A/N: Ha, you guys! I'm touched--truly--by your hilarious and kind reviews. Love to the Rav UUs.

Standard Disclaimer: Property of Stephenie Meyer (Twilight) and Graham Yost (Speed). And Cleolinda (Sparkle Motion). And the geniuses behind GUC.


Vampire Speed, Part the Second: The Bus that Couldn't Slow Down

The last few weeks have been a little tense for Edward and Jasper. Jasper is, to say the least, rather irritated that Edward changed him into a vampire without consent. "No means no, man," he keeps saying sadly, shaking his now perfectly shiny and bouncy blond ringlets.

He'd gotten his hair cut just a little too short for his liking the week before his "completely nonconsensual biting encounter" as he refers to it. Without the extra weight to hold the curls down, his hair had been a bit too springy, but as he'd left the chair at SuperCuts, he'd figured that it was only temporary.

When Jasper had come to after three days of writhing and screaming and generally shitting himself, Edward had mentioned that, among other things, his hair would stay exactly the same forever.

"So I'm stuck this way? Great," he says, "now I'm going to look like fucking undead Little Lord Fauntleroy until the end of time. And goddamn it, am I always going to be this thirsty?"

Jasper's blood-red eyes drift toward a plaque from the city of Los Angeles on the wall. "And I can't fucking believe they gave you a medal for doing this to me. Did they really believe you when you told them I'd been shot? Even when no one could find a bullet? Dissolving bullets, you said? From the KGB? Jesus, who's stupid enough to buy that?"

Edward ignores the grumbling. He is trying to make Jasper feel better by reading him inspirational quotes from the teachings of the Dalai Lama as he prepares Jasper's lunch. "Ah yes," he says, thumbing through his spiral-bound notebook of quotes. "Here's one that gives me much comfort. 'If you can, help others; if you cannot do that, at least do not harm them.' Does that not soothe you, friend?"

"Don't you dare talk to me about not harming others, you partner-biting freak. 'Do not harm,' ha," he laughs bitterly.

"Oh, Jasper, do not be so sullen. You know it was the only way—that madman would have blown you up!"

"Maybe he would have, but … dude. Dude. You have crazy vampire speed—couldn't you have taken the guy out and grabbed the detonator before it fell to the ground in the same amount of time it took to bite me in the fucking leg with your freaky vampire teeth?"

Edward thinks about it. "Perhaps. Maybe. A little. Oh, I was just thinking in the moment! My only thought was of your safety!" He proffers a squirrel and tries to win Jasper over with the voice he uses to calm newborns—that is, newborn vampires—down. "How about a tasty num-nums? Maybe that'll turn your crankypuss frown upside down." He jiggles the dead squirrel a little, in what he imagines is an enticing fashion.

Jasper is less than pleased with the choice of snack and Edward's twee tone.

He swats the squirrel away from him with enough force to send the poor fucker through the kitchen window of Edward's house, where Jasper has been living since his transformation. He's got terrible cabin fever, but he's been in talks with Carlisle about returning to work any day now. "Squirrels? Really? I mean, they've got—what?—two tablespoons of blood in 'em, tops? And they taste musty. It's like trying to suck juice out of a hotdog wrapped in a tube sock."

Edward gets defensive. "But they're free-range! And look at the sweet fluffy tails! After I'm done with a good squirrel, I like to stuff it and glue it to a piece of driftwood."

And indeed, his house is filled with a disturbing array of stuffed squirrels, dressed and posed in odd tableaux: Here is Washington crossing the Delaware; on the mantelpiece is a squirrel reenactment of the death of Marat in the bath. In the sitting room he's got an all-squirrel version of an Esther Williams water ballet, complete with wee little swimcaps. It took a month of sucking squirrel to have enough to do that one, and it was murder (not literally—we must clarify whenever we discuss vampire shenanigans) to find fifteen wee floral swimcaps on eBay. Some asshole granny had kept poaching the auctions right under Edward in the last minute of bidding. Fucking lot of good it does to be able to read minds if he can't even tell when some granny is trying to outbid him in an eBay auction.

"Dude, do me a favor?" Jasper asks, stomach growling. Damn, if he didn't get some sort of delicious human snack item soon … "Leave me out of your creepy-ass Norman Bates taxidermy hobby."

Edward's hurt. He's been working his stony marble ass off for weeks to nurse Jasper to full vampire health. The least he could do is not insult his completely awesome hobby. "Well, if you're going to be a sourpuss, I am going to go get a cup of coffee."

Jasper calls out after him, "What do you need coffee for? You can't even drink it! You don't even sleep!" He begins to whimper when he remembers he can no longer drink beer. "Crazy-ass, life-ruining, creepy taxidermist vampire piece of shit," he mutters to himself. He opens the freezer to see if there's anything interesting in there today. Fourteen pairs of flash-frozen beady squirrel eyes stare back at him blankly. He slams the door in disgust, breaking it off its hinges with his immense new vampire strength.

When Edward gets home, he's going to punch him in his indestructible vampire taint.

***

Bella Swan is late for work. She gulps down her orange juice and runs out the door, nearly getting choked when the sleeve of her zipped up sweatshirt gets caught on the doorknob and yanks her back. Crap, the bus is already waiting at the corner. She runs, trips, rolls on her ankle, and somehow manages to hook herself onto her neighbor's patio furniture set with her messenger bag, but keeps on running, dragging a chaise lounge behind her.

As she nears the stop, she starts yelling, "Laurent! Laurent! Hey! Wait for me!" She's always late for the bus, but Laurent is a good 'un. He'll wait for her if he can. The doors hiss open as she reaches them all disheveled and sweaty in her floral sundress. She extricates herself from the chaise lounge and runs her fingers through her long brown hair.

"Thanks a million, Laurent," she says, climbing up the stairs and dropping in her fare. "This is my lucky day."

***

Edward walks slowly out of the corner coffeeshop with his half-caf soy latte. He's not sure what any of that means, but it doesn't matter since he dribbles the coffee onto the sidewalk in front of the coffeeshop once he's taken a few deep whiffs of the aroma and pretended to be human for a bit. He likes the ritual of ordering coffee and holding the burning hot paper cup in his ice-cold hands.

Today the manager, while on a smoke break, catches Edward pouring out the coffee and asks him if there is a problem with his order. He is embarrassed and stammers that he is pouring out the coffee "in an urban ritual to commemorate those 'home-chaps'?—erm, 'home-fellows'?—ah, 'home-mies' I have lost." He knew his time spent watching Flavor of Love would not be wasted. He pats himself on the back. Capital save, Edward. You are, as they say, some sort of bomb, perhaps "the."

As he pours out the last dribbles of his coffee, a city bus stopped at the corner just ups and blows up. Just like that. It's fireball mayhem, car alarms, and maybe bus driver bits. The payphone closest to him begins to ring.

Edward's curious, so he picks up the receiver.

It's a familiar, raspy voice on the line. "You think if you pick up all the bus driver's teeth, they'll give you another medal?"

Edward just stares at the phone, unable to answer.

"You think I wouldn't have been prepared? Two years I spent setting up that elevator job. Two years I invested myself in it. You couldn't understand the kind of commitment that I have. You ruined a man's life's work and you think you can walk away? You got blinders on to the world, but I got your attention now, didn't I, Edward?"

Edward has finally found his voice again. He says, "Why didn't you just come after me?"

Raspy voice shouts, "This is about me! About my money! Three million dollars! It's my nest egg, Edward. At my age, you've got to think ahead."

"How much do you spend a month in bomb supplies?"

"What?"

"I mean, that C-4 isn't cheap, and then you have detonators, and then all the time you put into making the bombs and casing joints and sneaking into the bus depots or whatever to install them … isn't your time worth more than that? And if you didn't spend all that money a month on explosives, maybe you wouldn't have to be worrying about your retirement."

Edward's got a good point there, but raspy voiced guy, okay, let's cut the shit, it's James, because the bad guy is always James, and I'm getting tired referring to him with adjectives. James. Five letters. Streamlined. Got it? James.

Where were we? Oh right.

Edward's got a good point there, but James isn't having any of it. "Hey! Hey! Daddy's talking now, you punk. Pop quiz, hotshot. There's a bomb on a bus. Once the bus goes fifty miles an hour, the bomb is armed. If it drops below fifty, it blows up. What do you do?"

When James doesn't hear a reply, he repeats, "What do you do?"

Edward's figured out that James maybe isn't speaking in hypotheticals. "I'd want to know what bus it was."

"You think I'm going to tell you that?"

"Yes."

"Very good. There are rules, Edward, and I want you to get this right. No one goes off the bus. If you try to take any passengers off the bus, I will detonate it. I want my money by 11 am."

"We can't pull that kind of money in time."

"Focus, Sparkle Motion! Your concern is the bus. And don't try to call. The radio's down. Now, the number of the bus is 2525. It's running downtown from Venice. It is at the corner of Ocean Park and Main."

Edward takes off running just a bit faster than human speed. He's not quite at vampire speed, as there are too many people around.

***

Meanwhile, back on bus 2525, Bella is making her way to a seat. She sits next to a guy who looks like the sort of person who may be the butt of many a fanfiction. He's got a baby face, blue eyes, blond spiky hair, and a too-eager-to-please expression on his bland face. He can't believe his luck that this brunette vixen with the grace of a newborn colt coated in amniotic fluid and all wobbly on its jelly legs, is choosing to sit next to him.

"Hi," he says, with a great big grin.

Bella politely responds, "Hi."

"First time in LA," says fanfic-joke-butt guy.

"Oh, no. I live here."

"No, I mean mine. Oh, that's just funny. You heard me wrong. I'm sightseeing. I hate to use the word 'tourist,' but it's not like I can hide it."

"Not really." Bella's looking for an escape from this overeager dweeb.

"Aw, jeez. You know, it took me three hours just to get here from the airport. I got so lost. LA is one large place. Of course, you live here. You probably don't notice. I'm such a yokel. There. I said it." He holds out his hand. "Mike. Mike Newton. Although some guys seem to think my last name is Hunt, and that's just weird. Do I look like a Mike Hunt to you?"

Bella sneakily takes out the wad of gum she's been chewing and shoves it onto her seat. "You know what? I got gum on my seat. Gum. Excuse me." She gets up and goes to another vacant seat.

Mike-Hunt-Newton sits back and clasps his hands behind his head, self-satisfied. Yeah, she wants me, he thinks smugly.

Bella looks out the window and sees some guy running alongside the bus, like, cheetah-fast. He keeps yelling something.

"Stop! Stop!"

When the bus slows behind some traffic, the guy leaps up—no-joke—and clings to the side-view mirror like a spider monkey.

Bella calls from her vantage point, "Laurent! Don't let this guy on the bus! Don't—" Bella stops mid-sentence, seeing the guy's reflection in the side-view mirror for the first time. Damn, he's kind of cute. "I mean, Laurent, you should totally let him on the bus." Because if a guy's acting like he's on drugs and creepy, but he's super cute, that makes it totally acceptable. Bring it on. She finds some lip gloss in her messenger bag and puts it on, just in case.

The guy hasn't stopped screaming. Now it sounds like he's saying, "LAPD!" But that's ridiculous. This guy is wearing a t-shirt (a bit too tight, but wow, check out the pec definition!) and a plaid shirt over it. That's not standard issue LAPD. Or maybe he's undercover. Well, if he's undercover, then he is the worst undercover cop she's ever seen—honestly, announcing he's LAPD? Totally incompetent! Oh, but cute, she reminds herself. So that makes it okay.

Now he's screaming something that sounds like "Bomb on bus." But that's preposterous! Whoever heard of such a thing? Maybe he is just on angel dust or something. He certainly seems coated in something sparkly. He must have been rolling around in his crazy illegal drugs. Beautiful and dangerous—does it get any better?

"Just open the door, Laurent!" she calls, because the guy is sort of dashingly handsome in that cracked-out, angel dust, sparkly, clinging-like-a-spider-monkey way. She's smitten. She wonders if he's the sort of guy who would oil up her window to sneak into her room and watch her while she slept. A girl can dream, she thinks.

She's outweighed, however, by the other bus passengers, who yell more sensible things like, "Don't let him on!" and "That boy ain't right in the head!"

Laurent keeps driving. Eventually the angel dust fiend falls off the mirror.

Edward is losing patience. He's trying to do as the Dalai Lama teaches, trying to help where he can, and these silly humans won't let him on their goddamned bus with a bomb on it! He flags down a Gaysian in a sweet-ass convertible while flashing his LAPD badge and gun.

"Stop! LAPD! Get out of the car."

The driver looks scared, then annoyed. "This is my car. I own this car. It is not stolen, man."

"It is now," Edward says with a grin. "Move over."

"Fuck!" the Gaysian says, sliding over to make room.

Edward slams on the accelerator and tries to catch up with the bus, which has just entered the freeway.

The Gaysian is not amused, but he stops to look, really look, at his glittering carjacker. Damn, he's rather fine. Gaysian says, "Hey, does it turn you on … if I say 'La Push'? A lot? I can say it a bunch of different ways. La Push. LA Push. La Push. LA PUSH!"

Edward grips the wheel tightly and recites the periodic table of elements to himself to avoid seeing the images that pop up in Gaysian's head.

Gaysian is still trying to say "La Push" in the magical way that will cause instant wood, kind of like the brown note, but of erections. Edward has passed the bus and pulled directly in front of the front of the bus, car's rear bumper kissing the bus's front bumper. Gaysian stops mid-La-Push a moment to look at the speedometer. "Holy fuck La Push!" he exclaims. "You are going crazy La Push fast La Push for this La Push kind of La Push traffic!" He adds for good measure, "La Push."

"Fuck!" Edward yells, glancing at the speedometer. They're going sixty miles an hour. And if he's going at the same rate as the bus, the bomb on the bus must already have been activated.

"Take the wheel, would you?" he asks the Gaysian. Gaysian complies. Edward turns around and yells again to the driver. "Bomb on bus!"

The bus driver looks at him blankly.

Edward takes the wheel again and yells for Gaysian to take out a piece of paper and a pen and to write "BOMB ON BUS." Gaysian carefully writes, "LA PUSH BOMB ON BUS LA PUSH!" He adds a few hearts and squiggles for emphasis around "LA PUSH." Both of them.

Edward throws the note behind him just so, and the note lands right on the windshield in front of Laurent's face. Fuck, a bomb? Laurent slams on the brakes.

"No!" Edward shouts. He changes lanes and slows down so he is traveling at the same speed as the bus. He makes the universal "roll down your window" gesture.

Laurent has no windows like that, but he opens the door to the bus. Finally!

Edward shouts out, "Stay above fifty! If you go below fifty, you'll blow up!" He exposits to Gaysian, "I need to get on this bus. Oh, also, I'll need your phone."

There's a bit of an action sequence where Edward purposely destroys the door of Gaysian's car and does his own stunts of jumping from the moving convertible to the moving bus. Oh, the suspense! Will he make it? Will he be all right? But you forget: vampire. He's just ducky.

With Edward on the bus at last, La Push-obsessed Gaysian and his car exeunt from this tale.

If you must know what happens to the Gaysian, he calls his insurance company, who gives him a hard time about his policy, because they are dicks. In the end they agree to pay for the car repair, but it still sucks because he has a thousand dollar deductible. However he does have a rental car option, which helps. Unfortunately, the rental place is out of all cars except economy, so he has to try to score dudes in a sensible Toyota Yaris instead of his bitchin' Camaro. He doesn't get any action all week, which is a shame, since he also does all his own stunts.


Next: La Push Chagrin and Dazzling in Los Angeles (on a Bus) La Push!