A/N: So a bunch of the citizens from Unicornia on Rav have been talking various crossovers. So here is a new fic in which the citizens of Forks end up in delightfully cheesy movies, sitcoms, and musicals. Sometimes they will be vampires, sometimes not. Sometimes they'll be putting on a show, and sometimes there's no show-within-a-show.

Standard disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns all things Twilight. Graham Yost owns the screenplay for Speed, from which I've borrowed quite heavily. JayneRulis was the one who said "Vampire Speed," and threadpanda is the one who asked, "Is that the one where they're on a bus and it can't go less than 500 mph… ?" and started this whole thing in my brain.

Edward here may be borrowed heavily from Growing Up Cullen.

So, without further ado, I present:

Vampire Speed

Part the First: Prelude to a Bus

As the second hand hits the 12, it's as if someone's pulled the tail on the prehistoric bird whistle on "The Flintstones." (*Squawk*! It's a living!) All the employees at Generic Corporation, Inc. stand in unison and stretch, as if the maneuver had been choreographed and rehearsed for weeks. It's Friday, 5 PM, and these cogs in the machine can't wait to start their dreary weekends—probably hit a few bars, pound a couple of shots, go home with someone who looks or smells good (ideally both), bang like crazy-go-nuts if it's possible to maintain an erection while in their completely hammered state, try very hard to call out the right name if either party should succeed in granting the other a happy, do the walk of shame Saturday morning. Lather, rinse, repeat. Who has time in LA to look for a meaningful relationship? This is a town of Beautiful People, too busy preening to notice anyone but themselves.

They shuffle out single file, like orderly cattle, in their expensive but bland gray suits. They gather by the elevator banks, all queuing up to get on the express elevator. Generic Gray Suit Guy #1 stabs the elevator call button repeatedly, with a ham-handedness that explains why he's never had repeat business from any lady who has had the misfortune of having her call button mashed in this inelegant fashion.

The elevator, unlike Generic Gray Suit Guy's lady companions, comes.

Everyone's doing that thing where no one makes eye contact. There are a few coughs and surreptitious asscrack scratchings. Suddenly there is a loud bang and a sickening snap of a cable. The elevator car shudders and drops a few terrifying feet before the emergency brake catches.

The poor corporate drones are screaming and sizing each other up. They're all assessing the fuckability of the other people in the elevator, if there's enough time to get in one last hump before going to the great beyond. After assessing fuckability, they move onto edibility in case they're stuck in this elevator for a while. Who looks the most like they might taste like bacon?

The corpulent, bespectacled man from accounting feels extremely uncomfortable as he feels ten pairs of eyes suddenly on him at once. He's read Lord of the Flies. He knows how these things end. He fights the urge to reach for his asthma inhaler.

Across town, the LAPD has been called. There's been a distress call from the office building of Generic Corporation, Inc. But there's something else, a call claiming responsibility. A raspy voice on the other line says that he's put a bomb on the express elevator, and if his demands aren't met, people will die.

"Bomb" is the magic word that brings in da noise, brings in da SWAT.

***

Edward Cullen, cocksure, knows he looks good in the LAPD SWAT team uniform. He knows his arms and pecs and abs are perfection, so when he was issued his uniform, he asked for a small instead of a medium. He wanted to look poured into the black t-shirt. When he wiggles his right and left pec independent of the other, he wants people to stand up and notice, for fuck's sake. It's harder to look amazing through the big facemask and body armor, but he attempts to dazzle through the protective visor and Kevlar. When he turns on all his charm, you could swear you hear windchimes. Inexplicable windchimes.

Oh yeah, and he's also a vampire.

Was that not mentioned before? Well, he is.

Shut up. He is. Just deal with it.

His partner is Jasper Whitlock, a tough and rugged country boy. He is not a vampire. Jasper is not aware that his partner is a Cold One—and the only Cold Ones with which Jasper is familiar are the kinds that come six to a pack. They make great partners because Jasper mocks Edward's prettiness just enough to keep him in line. Jasper will say things like, "Hey, with those long fingers, I bet you'd make a great hand model. A great ladies' hand model."

Even though Edward is pretty much indestructible, skin hard as marble, unbreakable, he hates to admit how much those words can hurt him. He glances down at his fingers to find traces of femininity in them. He pouts to himself, thinking they look manly. He could snap Jasper's neck with less effort than it would take to pop open a pouch of Capri-Sun, but he doesn't because he wants to be the bigger person, or, um, vampire. He checks himself by looking at his rubber bracelet emblazoned with "WWtDLD?" Man, the Dalai Lama is cool. He wishes the holy dude would just get off his high yak and answer his fan letters one of these days.

Jasper thinks it's odd that Edward seems to sparkle in the sunlight, but he figures Edward's a bit of a fruit who likes body glitter quite a bit more than a twelve-year-old girl. But the dude is good at his job, so Jasper lets the glitter slide. Live and let live.

Or in this case, "live and let stay undead." But he doesn't know that. Yet.

The two are running up the stairwell with the rest of the team and getting briefed by the captain. "So what's the clock, Carlisle?" Jasper asks.

"He gave us an hour. We need to get him three million dollars, or he's going to blow the emergency brakes," Carlisle answers, grimacing. He hopes against hope that one of his men might have a brilliant solution as he asks, "Anything else that might stop this elevator from falling?"

"The basement," says Edward. He kind of takes everything literally.

Carlisle rolls his eyes. Where'd they get this freak? "The city would like to avoid that event, Officer Cullen."

Edward's racking his brain. "Why can't we just unload the passengers?"

Carlisle explains as patiently as he can, "This is an express elevator. The only way in or out is through access panels. And he's wired the hatch to blow if it's opened, which puts him in the crazy but not stupid category."

Edward raises his hand like the know-it-all in elementary school. "Sir! Sir! Officer Whitlock volunteers to check out the device."

Jasper shoots him a look but sighs and follows Edward as he begins sprinting up the stairs.

Carlisle shouts after them, "You're just to observe! We're in a holding pattern. Nothing until you hear word from me, capisce?"

The two continue to run up flights of stairs until they reach the access panel nearest the elevator in peril. Edward puts on a harness and lowers himself slowly down the elevator shaft while Jasper looks down from the open panel above. "Damn," Edward begins. "This guy's a pro. I don't recognize the work. But I don't like it."

"So what should we do?" Jasper asks.

"Carlisle told us to hold, so we hold," Edward says with little emotion.

"All right. Pop quiz," Jasper begins. "The airport. Gunman with one hostage. He's using her for cover. He's almost to a plane. You're one hundred feet away."

"Easy," says Edward. "Bite the hostage."

"What?" Jasper is sure he's misheard. "Did you just say, 'Bite the hostage'?"

"No! I said, um, 'SHOOT the hostage.' Shoot. Because biting? That's silly. Who would say 'bite'? A vampire? Ha, ha. Nope, no vampires here. Ha. Ahem." He looks around shiftily, hoping Jasper is buying it.

"Okay," Jasper says, not entirely convinced. "But still: shoot the hostage?"

"Take her out of the equation. Go for the good wound. He can't get to the plane with her. Clear bite, uh, I mean, shot."

"You're clearly nuts, you know. 'Bite the hostage,'" Jasper says, shaking his head as he begins to help Edward back up the elevator shaft.

Edward tugs on the lead, signaling Jasper to stop. "Jasper, this is wrong." Alarmed, Edward looks at the top of the elevator. "He's going to blow it anyway."

"What? How do you know?" Jasper reaches for his walkie-talkie to radio the captain.

"I don't know, gut feeling."

"Well, Carlisle outranks your gut, so stay put."

"Maybe we can do something about those hostages."

Jasper looks nervous when he asks, "You're not going to shoot them, are you?"

***

In Generic Corporation, Inc.'s boiler room, a man with a dingy blond ponytail paces over the body of a security guard he earlier dispatched with a screwdriver in the ear. He's twitchy and anxious and has a detonator in his hand. He picks up his phone again. "I want my goddamn money now!" he bellows.

***

Jasper glances at his watch. "Six minutes."

Edward wants to stay calm, but he's worried about those hostages. "Tell me again, Jasper, why did I take this job?"

"Thirty more years of this, and you get a tiny pension and a cheap gold watch."

"Cool." Edward nods, once.

Suddenly there's another boom, another sickening snap. This time Jasper and Edward are there to hear the screaming. Miraculously, one of the emergency brakes continues to hold on, but time is short.

"He's early! Son of a bitch is early! We have to do something." Edward snakes down the elevator shaft. He wrenches open the nearest floor's doors and does the same with the trapped elevator's doors. There's a steep climb, maybe about five feet, from the elevator to the outer doors they've pried open. He is met with a sea of bewildered, terrified, and bacon-craving people. Edward starts reaching down and plucking up people from the elevator floor as if he were harvesting strawberries. Jasper's already run down the stairs to this floor. He begins to pull up people as well, but with a bit more grunting, having only human strength.

There's a bit of drama with one stupid bitch in the back of the elevator who is too afraid to let go of the railing to leap toward the saving arms above. And yes, the final elevator brake may have started to give way. There's a bit of back and forth with encouraging cheers, stupid bitch headshakes, an inconceivable hole blown in the elevator's floor, and other forms of unnecessary drama, but in the end, she reaches for the arms and is pulled to safety just as the elevator brakes give way. The elevator plummets to the basement, crashing solidly with the concrete foundation of the building. But blah blah blah, everyone's safe, blah.

Edward gives Jasper a high-five when all hostages are safe and being checked out by paramedics. "Is your watch slow?" he asks.

"No. He jumped the gun. He had three minutes left," Jasper says, looking at his watch and shaking it by his ear.

Edward freezes, which maybe isn't saying much since his body is already rock solid and his skin is like ice. He hears someone in his head saying, "Don't fuck with Daddy."

Edward can also read minds. Sometimes. When it's convenient for this story's plot.

Was that not mentioned before either?

No, not all vampires can do that. No, shut up, he just can. Do you want me to finish or not?

Edward says, "He's here."

Jasper scoffs. "What? He could have blown the thing from Phoenix."

Edward says, "He knew we were up to something. He's close by. Really close."

Jasper continues to scoff, "He's not going to corner himself in a building. And anyway, we evacuated. Let's go."

Edward's vampire sense is tingling. "The elevators."

"But the passenger elevators were checked out."

He's already sprinting as he says, "Freight elevators." And because he's a good partner, Jasper dutifully follows him to the freight elevator.

With a ding, the doors open, and the greasy ponytailed man leaps out, already firing a gun. In the mayhem, he manages to collar Jasper and drag him into the elevator. "I don't suppose they'd give me a million dollars just for you, would they?"

Edward doesn't think. He jumps into the elevator right before the doors close. There's a bit of fisticuffs-fu, and Edward has the guy's gun now, trained on his head.

Instead of surrendering, the ponytailed guy laughs. "Hold it!" He opens his leather jacket. "Pop quiz, hotshot. Terrorist holding a police officer hostage. Got enough dynamite strapped to his chest to blow a building in half. Now, what do you do?"

Edward looks at him blankly. As stated, the guy's got a lot of dynamite strapped to his chest. He also seems to have a detonating device in his hand. Edward opens and closes his mouth a few times like a fish.

Ponytailed guy loves this shit. He puffs out his chest and repeats, "What. Do. You. Do?"

The elevator stops, and the doors slide open. "End of the line," he says, as he drags Jasper out with him. "This day has been real disappointing, I don't mind saying."

Edward doesn't miss a beat, continues to keep his gun trained on ponytailed guy's head. "Why? Because you didn't get to kill everyone?" He takes a step every time ponytailed guy does, like a tango, only with extra-manly accessories like guns and dynamite.

Ponytailed guy sneers. "There will come a time, boy, when you'll wish you never met me."

"Mister, I'm already there." Edward takes a few steps out of turn.

Ponytailed guy is having none of it. He waves the detonator around. "I drop this stick ... and they pick your friend up with a sponge." He turns to Jasper and asks, "Are you ready to die, friend?"

Jasper, with as much dignity as he can muster, spits, "Fuck you."

Ponytailed guy rolls his eyes. "In two hundred years, we've come from 'I regret that I have but I have one life to give for my country' to 'fuck you'?"

Jasper's getting pissed. He taunts the guy, "Go ahead. Drop the stick. Do it. And would it kill you to put on a shirt? I mean, I know you're wearing dynamite, but it's still not appropriate office apparel, even for casual Friday."

Edward shouts, "Give it up. You got nowhere to go!"

Suddenly, quietly, Jasper knows what to do. He commands, "Shoot the hostage."

Ponytailed guy is dragging Jasper to the doors leading to the parking garage. "Say goodbye, Jasper."

Edward's been weighing his options, and he knows it's the only thing that will save his friend. He leaps at crazy vampire speed and bites Jasper's thigh. Ponytailed guy is so confused that he drops Jasper, who is writhing in pain and furious.

"You fuck! Seriously? You fucking BIT me? What is wrong with you?" Then the pain becomes too much to form words, and he just flops around screaming for a while.

Edward won't be deterred. He continues advancing on crazy ponytailed guy. "Freeze!"

"What, you going to bite me too? What are you, five years old?"

He ignores the question, because the guy's off by at least a century. "Give it up! You're out of options!"

Ponytail makes one final dash out the doors, and Edward is blown back by the blast of dynamite. Good thing he's indestructible, or that would have hurt like a mofo. Huh, so the guy blew himself up. That's weird.

Jasper's still writhing in pain from the bite.

Edward looks quite uncomfortable as he crouches by his partner. "Um, Jasper. Um. I may have accidentally turned you into a vampire."

Jasper manages to find the strength to look Edward right in the eye and hiss, "You prick!" before passing out.

Next up: The Bus that Couldn't Slow Down!