faelans_folly | [Closed - Val and Bella]

Entry tags:

[Closed - Val and Bella]

It had been a week since the ball. A week, and she still hadn't shaken the...whatever had happened that night over mini-golf and dancefloors.

And she couldn't stop thinking about Levi, couldn't stop checking in on him at random times. She knew he hadn't seen her, but she'd seen him nearly every day since. She just wished she knew that it all meant; why she felt like she was changing when she hadn't so much as grown her hair an inch since coming here.

It was a longshot, but she only really had one other friend in the town. Or, at least, the closest thing to it.

That's why she found herself in the shadows of one of the bars she knew the fighter frequented and keeping outside the notice of everyone else there.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Valkyrie liked this bar a lot. She liked it because no one bothered anyone else. It was a bar you came to so that you could be alone. You didn't mingle, you didn't try and pick someone up. Hell, there wasn't even a lot of talking going on.

Striding in she went to the bar, ordered a drink with a nod of her head, and sat down at a table in a dark corner.

Bella waited a full two minutes once Valkyrie sat before cutting from the shadows and taking the seat opposite her.

"Hope you don't mind if I join you," Bella said simply, using her own voice and making it pretty clear she wasn't going to leave if she did mind.

"Suppose I could stand your company," Valkyrie said.

There was an edge to the woman's voice that wasn't usually there that immediately put her on guard. She liked Bella, but she was aware of what she was.

"Did you come to get some playback?" She asked with a grin. She supposed she did owe Bella an orgasm.

Bella snorted at the question. "No, I didn't. The thought didn't even cross my mind." Which was true, it hadn't. Ever since last week, alley interludes hadn't really held any appeal.

"I needed someone to talk to," she admitted at last. "A friend. Think you could fake it for a few minutes and forget I'm a lethal vampire?"

Well shit. This was some pretty big deal if Bella the ice princess needed the help of a friend. Big enough that Valkyrie wasn't even miffed about Bella not thinking about her.

"Nope. Can't forget that. But I can act like that doesn't matter at all in terms of friendship. What's up?"

"Guess I can't ask for anything more than that." Bella nodded then stopped picking at a spot on the table when she realized her fingernail was actually gouging a hole in the wood.

"I think." She took an unecessary breath. "I think I went on a date. With a human."

"Okay," Valkyrie said, trying to figure out what the big deal was. Sure, she didn't figure Bella to be the 'date' type but that was kind of a minor revelation considering everything else Bella was.

"Why is that so awful?"

"Val, look at me. Do i look like the kind of girl that dates a lot? Or at all? I don't mean I hooked up with someone. He tricked me into going to the ball with him, and then he took me to play mini-golf."

The way she said it, it sounded like the something totally off the wall and out there. Something foreign, alien. Frightening.

"I had...I had fun."

"You are legitimately a magical spell away from being a Disney princess," Valkyrie said, the corner of her mouth tugging up in an amused grin. It was so damn normal it was kind of pathetic. Or at least kind of boring.

"Who was it with? Please tell me he was handsome and charming."

"Yes to both. Big yes, in bright, neon letters." Bella sighed, ignoring the princess reference. "He's a cop, detective. Levi Astor. We met a while ago, tracking the same vamp. He thought the guy was just a normal human killer, I was pretty sure he wasn't just drinking and dashing. The vamp caught Levi and threw him into a wall, I stepped in and turned him into ash. Next thing I know, I'm in a fucking ball gown and heels."

"Levi Astor. Why does that name sound familiar?" Valkyrie said, pursing her lips in thought. Something sounded familiar about the name, she just couldn't place it. Not someone she had hooked up with, thankfully, but something else.

"And that is pure romance, right there."

"You've probably seen him around here or there. He one of the few that doesn't shy away from our section of town. It wasn't the first time I'd seen him, but it was the first time he'd seen me."

Bella thumped her head on the table and made the wood rattle and the salt shaker fall over. "I know. The whole night was. And I don't know what to do. The whole night I kept feeling weird. Like things that couldn't happen should be. It freaked me out. I nearly bolted, I should have bolted. But I didn't."

"Hot cop!" Valkyrie declared, grinning as she recalled the name. Levi Astor was the hot cop who was always around the bad areas, asking questions. Not one of her hook ups, but definitely on her list of "would not kick out of bed, at least not until morning".

"Wow. Go you. Hooking up with hot cop. Pure romance? It's like you want to make me vomit. Are you trying to tell me that your heart tried to go pitter-patter, Bella?"

Bella shook her head at Val's reaction, not surprised in the least. One thing the other fighter had, it was a healthy appreciation of the human form. She also couldn't fault the term. Levi was hot.

"I'll get you a bucket," Bella scowled and went back to picking at the table. "My heart can't go pitter-patter. I'm dead, remember? Nothing in here works. I'm stone, frozen. No beating, no flutters. What I'm saying is it wanted to. For the first time in...God, I can't even remember if it's ever been like this. I felt...I felt warm."

Valkyrie studied the other woman for a moment, contrasting her own experience with Nick and Bella's with hot cop. She was pretty sure that Bella had gotten the raw end of the deal.

"So you got the you equivalent to pitter-patter," Valkyrie said with a shrug. "Surprising, but it's not like you're the first woman ever to be head over heels with a guy. You have to break it off, but it's happened before."

Just like the date when she felt her heart wanting to flutter, now she felt it drop into her stomach. She knew Val was right; knew she had to break it off. It was the only right thing to do, for both of them. But something did confuse her.

She looked up at Val with a frown. "What's happened before?"

"A girl going a little crazy for a guy," she said, shaking her head. As much as it would be nice for Bella to get a happy ever after, it wasn't going to happen with hot cop. That was a problem waiting to happen right there.

"But Bella, he's your food. What are you going to do when he wants to have sex? You could barely handle me in a dirty alley. What's going to happen to your control when you're with someone you're that into and is that in to you? You going to nail and bail on him every time? Maybe he's really understanding and is willing to not have sex. Do you give him the freedom to have other partners to satisfy that need? Do you get the same freedom? What if you do lose control and you have a nibble? Do you finish him off or turn him? Do we need to get into the problem with the fact that you don't age?"

That relieved her a little. "I thought for a second you mean that it had happened to me before, but I know it hasn't. I can't remember ever feeling like this before."

Depressed as the whole speech made her, Bella couldn't stop a slight quirk to her mouth. "You are a lot to handle, Val. Most wouldn't live through the experience. But I know you're right. About all of it. I've been telling myself every bit of that for days, ever since I ran home that night. I could kill him, I risk dooming him to this endless day that never fucking ends. And none of it seems to matter. I still think about seeing him again and get that stupid non-flutter again. I try not to think about the fact that I still look eighteen and will forever."

Valkyrie didn't comment on Bella's comment about it happening before. Not her place, not her business to do so. Nothing good could come of that.

"One of these days, that stupid non-flutter is going to be guilt because you did something to hurt him," Valkyrie warned. Bella could make her own choices, but Valkyrie didn't have to like them. Besides, if Bella hurt this guy and really did care for him... she might snap and it would be Valkyrie who would have to try and take her down.

"And I'm pretty sure he'll find the 18 forever thing a plus."

Bella snorted at the last, because it was easier than accepting the truth Val was laying out - the truth Bella already knew but didn't want to think about. "So you're saying he's just a dirty old man with schoolgirl fantasies?"

She didn't wait for an answer. "I don't know that I will. He was bleeding pretty badly the night we met and yeah, okay, it smelled great, I wasn't overtaken with bloodlust or anything. I just felt...really, really protective of him." Her voice dropped a little. "I still do, and it's not getting any better."

"You're playing with fire, Lugosi. And when it gets out of hand, lots of people are going to get burned," Valkyrie said, shaking her head. She felt bad, this probably isn't what Bella wanted to hear.

"I wish I could be happy for you and support you in this, I really do."

"You're a realist. It's what has made us almost friends, unlikely as that is," Bella sighed and clasped her hands together to stop damaging the table further. "And you're not telling me what I don't already know. I think I needed to hear it from someplace other than my own head. So," she said after a pause, attempting a subject change. "Any new creatures of the night I should know about?"

"Met someone. Nick. He's a... a Dark Hunter I think he called it?" Valkyrie said, knowing full well exactly what Nick was. And did. Especially to her, which made her heartbeat quicken a little and a heat pool low in her belly at the memory of their time together.

"Seems like a vampire but isn't. He hunts monsters. A good guy. Well, sort of like you're a good girl he's a good guy."

Bella's eyes went a little bigger when she heard Val's reaction. It took more than just talking about meeting someone new to get Valkyrie's heart racing like that; something she knew better than most. "So he's dangerous and deadly but not lethal to humans? That kind of sort of good guy? I've never heard of Dark Hunters, but that's not exactly surprising. How did you meet him?"

"Thought he was a vampire, so I played up the bimbo act to see if he would bite," she said, giving a shrug, like it was no big deal. Bella could tell if she was lying, but if the other woman wanted to hear about it, she was going to have to pry.

"Turns out he's not one."

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject