Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight or any of the characters.
Sorry for posting this twice, there was something wrong with the first version and when I tried to fix it the prologue went blank, permanently...
A/N Okay, this story is weird but it may very well be my personal favorite. I wrote the first two chapters of this a while back, together with my sister. She posted it, but sadly she couldn't find the time or drive to write anymore so she asked me if I wanted to finish it by myself. Now, I actually have more than enough stories as it is, but this one is so dear to me that I couldn't say no.
These first two chapters were beta'd by BellaSwan635 and Alice Cullen is My Idol.
Enjoy, it's supposed to make you smile.
-Bella's point of view-
-:-
"Soww... d'you want coffee or something?" he asked, taking the seat opposite mine.
I didn't reply and I didn't move.
And I sure as hell didn't want coffee.
"Hey," He lifted my chin to look me in the eyes, "...you okay?"
I rolled my eyes. Okay? Was he always this dense? I tried to remember.
Hah! Re-member. It wouldn't be the first time today that I tried to re-member something. This would have been hilarious in a parallel universe. So on behalf of that universe, I laughed. It sounded insane, more than anything else.
How I wish I could re-member.
"Well I'm just swell, Jake," I started, using my best John McClane-voice. "Fan-fuckin'-tastic. Why?"
Sarcasm it was, then. I wasn't being at all fair of course. If it weren't for Jacob, my predicament would have been even more straitened. And by 'more straitened' I mean that, I would have been dead. Or living-dead, whatever. Let's just say I would have been paler.
Still, I needed to vent and he could take it. He always could. Edward never could. Edward couldn't even take watching me cross the street. Not without first scanning a three mile radius for cars, tricycles, impure thoughts and the imminent threat of stray tigers roaming Forks.
"Does it hurt?"
Amazingly, it didn't.
"Yes."
"Can I take a look at it?"
I turned away from him, putting my left arm over my right, 'guarding' it, or whatever the hell I thought I was doing. Like he would try and eat it or something. I mean, he was a werewolf after all. And hideous as it may look now, I couldn't help but feel protective of it.
"…Bells?"
I turned even further away, pretending to be in pain. He laughed at that. He didn't believe me, not for a minute. Why was everyone always on to me? Note-to-self: Burn Oscar-speech.
Screw him, this wasn't funny. It was like, the worse things got, the greater his need to laugh 'things' in the face. Edward would never have laughed at this.
No, Edward would have left at this.
Hah! Laughed, left, my parallel-universe-self was laughing once again. Though some would prefer the term 'barking like a hyena.' The sound seemed to disturb Jacob.
Good.
"Bella, give me your arm."
He was giving orders now, trying to keep a straight face but failing miserably. I could always read him like a book. Of course, Jake was more like a comic-book. He found this amusing? Edward wouldn't have found this one bit amusing.
Edward would have found this another good reason to leave.
"Bella! Give. Me. Your. Arm. NOW!"
I glared at him.
He crumbled, realizing that using his Alpha-attitude with me wasn't going to get him anywhere.
'Time for plan B,' I saw him think.
"C 'mooooon just let me try and help you! I won't do anything to it, I promise! Just let me take a look at it. Please?"
Plan B as it turned out, was whining.
"Pfff. Fine!"
Reluctantly, I handed him my arm.
"Thanks."
He let his eyes and fingers glide over the flawless skin. Well it would have been flawless if not for the silver crescent bite-mark covering just about the entire wrist, the dried mix of venom and blood covering that, and the mud clinging to that. And was that... wolf drool? Eww.
He studied it intently, all the while holding his breath with an expression that looked as if he had never been more repulsed by anything, ever. Personally, I think it was all an act. Acting all werewolf-like, being disgusted by anything vampire-related. That was just him, protecting his image of being a tough Alpha-male. Mortal enemies? Please. Get over yourselves. I drifted off in my skeptical thoughts while Jake continued to investigate my arm.
Then out of the blue, he swung it at me, missing my face just by an inch.
"What the..? Hey knock it off Jake!"
He looked at me, the way I imagine a father to look at his 14 year old daughter when she tells him she's expecting twins.
"Geez Bells, lighten up! As if I would ever hit you! And with your own arm, no less. What do you take me for? I mean, shit. Really?"
He appeared genuinely shocked. I could tell he was trying to wrap his mind around something other than me being mad at him.
"It just, I don't know. It moved. I didn't do anything I swear!"
For a moment we both looked at the monstrosity that was my arm- in horror. It seemed harmless enough now, hanging limply from Jacob's massive hand so I raised an eyebrow accusingly.
"I swear it wasn't me," he claimed again.
His eyes were huge, and desperately pleading with me to believe him. Then suddenly, that mischievous twinkle appeared, abruptly changing his expression from a mixture of repulsion and being offended, to defiant. Obviously he had thought of something smart to say. I swear, he lived for that stuff. He believed he was wit, incarnated. Peter Pan had nothing on him.
He looked down at my right shoulder, letting his gaze linger there for a few moments. The corners of his mouth slowly but surely turned upwards before he looked up to face me. He then held up his arms -and one of mine- on either side of his grinning face. As if to say, 'Sorry for what I am about to do Bells, but someone has to. All is fair in love and mock-fighting'.
He wouldn't.
I gave him a warning glare.
He chuckled.
I guess he would.
He was going to joke about this.
"Do you really believe that I'm the kind of man that would hit an unarmed woman?"
3… 2… 1…
On cue, he burst out laughing at his own words.
I yanked my pale, cold, dead, rock-hard, sparkly, immortal arm from his grip and hit him upside the head with it.
"This isn't funny Jake!" It only managed to make him laugh even harder. "First off, missing an arm doesn't make me unarmed, just one-armed. Besides, it's not even missing! It's just detached, so really, I'm not even one-armed when you think about it."
Meanwhile Jacob, being the traitor that he is, was rolling on the floor, laughing.
I then realized that I was in fact still holding on to my detached limb, and to top it off I had been involuntarily swinging it wildly in front of his face while I yelled at him. It must have looked kind of like king Arthur, waving Excalibur around while addressing the troops.
Well, kind of.
"Hahahaaaaaaaaa ahahaaa aha haaa! Itsaahhaaaa aah itsanimaaaaaaaaaahahaaa!"
Good God.
This went on for a good five minutes or so. Him laughing, me cursing, him pointing at something, me telling him to stop it, him laughing some more, grasping at his stomach due to all the merriness. Sometimes he tried to say something, that much was obvious. But forming words proved impossible through the laughing and the tears –Yes, tears- so I couldn't make out a word he was saying.
I ran a hand through my ragged hair and rubbed my eyes, trying to calm myself down in order to think.
Wait… No I didn't!
I gasped, and in a reflex I dropped the arm that -of it's own accord- had been touching my hair and face just moments ago.
As it hit the ground, it gave me the finger.
I stood there, stunned, looking down at my suddenly insubordinate arm. It never acted like this when it was still attached, I was sure of that. It had always been a fairly good arm. Never rude, always civil, only doing things my brain told it to do. Immortality, apparently, had given it an attitude.
Jacob had by now recovered slightly, standing upright but still laughing.
"Hah, it's -ahaha- it's animated!" he managed to laugh. "While you were yelling and screaming and going all McEnroe on me, your freak-arm here was pointing at me accusingly and balling it's fists in frustration. Didn't you see it? Man, it was priceless!" He bit back another round of laughs. "It's definitely got your temper Bells!"
"I'm glad we amuse you. You know it flipped me off just now?"
I kept my eyes glued to the abomination formerly known as my arm –TAFKAMA- while he considered this.
"Did it now?"
He remained quiet after that. A little too quiet, I decided.
My head snapped in his direction to see him gow red in the face, trying very hard not to laugh at me yet again. That son of a… I felt like slapping him.
What happened next, happened very quickly. My self-governing arm had somehow managed - again, all by itself - to climb up Jake's clothes and before either of us realized what was going on, it –Tafkama- had pulled Jacob into a headlock. Jacob, being a werewolf and having super-strength, couldn't seem to shake it off. My arm, apparently, had super-duper-strength and my best friend, who was now clearly unable to speak, looked at me anxiously. I was about to try and help him when Tafkama tightened it's grip around his neck and pointed a playful finger at Jake's jaw.
Now you see, hands don't have facial expressions. I know this. It requires a face, at least. But I could swear at that moment it looked… excited. Conspiratorial, even?
Okay weird.
But I didn't waste a moment. Directing my attention at Jake I sneered, "Laughing at me, were you?" and I grinned an evil grin. He needed to be taught a lesson, and if it took a supernatural arm to help me do that, then so be it.
He made a smothered sound and his eyes seemed to say, 'Oh no you wouldn't!' It didn't look very intimidating though, if only because he was being restrained single-handedly by a girls' arm.
Sure, I realized I had to get it off him at one point, but, first things first. I brought back my left, human, submissive arm, and then lashed out.
Slap! Square in the face.
Almost immediately after that, Tafkama released it's iron hold, but only the hand-part. The elbow remained firmly in place, clasping tightly around Jake's throat. Before I could wonder why, it held up it's hand, looking …smug? My mind was busy processing this, so it took me some time to notice that Tafkama waved at me a little, trying to get my attention. It seemed to want something from me.
I studied it, still a bit confused. It seemed aware of the fact that I was looking at it again, and held up it's hand a second time, the palm facing me.
Hmm. Maybe...
"You want a shake?" I asked?
Tafkama brushed that off, dismissingly.
"Uhm… High five?'"
I got a thumbs up.
So, without further ado, I High-fived my dead hand. It looked pleased. Then it made a fist, brushed Jacob's chin with it -condescendingly?- before it let go completely, landing gracefully on all fours, I mean fives, finishing with a theatrical bow.
Jacob just stood there, dumbstruck. As if he was waiting, wishing, to wake up.
I needed a human moment. All this supernatural creepiness was getting to be more than my brain could handle in one day.
"How about that coffee now?" I asked.
Jacob simply nodded, staring at nothing in particular. He didn't speak. I guess that, dismembered limbs out to get him weren't something he faced on a daily basis.
Tafkama made a polite 'no-thank-you' gesture, before stretching and making itsself comfortable on the couch's armrest.
All the excitement, emotions and confusion running through my body caused me to feel a litlle dizzy, so for now I chose to direct all of my attention to one welcome emotion; Smugness.
And that is how, I came to walk over to the kitchen, still reveling the feel of my silent victory over Jacob. In hindsight, I should have maybe reveled the feel of my feet on the floor instead, because it might have prevented me from tripping and falling. Of course falling was in now way foreign to me, I always did all my own stunts. If nothing else, I was a skilled faller. But this time, being one limb short, I wasn't able to catch myself. And that's how I ended up flat on my face.
Such a shame. My willy-nilly-falling-at-inopportune-times be damned.
Over at the couch behind me, I heard a light thud. Then a sweet sound, like tiny stone feet tiptoeing on the wooden floorboards, coming towards me.
I felt something cold gently patting me on the back, in a 'better-luck-next-time' kind of way. I couldn't help but smile.
-:-
I'm glad you made it all the way down here. Chapter two should be up later today, I just need to make a few alterations to it. Anyway thanks for reading and hey, I would love some reviews. Like I said this story was unforseen, so if you want to read more please tell me before it ends up gathering dust ^^