How was that for you?”

Tyler couldn’t help but return her grin, some of the horror from the weekend dissipating when he looked at her smile. “Good,” he said. “We’ll go for dinner and maybe… mini-golf?” He ventured. There had been a mini golf place he’d enjoyed going to when he was younger, though he hadn’t been in years.

“Yeah, Sharon, she was super nice though, so I definitely had a better weekend than you had to go through.” By himself, because Blossom wouldn’t just text him to check and see what it was that had happened. But she could still make up for that, surely. “We watched Elmo and played games, because I looked like Viv’s mom, but it was pretty fun.” It’d been a bit of a break, and while Blossom had missed her sisters, she’d fairly enjoyed the weekend away from problems.

“Dinner and golf sounds great.” She was definitely more upbeat, less down on herself, and hey if that helped. “Which absolutely means I have got to get home and get ready. Do you want me to meet you somewhere or… um, I can pick you up this time? If you want a little rest from driving?” Especially if he’d had a rough few days.

“You’ll have to tell me all about it on our date tonight,” Tyler said. Hearing a detailed account of Blossom playing with blocks or whatever small children played with these days might not be the most riveting stories he’d been told over dinner, but frankly, he could probably go for some boring and mundane (or, as mundane as waking up in someone’s body could be) for a change.

Tyler hesitated on that, thinking of how little he’d appreciate it if his parents insisted on meeting with her. He wasn’t very keen on her meeting his parents. But it seemed unlikely, especially if Tyler planned it so he’d be the first at the door if she chose to come up and knock. And his house was huge. It wasn’t that Tyler was embarrassed by its opulence, but people always seemed to want a tour of the Lockwood mansion “Yeah, that sounds great,” he said. “Pick me up at six?”

It was about then that he caught site of the clock in the room, and he realized that he was already late for class. He hadn’t gone to class Thursday or Friday either, so he couldn’t afford to miss another one. “I’ve got to run. But I can’t wait to see you again tonight,” he said, and he angled his head down to give her a kiss good-bye.

Blossom was already smiling as she popped up on her tiptoes to meet for the quick kiss, figuring the rest of the stuff out could come later, and at least she’d have something to look forward to through the day now.