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[yesthatbella.livejournal.com]

Because the strange quirks of Millitime, Bella Swan has only actually been out of Bar for a few days, her time.

Not even long enough to stop being annoyed at that Cullen kid, and definitely not long enough to want to deal with stumbling sleepily into a freaking Bar in the middle of the night. She had wanted something to drink, but had sort of been planning on a glass of water from Charlie's kitchen sink, not the end of the Universe.

"Huh. Guess I fell asleep on the sofa after all."

She probably ought to turn right back around, considering that she doesn't think it does wonders for her sanity to hang out here even if she is 93% sure she dreams it.

On the other hand, this place makes an amazing cup of hot chocolate.

Cocoa wins out over common sense, and Bella finds herself curled up in a chair, relatively out of the way of the general flow of people. You know. JUST IN CASE any Cullens were thinking of showing up.

[ooc: tags open until basically forever, slowtimes welcome!]

Comments

[themidnightson]

Edward due to Milliways being more bendy and twisted than an alien gymnast is over here.

He has been standing at the window people are avoiding like it might be the plague, casually with his fingers pressed with most delicate slightness on the bottom of the window pane, his hair barely over his eyes and lips parted as he watched a star blink out of existence (for the third time).

It's not. The plague.


He would know.

[yesthatbella.livejournal.com]

Bella doesn't avoid it. Of course, she'd also probably fail to avoid the plague if it were still going around.

She happened to glance over while taking her first sip of cocoa, and couldn't quite hold back an involuntarily little strangled yelp. It's anyone's guess as to whether she burned her tongue or she's just really, really unhappy to see Edward.

Probably both.

[themidnightson]

With all the noise in the room

forks and knives on plates, glasses being picked up and put down, chewing, swallowing, laughing, talking, secrets, walking foots steps, the tv in the upstairs alcove playing a squid drama, the books being picked up and put back and pages being turned in the great library, the rattling in the kitchen of a million different kinds, the feet of waitrats, the snickers inside the walls and even the people strolling near the waves outside

the fact that small startled sound, much like many others, caused him to turn his head and find himself looking at Bella Swan doesn't go down as amusing or surprising.

More like damned and dirty irony.

[yesthatbella.livejournal.com]

"I'm not going anywhere."

Bella's defiant pre-emptive declaration might've been more effective if she could figure out whether or not she wanted to glare at Edward or at the cocoa.

[themidnightson]

She was insane.

Edward's lips curled as his jaw tightened, pressed hard, yet while his eyes had darkened he didn't look angry. Disgusted with her comment, yes, but not angry yet.

And not breathing, which lasted as long as he didn't talk.

(Even if it didn't stop the aching thought of how easy her chair would splinter if he rushed her.)

[yesthatbella.livejournal.com]

Well. Bella guessed he didn't have anything to say to that, after all.

She resumed sipping her drink, carefully this time, and managed to wait almost a whole minute before she ventured to look over at him again.

(It wasn't her fault -- more like Cullens were just a natural magnet for her eyes, or something.)

"... look, it's not even my fault, okay? Like I'd come here on purpose? Please."

[themidnightson]

Of course they were. Vampire were preternaturally pretty. Even not in the sun.

What was she thinking?! Why was she explaining and apologizing?

But there will be no pictures and posing while Edward tried to decide between walking away and actually answering her sympathetically pedantic, yet annoyed, explaination.




"You didn't walk through the door of your own volition?"

And oh, those seconds, the burn erupting in his throat as her scent found him like it was waiting.

[yesthatbella.livejournal.com]

It's pretty safe to say that Bella probably wasn't thinking. It seemed the safest way to deal with sudden impossibilities -- thinking about them too hard just made her stomach hurt.

"Not exactly. More like, I didn't go hey, I wish my kitchen were that Bar place again, because I haven't had enough weirdness for one week before I walked into it."

[themidnightson]

The space between them was small. Minute. It could be crossed in hundredths of a second. He could picture the wood shatter and her louder startled sound that time. It would be a warm breathy wound, deeper touched with fear.

Edward strained to make sure his fingers didn't leave the window ledge they were still pressed on.

"It does open again." Beat. "You can still see it right?"

Dear everything crazy and magical in this place, don't let her be bound.

[walksthebounds]

"Falling asleep in a public place is likely asking for trouble," says a boy who looks around thirteen, helpfully.

He just wants to share the benefit of his wisdom!

[yesthatbella.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, but usually falling asleep on Charlie's couch is just asking for a sore neck."

Ah, the good old days -- when Bella's father's house no longer mysteriously connected to the END OF THE UNIVERSE.

[walksthebounds]

Jamie jerks his head up over towards the staircase.

"Anything wrong with a good old-fashioned bed? I'm just asking."

[yesthatbella.livejournal.com]

"Nothing that I can tell, except this place keeps making a detour of itself on the way to mine."

Bella looks pointedly toward the door.

"Which is elsewhere."

[walksthebounds]

"At least you can get back," Jamie offers. "I reckon it could be worse. As it is, you've got a bit of a chance to see the universe and expand your horizons -" He grins. "- and without having to pay the travel fees."

[yesthatbella.livejournal.com]

"I'm sure it could be worse. I just don't feel up to hanging out here often enough to find out all the truly damaging ways of proving that statement."

Bella's horizons don't need quite that much expanding. At least not until she's survived a whole two weeks at a new school, okay?

[walksthebounds]

Jamie shrugs, amiably enough. "As far as places you could have popped out, this is one of the safer. Plenty of security guards and no big nasties, and people are actually friendly. That's not as common as you'd think."

[yesthatbella.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, no kidding."

Bella knows from unfriendly. She's run into possibly the unfriendliest and most unfairly attractive guy she knows twice now in this place. Not cool, Universe. Not. Cool.

"So you're pretty used to it here, huh?"

[ohjohnringono.livejournal.com]

"You look about as confused as me."

Mike grins at the girl.

"You new around here?"

Christ that sounds like a pick-up line. He probably doesn't mean it to be.

[yesthatbella.livejournal.com]

"Probably more. I look that way a lot these days."

Bella doesn't register anything weird about the question, since she's been asked it a few times now.

"It's my third time here. I'm starting to wonder about my own sanity, to be honest."

[ohjohnringono.livejournal.com]

Mike would be the first to say that he's not the right guy to debate sanity with.

"I've been told that if you're sane enough to wonder, you're still sane."

[yesthatbella.livejournal.com]

"It's a theory, though I'm not sure whoever thought it up ever had to deal with repeatedly finding a bar where their kitchen used to be."

Bella's not really a good person to debate sanity with, either, to be honest, given that she's the particular brand of insane that goes along with being seventeen.

[ohjohnringono.livejournal.com]

"I wouldn't worry too much about that, as long as it's this bar. From what I hear, she has a habit of showing up in places where bars have no right to be."

[yesthatbella.livejournal.com]

"No offense, but I'm not sure I ought to trust any advice given to me in the middle of what's more than likely going to turn out to be a series of hallucinations."

Bella's still clinging a bit to the hope that she is, in fact, dreaming this.

[ohjohnringono.livejournal.com]

"That's a point. But I can't be any more certain you aren't one of my hallucinations than you can be that I'm not one of yours. And we wouldn't get very far in life if we had to stop every few minutes to debate the nature of reality."

Mike grins at her. He's very good at being disarming.

"It saves a lot of headaches and confusion if you just trust your senses, and go along with it. And even if it turns out we are hallucinations, who's to know you played along but you?"

[yesthatbella.livejournal.com]

Bella grins back, though she is unfortunately rather immune to being disarmed by smiles unless they belong to people who ~*sparkle*~.

"You've got a point, though I'd trust my senses a lot more if they were more reliable. You don't want to know how many things I trip over on a daily basis that I'd swear appeared out of nowhere."