yeah that happens if you turn into a vampire

[cross_and_bow]

(prologue)

Bella slips into the school by a side door; she just saw a thing and she thinks she's seen it in a book before and thinks it's supposed to be mostly harmless but before she wakes Giles up over probably nothing or kills a likely neutral demon she wants to check.

And she pushes into the library.

Comments

[keyed_up]

"Awww, poor you. I'm good at DDR but I'm not, like, insane-youtube-video good. But we're not allowed to let vampires into the house so I can't show you."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Damn," laughs Miles. "A fully understandable rule, though, from what I hear."

[keyed_up]

"Yeah. Oh also don't go on our porch I dunno if Bella warned you."

[cross_and_bow]

"Motion-activated sunshine lights."

[keyed_up]

"- You okay?"

[cross_and_bow]

"...Weird, uh, thing, tell you later."

[thisvorlunatic]

"I was not informed of the motion-activated sunshine lights," says Miles. "Thanks for the warning. I was not planning to catch fire tonight and it's so nice when things go according to plan."

[cross_and_bow]

"Well, I've never had reason to even tell you where the house is before."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Yeah," he says. "And: clear."

[keyed_up]

"What? Does somebody need defibrillating."

[thisvorlunatic]

"No," he snickers. "God, that brings back some memories."

[keyed_up]

"They still defibrillate people in ray gun future?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"When you need somebody's heart restarted abruptly I guess there aren't that many options!"

[keyed_up]

"S'pose not!"

[thisvorlunatic]

"There's plenty of things that haven't changed. People still eat food and wear shoes and so on."

[keyed_up]

"Gosh, no, not shoes. I thought they'd go the way of the dodo."

(The car pulls up to the house.)

"D'you need a ride somewhere or are you walking because you're creatures of the night and go where you please or what?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"I guess that depends on how Bella feels about driving us back to the butcher's shop. Bella?"

[cross_and_bow]

"I gotcha covered."

[keyed_up]

"'Kay, bye!"

And Soph hops out of the car and goes up to the house. The porch lights don't burn her. She has a key. There is no commotion from inside of any kind suggesting Charlie's surprised to see her.

[cross_and_bow]

Bella briefly clonks her head on the steering wheel.

And then she drives toward the butcher's.

[thisvorlunatic]

"...You all right?" asks Miles.

[cross_and_bow]

"I'm correct in assuming that 'clear' means you're pretty damn sure that is an innocent random teenager who thinks she's my sister?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Yes. It's still possible that she might be putting up a front, but most people can't actually put up a front deep enough to fool me. She's either an innocent teenager, a non-innocent who has a very complete 'innocent teenager' personality to draw on, or using undetectably subtle mind control that I have no hope of ever defeating. And if it's the last one and it's failing to work on you like the memory alteration did I would've expected someone to notice - you, me, her, Mark, somebody."

[cross_and_bow]

"Nah, I would've believed she was real too. DDR," mutters Bella. "With the arcade prize bracelets to match. So, no, I'm not all right, that's not all right, that's really fucked up."

[thisvorlunatic]

Mark and Miles exchange a glance.