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dollsomeTitle: How Bellward Got Their Groove (Or At Least, Kinda Tried)
Pairing: Edward/Bella
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: Part 1 - 2,800
Summary: After an unsuccessful double date with Jessica and Mike, Edward and Bella set out to prove to the world that they aren't relationship snobs. This quest is hindered a little bit by the fact that they totally, totally are.
Author's Note: Ever since I wrote Are You There, God? It's Me, Edward, I have been wanting to try my hand at yet another Psycho Bella and Lame-o Edward Tale, and the lovely renewed enthusiasm for that story courtesy of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
irony_rocks reccing it has given me the boost I needed!
I don't know why this has decided to turn into a chapter fic, or if it will actually continue to exist. But ye gods, there's just so much to mock!
Also: I haven't read anything Twilighty for ages, so, um, sorry if it doesn't gel with canon? I ... guess? I am pretty sure whatever's canon will somehow manage to be way more hilarious and offensive than this.
~ * Part One * ~
The sky is as Forksishly gray as ever, but it could be filled with a hundred rainbows and it still wouldn't tempt her gaze away from its current object. Bella watches, transfixed, as lucky raindrops fall from the sky to land on Edward's marble skin -- those raindrops, she's certain, have never been closer to an angel than they are right now, even if they did come from the sky, and that's traditionally where angels hang out. The rain soaks her through, but she doesn't feel it, doesn't feel anything except for Edward's cold and perfect fingertips barely brushing hers as they rest here together in their meadow, lost in each other's eyes. Time has no meaning.
To some people.
"Oh my God," Jessica says, "this is seriously what you guys do for fun?"
She and Mike aren't even lying down amidst the wildflowers. Just standing there in their windbreakers with their hoods pulled up, looking pissed. It goes without saying that there's no way that relationship's lasting. Bella doubts either of them have heard of Wuthering Heights, even though they're all reading it right now in English class.
"You said you wanted to double date," Edward says, confused, and sits up. The raindrops might be tantalizing beyond belief on his Michelangelo-wishes-he'd-sculpted-this body, but they really haven't done his hair any favors.
"Yeah, but I thought that meant, like, break into the pool and go skinny-dipping," Jessica says, rolling her eyes. "Not lie in the wet grass and stare at each other."
"Is there really such a difference?" Edward implores, his amber eyes soulful. "It's all just ... getting wet, isn't it?"
"No," Jessica says flatly, "it's so not."
"Don't they have swim team practice going on right now?" Bella asks -- as a courtesy. She knows for certain they do. Then again, Bella is good at knowing things for certain, like John Donne sonnets by heart and the fact that she is unconditionally and irrevocably in love with a vampire who thirsts for her blood. Jessica probably doesn't even know her own full name for certain, considering all the Katy Perry lyrics and boys' phone numbers she has stuffed into that 'brain' of hers.
"Whatever," Jessica says. "Who goes on a double date at 4:30, anyway?"
"Well, we already had evening plans," Edward replies uncomfortably, "so ..."
"Oh yeah?" Jessica demands. "What are those?"
"From 7 to 8 we read aloud from Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson--"
"He was a writer," Bella makes sure to point out, so that Jessica doesn't think he's like a long lost Backstreet Boy or something.
"--and then Carlisle DVR'd Tuesday's episode of New Girl." Edward beams in excitement. The Cullens love Zooey Deschanel. Bella tries not to think about it too much. There's this part of her that just knows that one day Edward's going to leave her for Zooey, if he ever gets the chance. Another quirky brunette that no one really gets? One with her own cotton commercial? Honestly, listening to She & Him kind of makes Bella want to throw herself in front of a bus. But she puts up with it because it's Edward's non-Clair de lune driving music of choice, and love is about sacrifice.
"Oh my God," Jessica says. Again. Bella is pretty sure her 'brain' only holds like seven key phrases at one time. "Are you guys my parents?"
"Please, Jess," Mike speaks up. "Like your mom's that hot." He throws a grin Bella's way. Bella catches it, to be polite. Edward's eyes flash a protective shade of topaz.
"Shut up, Mike," Jessica orders. "You know you would do my mom in like two seconds if she offered."
"Well," Mike says with a shrug, "yeah."
"The point is, Bellward -- that's what I'm calling you now to save time, and besides, you're so obsessed with each other you've pretty much creepily molded into one person anyway -- I'm just not sure Mike and I can double date you anymore. Not if you're going to keep acting like such lame-o freaks."
"I guess we can't expect you to understand," Bella says sympathetically. (Well. 'Sympathetically.') "You've never been in real love."
"Uh, false. Timmy Kemper. Summer camp. We were twelve. It was spiritually transcendent, I would let that kid kumba my ya from here to next Friday. It was real, and it was electric. The trouble with you two," Jessica concludes, "is that you're just relationship snobs."
She is such an Isabella Linton.
"Simpleton," Bella mutters, and gets up. She is, okay, pretty cold and clammy -- it's almost like she did jump in the pool. And left her clothes on, of course, because skinny-dipping is skanky and moronic. She turns to Edward. "Come on, baby, let's g--"
Oh, God, Edward totally has that look on his face. Like the one he gets whenever he finds out she's been hanging with Jacob Black, even after she tells him like ten times that she meant "he revved my engine" in a 100% literal way. Jacob's just a kid, a kid with a magnificent werewolf six pack, and he doesn't even pick out all the green ones when he gives her boxes of candy hearts. She needs a man. Like Edward. Who is currently making that face, which bodes well for no one--
"Snobs?" he says, crestfallen. "I hope I haven't exuded an air of snobbery in your company. Bella and I may have atypically discerning taste for seventeen year olds, and my family may live in a house constructed entirely of glass, but I assure you, I am the salt of the earth. Beneath the Banana Republic garb, I am a common Spanish influenza victim!"
Bella elbows him in the side. Jessica and Mike stare, but not at each other and not in a remotely gazeish fashion.
"... a common Spanish influenza victim ... in the Downton Abbey role playing game ... I just began on the world wide web," Edward finishes smoothly.
Mike gives Bella a look of deepest skepticism. "You're legit rocking a lady boner for this guy?"
"My anatomically impossible erections are none of your business, Mike," Bella replies coldly.
"Hee," Mike says. "Erection."
Jessica, still stuck on Edward, asks, "Was most of that even in English? What's garb? Like, a squash?"
"Cretinous whore," Bella mumbles.
+
Edward finds he cannot concentrate on the most recent episode of New Girl -- a genuine shame, because Zooey does a bit of physical comedy with a frozen turkey that is truly the height of charming. He can't help but dwell upon what Jessica said earlier. (To add insult to injury, she'd also thought some really discouraging things about the appearance of his wet hair. He'd always assumed that he looked quite enticing while soaking wet. Now, he fears he'll forever worry in the back of his mind that it looks like there is an electrocuted Pomeranian atop his head. He does not care for his own sake, of course - not a day goes by that he doesn't wish his outward appearance reflected the sin-stained monster within -- but he hates the idea of offending Bella's lovely eyes.)
Bella sits beside him on the sofa, tucked under his arm and wrapped in a nice fleece throw blanket. She's been very quiet throughout this half hour of sitcom-shaped delight, and he's noticed that on occasion close-ups of dear Zooey's face move his beloved to tears. How unspeakably lovely it is, that after untold decades of searching he has finally found a perfect other whose heart is moved by the same joys that his own is!
The episode ends with Zooey and her new beau skipping down the street while a merry tune is played on her lucky paramour's fiddle -- sublime!
"Oh, how lovely," sighs Esme.
"Another triumphant half hour for Ms. Deschanel!" declares Carlisle.
"How is it possible for someone so quirky to be so adorable?" Alice muses, then finishes braiding ribbons into Bella's hair and pirouettes across the living room, dragging Jasper with her.
"She should be more naked," says Emmett, who maintains that the first two minutes of the first episode were the best.
"Word," says Rosalie. They fist bump, then make out a little. Surely no one could accuse them of being relationship snobs.
"Carlisle," Edward says, able to stand this niggling worry no longer, "you wouldn't call Bella and myself ... relationship snobs, would you?"
"Um," Carlisle says.
"Don't listen to him," Bella jumps in, untangling the ribbons from her hair. Normally Edward would be envying the ribbons their proximity to her sweet fingertips and Suave-scented locks, but he's a bit too distracted right now. "He's just stressing over something one of our idiotic classmates said earlier."
"Oh, Bella," coos Esme, "it's your unrelenting frankness that makes you such a cherished addition to our family."
Bella blushes and starts murmuring her customary humble excuses about sparkles and unworthiness.
"She is a bit insipid, this classmate," Edward admits. "No Zooey by any means, but I confess, it still concerns me. I know you would never lie to me. Is there ... is there any truth to what she said?"
His parents exchange uncomfortable glances. They pierce Edward's heart. Metaphorically speaking. To have a talent as dark as literal dagger eyes is unthinkable! Just because they're eternally damned monsters doesn't mean they're, well, monsters.
"Well, son," Carlisle says at last, "perhaps the two of you do ... flaunt your true love a bit, on occasion."
"Just a bit!" Esme hastens to add in her most soothing tones, which she learned personally from Enya hanging out with her back in the nineties. "Only on occasion!"
"How so?" Edward demands to know, horrified.
His parents give them another joint pointed stare.
Edward realizes he's begun weaving Bella's discarded hair ribbons around his fingers. And hers. As loving and poetic bondage, symbolic of their inescapable feelings for one another!
"This?" he asks, baffled. "Isn't this just ... ordinary high school sweetheart behavior?"
"I wish I could be chained to you forever," Bella sighs, breathing heavy.
"Not right now, my darling, I'm trying to converse with my p--" She tilts her head, her neck on irresistible display. Dear, cruel, infinitely generous God! It's like living in Florence and the Machine's "Howl." He listens to her blood caress her veins -- wants to put his lips, his teeth, to that throat, to devour it, to devour her--
"You'd do better to chain me in a dungeon somewhere and forget me forever," he tells her in a low, smooth murmur that can barely contain his wanting. Her fingers, bound to his, tremble deliciously. "You'd be safe then."
"I'd be dead then," Bella pants. "When you're not touching me, I don't want to be alive. And never shall be free, nor ever chaste, except you ravish me--"
"See, this," Carlisle interrupts. "This is just it. John Donne, Bella? Really? There's a time and a place."
"But," Edward says, forced reluctantly from his Bella trance, "I'm a vampire."
"I know, son," Carlisle says patiently, "and far be it from me to begrudge you some dark and dirty wanting. It's natural! I know it! God only knows how many times your mother and I have spilt and lapped up each other's blood in a sexy way."
"Eesh," Edward cringes. Bella pats his hand.
"Carlisle!" chides Esme, giggling.
"Your hemoglobin excites me, sweetheart," Carlisle says. "Plain and simple."
"Oh, you," says Esme affectionately.
"But that's just the thing, Edward -- you talk the big sexy talk, but you and Bella are still very young in a lot of ways. There are aspects of romance that the two of you have yet to experience. And you'll get to that in your own sweet time, and I'm sure it will be beautiful and special when you do, assuming you don't snap her spine in the process."
"Da-ad," Edward groans, embarrassed.
"But until you do," Carlisle finishes, "perhaps it would be best if the two of you didn't present your relationship as the be-all end-all encapsulation of true romantic love."
"When do we ever do that?" Edward demands.
~~~~~ FLASHBACK ~~~~~ (like those used to great comedic effect on, for instance, New Girl!)
"I'll never be able to live without her," Edward said, anguished.
"Cherish that love," Carlisle answered sagely. "For in it lives its own kind of salvation. Why, your mother and I--"
"No, no, but Carlisle. She is perfection, and I am a monster! I want to put her on a pedestal and worship her from afar, her acolyte all my endless days. I want to chew her up into bite-sized pieces; I want to drink every succulent drop of her precious blood in one of those impractically large wine glasses like they have on Cougar Town!" (Esme was a devoted fan of Cougar Town.) "I'm a curse, a pox on her life. I am her Spanish influenza. She is my sweetest sin. I've never met anyone who wanted to slow dance to Muse with me before. She's the one. She can't be the one! I'll be her ruin! I want to eat her face -- I want to eat her face so badly! If anyone ever tries to harm one perfect hair on her head, I'll eat their face. It's so hard, being without her like this -- here -- now -- and yet what else can I expect from the future? For she is mortal, and full of breath and light, and can step out into the sun without a besparkled frenzy befalling her too, too lovely skin, and I ought to let her go. To let her have a full and happy life. I shall. And yet -- without her! God! Am I on fire? Am I literally, actually on fire right now? I feel the flames! The flames of Bellalessness, and lo, I am charred to the bone."
"Edward," Carlisle said, very slowly, "it's all right. Bella's just gone to the bathroom. I'm sure she'll be back soon."
"CHARRED TO THE BONE," Edward moaned in agony.
"I'm back!" Bella said, stepping into the kitchen. "FINALLY. You know, if you would turn me into a vampire, bathroom breaks would never have to separate us again. We'd be together always."
"Never," Edward intoned, sweeping her into his arms.
"Always," Bella countered, gazing up at him.
"Um," said Carlisle.
"He doesn't understand," Edward explained to Bella; they both chuckled softly.
"I can hear you," Carlisle reminded him shortly.
"One day, perhaps, Carlisle," Edward said, gazing into Bella's eyes. "One day, you just might know a bliss this sweet."
~~~~ END FLASHBACK~~~~~
"Well, all right, yes!" Edward admits. "But that was back when we had first gotten together, and we were adjusting to the disorienting joy and torment of being in each other's lives--"
"That was two hours ago," Carlisle says. "You are wearing the same outfit and everything."
And indeed, Edward's Banana Republic garb is the very same.
"I just think it might behoove you to keep in mind," Esme says, "that you two aren't the only people who have ever fallen in love, and when you act as though you are, it can make others feel that you're looking down on their relationships as inferior."
"Ah," Edward says delicately.
"But they are inferior," Bella says, less delicately.
Carlisle is beginning to twitch with vampiric super rage. Just a little bit. "I named an island after your mother, Edward. A freakin' island."
"A sweet gesture," Edward acknowledges.
"Yeah," Bella says, "that's cute."
"You know what?" Carlisle says, his eyes flashing an irritated shade of topaz. "I fear we've reached the point where I must be honest with you for your own good: you are relationship snobs. And relationship snobs, in my opinion, ought to go to their bedrooms and think about what they've done."
Edward's jaw drops. "Carlisle--"
"Go!" Carlisle barks. "You go, and think about Isle Bella. Oh wait. There isn't one."
Dismay weighs heavy in Edward's heart, but he knows better than to disobey. It is most unwise to incur the wrath of a vampire doctor, especially when he can ground you. Sadly, he takes Bella's hand, and they walk the sad, sad walk up to his bedroom.
"And no slow dancing to Muse up there, either!" Carlisle calls after them. "Or Clair de lune!"
"Rats," mutters Edward. Parents, they just don't understand.
Part two coming soonish to a livejournal near you! Maybe.
Pairing: Edward/Bella
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: Part 1 - 2,800
Summary: After an unsuccessful double date with Jessica and Mike, Edward and Bella set out to prove to the world that they aren't relationship snobs. This quest is hindered a little bit by the fact that they totally, totally are.
Author's Note: Ever since I wrote Are You There, God? It's Me, Edward, I have been wanting to try my hand at yet another Psycho Bella and Lame-o Edward Tale, and the lovely renewed enthusiasm for that story courtesy of
irony_rocks reccing it has given me the boost I needed!I don't know why this has decided to turn into a chapter fic, or if it will actually continue to exist. But ye gods, there's just so much to mock!
Also: I haven't read anything Twilighty for ages, so, um, sorry if it doesn't gel with canon? I ... guess? I am pretty sure whatever's canon will somehow manage to be way more hilarious and offensive than this.
~ * Part One * ~
The sky is as Forksishly gray as ever, but it could be filled with a hundred rainbows and it still wouldn't tempt her gaze away from its current object. Bella watches, transfixed, as lucky raindrops fall from the sky to land on Edward's marble skin -- those raindrops, she's certain, have never been closer to an angel than they are right now, even if they did come from the sky, and that's traditionally where angels hang out. The rain soaks her through, but she doesn't feel it, doesn't feel anything except for Edward's cold and perfect fingertips barely brushing hers as they rest here together in their meadow, lost in each other's eyes. Time has no meaning.
To some people.
"Oh my God," Jessica says, "this is seriously what you guys do for fun?"
She and Mike aren't even lying down amidst the wildflowers. Just standing there in their windbreakers with their hoods pulled up, looking pissed. It goes without saying that there's no way that relationship's lasting. Bella doubts either of them have heard of Wuthering Heights, even though they're all reading it right now in English class.
"You said you wanted to double date," Edward says, confused, and sits up. The raindrops might be tantalizing beyond belief on his Michelangelo-wishes-he'd-sculpted-this body, but they really haven't done his hair any favors.
"Yeah, but I thought that meant, like, break into the pool and go skinny-dipping," Jessica says, rolling her eyes. "Not lie in the wet grass and stare at each other."
"Is there really such a difference?" Edward implores, his amber eyes soulful. "It's all just ... getting wet, isn't it?"
"No," Jessica says flatly, "it's so not."
"Don't they have swim team practice going on right now?" Bella asks -- as a courtesy. She knows for certain they do. Then again, Bella is good at knowing things for certain, like John Donne sonnets by heart and the fact that she is unconditionally and irrevocably in love with a vampire who thirsts for her blood. Jessica probably doesn't even know her own full name for certain, considering all the Katy Perry lyrics and boys' phone numbers she has stuffed into that 'brain' of hers.
"Whatever," Jessica says. "Who goes on a double date at 4:30, anyway?"
"Well, we already had evening plans," Edward replies uncomfortably, "so ..."
"Oh yeah?" Jessica demands. "What are those?"
"From 7 to 8 we read aloud from Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson--"
"He was a writer," Bella makes sure to point out, so that Jessica doesn't think he's like a long lost Backstreet Boy or something.
"--and then Carlisle DVR'd Tuesday's episode of New Girl." Edward beams in excitement. The Cullens love Zooey Deschanel. Bella tries not to think about it too much. There's this part of her that just knows that one day Edward's going to leave her for Zooey, if he ever gets the chance. Another quirky brunette that no one really gets? One with her own cotton commercial? Honestly, listening to She & Him kind of makes Bella want to throw herself in front of a bus. But she puts up with it because it's Edward's non-Clair de lune driving music of choice, and love is about sacrifice.
"Oh my God," Jessica says. Again. Bella is pretty sure her 'brain' only holds like seven key phrases at one time. "Are you guys my parents?"
"Please, Jess," Mike speaks up. "Like your mom's that hot." He throws a grin Bella's way. Bella catches it, to be polite. Edward's eyes flash a protective shade of topaz.
"Shut up, Mike," Jessica orders. "You know you would do my mom in like two seconds if she offered."
"Well," Mike says with a shrug, "yeah."
"The point is, Bellward -- that's what I'm calling you now to save time, and besides, you're so obsessed with each other you've pretty much creepily molded into one person anyway -- I'm just not sure Mike and I can double date you anymore. Not if you're going to keep acting like such lame-o freaks."
"I guess we can't expect you to understand," Bella says sympathetically. (Well. 'Sympathetically.') "You've never been in real love."
"Uh, false. Timmy Kemper. Summer camp. We were twelve. It was spiritually transcendent, I would let that kid kumba my ya from here to next Friday. It was real, and it was electric. The trouble with you two," Jessica concludes, "is that you're just relationship snobs."
She is such an Isabella Linton.
"Simpleton," Bella mutters, and gets up. She is, okay, pretty cold and clammy -- it's almost like she did jump in the pool. And left her clothes on, of course, because skinny-dipping is skanky and moronic. She turns to Edward. "Come on, baby, let's g--"
Oh, God, Edward totally has that look on his face. Like the one he gets whenever he finds out she's been hanging with Jacob Black, even after she tells him like ten times that she meant "he revved my engine" in a 100% literal way. Jacob's just a kid, a kid with a magnificent werewolf six pack, and he doesn't even pick out all the green ones when he gives her boxes of candy hearts. She needs a man. Like Edward. Who is currently making that face, which bodes well for no one--
"Snobs?" he says, crestfallen. "I hope I haven't exuded an air of snobbery in your company. Bella and I may have atypically discerning taste for seventeen year olds, and my family may live in a house constructed entirely of glass, but I assure you, I am the salt of the earth. Beneath the Banana Republic garb, I am a common Spanish influenza victim!"
Bella elbows him in the side. Jessica and Mike stare, but not at each other and not in a remotely gazeish fashion.
"... a common Spanish influenza victim ... in the Downton Abbey role playing game ... I just began on the world wide web," Edward finishes smoothly.
Mike gives Bella a look of deepest skepticism. "You're legit rocking a lady boner for this guy?"
"My anatomically impossible erections are none of your business, Mike," Bella replies coldly.
"Hee," Mike says. "Erection."
Jessica, still stuck on Edward, asks, "Was most of that even in English? What's garb? Like, a squash?"
"Cretinous whore," Bella mumbles.
+
Edward finds he cannot concentrate on the most recent episode of New Girl -- a genuine shame, because Zooey does a bit of physical comedy with a frozen turkey that is truly the height of charming. He can't help but dwell upon what Jessica said earlier. (To add insult to injury, she'd also thought some really discouraging things about the appearance of his wet hair. He'd always assumed that he looked quite enticing while soaking wet. Now, he fears he'll forever worry in the back of his mind that it looks like there is an electrocuted Pomeranian atop his head. He does not care for his own sake, of course - not a day goes by that he doesn't wish his outward appearance reflected the sin-stained monster within -- but he hates the idea of offending Bella's lovely eyes.)
Bella sits beside him on the sofa, tucked under his arm and wrapped in a nice fleece throw blanket. She's been very quiet throughout this half hour of sitcom-shaped delight, and he's noticed that on occasion close-ups of dear Zooey's face move his beloved to tears. How unspeakably lovely it is, that after untold decades of searching he has finally found a perfect other whose heart is moved by the same joys that his own is!
The episode ends with Zooey and her new beau skipping down the street while a merry tune is played on her lucky paramour's fiddle -- sublime!
"Oh, how lovely," sighs Esme.
"Another triumphant half hour for Ms. Deschanel!" declares Carlisle.
"How is it possible for someone so quirky to be so adorable?" Alice muses, then finishes braiding ribbons into Bella's hair and pirouettes across the living room, dragging Jasper with her.
"She should be more naked," says Emmett, who maintains that the first two minutes of the first episode were the best.
"Word," says Rosalie. They fist bump, then make out a little. Surely no one could accuse them of being relationship snobs.
"Carlisle," Edward says, able to stand this niggling worry no longer, "you wouldn't call Bella and myself ... relationship snobs, would you?"
"Um," Carlisle says.
"Don't listen to him," Bella jumps in, untangling the ribbons from her hair. Normally Edward would be envying the ribbons their proximity to her sweet fingertips and Suave-scented locks, but he's a bit too distracted right now. "He's just stressing over something one of our idiotic classmates said earlier."
"Oh, Bella," coos Esme, "it's your unrelenting frankness that makes you such a cherished addition to our family."
Bella blushes and starts murmuring her customary humble excuses about sparkles and unworthiness.
"She is a bit insipid, this classmate," Edward admits. "No Zooey by any means, but I confess, it still concerns me. I know you would never lie to me. Is there ... is there any truth to what she said?"
His parents exchange uncomfortable glances. They pierce Edward's heart. Metaphorically speaking. To have a talent as dark as literal dagger eyes is unthinkable! Just because they're eternally damned monsters doesn't mean they're, well, monsters.
"Well, son," Carlisle says at last, "perhaps the two of you do ... flaunt your true love a bit, on occasion."
"Just a bit!" Esme hastens to add in her most soothing tones, which she learned personally from Enya hanging out with her back in the nineties. "Only on occasion!"
"How so?" Edward demands to know, horrified.
His parents give them another joint pointed stare.
Edward realizes he's begun weaving Bella's discarded hair ribbons around his fingers. And hers. As loving and poetic bondage, symbolic of their inescapable feelings for one another!
"This?" he asks, baffled. "Isn't this just ... ordinary high school sweetheart behavior?"
"I wish I could be chained to you forever," Bella sighs, breathing heavy.
"Not right now, my darling, I'm trying to converse with my p--" She tilts her head, her neck on irresistible display. Dear, cruel, infinitely generous God! It's like living in Florence and the Machine's "Howl." He listens to her blood caress her veins -- wants to put his lips, his teeth, to that throat, to devour it, to devour her--
"You'd do better to chain me in a dungeon somewhere and forget me forever," he tells her in a low, smooth murmur that can barely contain his wanting. Her fingers, bound to his, tremble deliciously. "You'd be safe then."
"I'd be dead then," Bella pants. "When you're not touching me, I don't want to be alive. And never shall be free, nor ever chaste, except you ravish me--"
"See, this," Carlisle interrupts. "This is just it. John Donne, Bella? Really? There's a time and a place."
"But," Edward says, forced reluctantly from his Bella trance, "I'm a vampire."
"I know, son," Carlisle says patiently, "and far be it from me to begrudge you some dark and dirty wanting. It's natural! I know it! God only knows how many times your mother and I have spilt and lapped up each other's blood in a sexy way."
"Eesh," Edward cringes. Bella pats his hand.
"Carlisle!" chides Esme, giggling.
"Your hemoglobin excites me, sweetheart," Carlisle says. "Plain and simple."
"Oh, you," says Esme affectionately.
"But that's just the thing, Edward -- you talk the big sexy talk, but you and Bella are still very young in a lot of ways. There are aspects of romance that the two of you have yet to experience. And you'll get to that in your own sweet time, and I'm sure it will be beautiful and special when you do, assuming you don't snap her spine in the process."
"Da-ad," Edward groans, embarrassed.
"But until you do," Carlisle finishes, "perhaps it would be best if the two of you didn't present your relationship as the be-all end-all encapsulation of true romantic love."
"When do we ever do that?" Edward demands.
~~~~~ FLASHBACK ~~~~~ (like those used to great comedic effect on, for instance, New Girl!)
"I'll never be able to live without her," Edward said, anguished.
"Cherish that love," Carlisle answered sagely. "For in it lives its own kind of salvation. Why, your mother and I--"
"No, no, but Carlisle. She is perfection, and I am a monster! I want to put her on a pedestal and worship her from afar, her acolyte all my endless days. I want to chew her up into bite-sized pieces; I want to drink every succulent drop of her precious blood in one of those impractically large wine glasses like they have on Cougar Town!" (Esme was a devoted fan of Cougar Town.) "I'm a curse, a pox on her life. I am her Spanish influenza. She is my sweetest sin. I've never met anyone who wanted to slow dance to Muse with me before. She's the one. She can't be the one! I'll be her ruin! I want to eat her face -- I want to eat her face so badly! If anyone ever tries to harm one perfect hair on her head, I'll eat their face. It's so hard, being without her like this -- here -- now -- and yet what else can I expect from the future? For she is mortal, and full of breath and light, and can step out into the sun without a besparkled frenzy befalling her too, too lovely skin, and I ought to let her go. To let her have a full and happy life. I shall. And yet -- without her! God! Am I on fire? Am I literally, actually on fire right now? I feel the flames! The flames of Bellalessness, and lo, I am charred to the bone."
"Edward," Carlisle said, very slowly, "it's all right. Bella's just gone to the bathroom. I'm sure she'll be back soon."
"CHARRED TO THE BONE," Edward moaned in agony.
"I'm back!" Bella said, stepping into the kitchen. "FINALLY. You know, if you would turn me into a vampire, bathroom breaks would never have to separate us again. We'd be together always."
"Never," Edward intoned, sweeping her into his arms.
"Always," Bella countered, gazing up at him.
"Um," said Carlisle.
"He doesn't understand," Edward explained to Bella; they both chuckled softly.
"I can hear you," Carlisle reminded him shortly.
"One day, perhaps, Carlisle," Edward said, gazing into Bella's eyes. "One day, you just might know a bliss this sweet."
~~~~ END FLASHBACK~~~~~
"Well, all right, yes!" Edward admits. "But that was back when we had first gotten together, and we were adjusting to the disorienting joy and torment of being in each other's lives--"
"That was two hours ago," Carlisle says. "You are wearing the same outfit and everything."
And indeed, Edward's Banana Republic garb is the very same.
"I just think it might behoove you to keep in mind," Esme says, "that you two aren't the only people who have ever fallen in love, and when you act as though you are, it can make others feel that you're looking down on their relationships as inferior."
"Ah," Edward says delicately.
"But they are inferior," Bella says, less delicately.
Carlisle is beginning to twitch with vampiric super rage. Just a little bit. "I named an island after your mother, Edward. A freakin' island."
"A sweet gesture," Edward acknowledges.
"Yeah," Bella says, "that's cute."
"You know what?" Carlisle says, his eyes flashing an irritated shade of topaz. "I fear we've reached the point where I must be honest with you for your own good: you are relationship snobs. And relationship snobs, in my opinion, ought to go to their bedrooms and think about what they've done."
Edward's jaw drops. "Carlisle--"
"Go!" Carlisle barks. "You go, and think about Isle Bella. Oh wait. There isn't one."
Dismay weighs heavy in Edward's heart, but he knows better than to disobey. It is most unwise to incur the wrath of a vampire doctor, especially when he can ground you. Sadly, he takes Bella's hand, and they walk the sad, sad walk up to his bedroom.
"And no slow dancing to Muse up there, either!" Carlisle calls after them. "Or Clair de lune!"
"Rats," mutters Edward. Parents, they just don't understand.
Part two coming soonish to a livejournal near you! Maybe.
