-Belle-
Belle felt her face heat up as Ben hesitantly leaned closer to her. He seemed nervous, something she also felt at that moment. His hand had sent a shiver down her spine, and now she was nervous as to what his lips would do to her. She steeled herself as Ben's eyes began to close and his lips lightly began to touch hers.
"Aye, Cap'n Finn?" A voice sounded, causing both Ben and Belle's eyes to shoot open. Ben stood up quickly as Belle jumped back, using her injured arm. She yelped and held her wrist to her chest. Belle saw Ben's face was red with embarrassment when he had looked over to her to make sure she was alright, and then looked back around the fort for the source of the voice.
"Hello?" he asked, unsure of who had called his name.
"Oi! Cap'n, up 'ere," a voice sounded with a sniffle afterward. Ben looked up to the top of the stairs and stared with a look of surprise on his face.
"Jammy? You're a ghost!" Ben said, causing Belle to jump slightly at the mention of a ghost.
"Yep, decided that killin' hollow men was a lot more fun than the afterlife," the ghost called Jammy said.
"Screw it," Belle whispered under her breath and leaned back to lay down, rolling over so that her back was to both Ben and the ghost.
-Ben-
Ben looked over to Belle, wanting to introduce her to Jammy, "Hey Belle-" He stopped when he noticed that she had lain down and rolled over. He sighed, and then looked back to Jammy. He quickly bounded up the steps to meet up with his old friend.
"Who knew you'd be the one to come back as a ghost," Ben said while grinning.
"Yeah, well, there's still Hollow men ya know," Jammy replied.
Ben chuckled, "Yeah, of course there is, when were there not?"
"true, true," Jammy responded and looked over to where Belle was. "Who's the girl? Did the cap'n find himself a nice woman to lay with like the ones 'n his biography,"
Jammy said with a sly smirk on his ghostly face.
"What? No," Ben responded, flustered, "We're just traveling companions, met up about 3 weeks ago."
"Oh, really? And I thought you were a bit faster at gettin' a girl," Jammy responded.
"Excuse me?" Ben asked, still flustered and slightly confused.
"I saw ya leanin' in for a kiss," Jammy said confidently while grinning at him. Ben didn't know what to say to that. Well, he knew of three things he could say, but didn't know which to go with. The first thing he could say, was that he had developed a bit of a crush on her so to speak, which was completely true. The second thing, which was also true, is that he could demand to know why Jammy would stop him from getting the kiss in the first place. He'd been so close to getting one when Jammy had caught them off guard and spooked them. Lastly, he could just completely deny it.
"It's a little more complicated than that Jammy," Ben said as he walked over to sit on the wall next to the mortar. Jammy's ghostly apparition followed him; walking rather than floating like in stories that Ben had heard when he was a kid. He shrugged at the thought, "Guessit'snotalltrue."
"and how's that? You talked about bein' with a bunch of women for one night stands in your biography, not the charmer you used to be?" Jammy asked.
"I'm as charming as ever! It just, well, she's not exactly the normal kinda of woman," Ben said, hoping that Belle was either asleep or couldn't hear the conversation.
"Oi? And how's that?" Jammy questioned, "Seemed pretty normal to me."
"Belle's not some, well, she can hold her own in a lot of situations. She's really tough, kinda like Queen Percy, Paige, or Kalin. And she has a good arm to boot," Ben said, rubbing his cheek from the memory of getting punched by her the first time.
"What'chya mean?" Jammy asked, confused.
"She punched me when we met. Didn't even get a hello in," Ben mumbled slightly, still embarrassed from it.
Jammy busted out laughing, "She punched you? Were you drunk?"
"What? No!" Ben exclaimed and watched as Jammy hugged his see through sides from laughter. When Jammy eventually stopped laughing, Ben explained what had happened and why he had gotten punched.
"Sounds like she is pretty tough, which explains how she 'eld off all those hollow men," Jammy commented, then continued with a laugh, "You were knocked cold before you even knew what was goin' on!" Ben glared at him, but couldn't think of anything to counter with. "Well Cap'n, the sun will be up in a few hours. You get some rest, I'll keep an eye out for hollow men and make sure they don't sneak up on you again," he finished with a chuckle.
"Thanks Jammy," Ben said half heartedly, knowing that as long as Jammy was here, he wouldn't let it go. He walked back around and down the stairs. He watched Belle for a moment, watching as her side expanded and then contract slightly from the steady pattern she had breathed as she slept.
He sighed after a moment and made his way back to the old bed roll she must have found to put him on when he had been unconscious. He fed the fire and made sure it would keep going before he settled down on the bed roll. He watched the flames as they reached upward into the air and dance until shortly he was fast asleep.
~Belle~
She munched on some crackers as she looked over the map. For the second time since meeting up with Ben she had woken up before him. The first time having been after a night of drinking, this time she figure it was because he had stayed up quite a bit later than her. She glanced across the dwindling fire over to Ben, who snored slightly in deep sleep.
"I'mreadytogetgoingandthislazyarseisstillsleeping," she thought as she emitted a growl. As she finished her last cracker she folded up the map the best she could with her injured wrist and stuffed it back into her pack. She stretched her legs outward for a few moments and got up. She rounded the fire and stood next to Ben.
"Ben, get up," she said as she nudged him with her foot.
"A few more minutes," he mumbled in his sleep. Belle glared down at the man and pulled her foot back. She swung her foot forward as hard as she could and it connected with his right butt cheek, causing Ben to jump up with a yelp and scramble away.
"What the hell!" he exclaimed as he gently rubbed his injured cheek.
"I told you to get up, and you didn't," Belle explained, "so I forced you to get up."
"Was a kick to the ass really necessary?" he questioned as he glared at her.
"Probably not, but it was amusing," Belle replied with a smirk spread across her face. Ben uttered a growl but didn't say anything as he walked over to his stuff and began getting ready to leave. After a few moments, Ben was finally ready and they began walking away.
"Bye Jammy!" Ben shouted as they walked out of the gate. A few moments went passed with no response. "I guess Jammy had to go back to the afterlife then," he said, more to himself than anyone else.
"Probably gets boring hanging around the same place by yourself," Belle commented, glancing over to Ben out of the corner of her eye.
"Yeah, probably," Ben agreed. After a minute of silence Ben spoke up again, "So."
Belle looked over to him, finding a smirk displayed on his face. "So what?" she asked, raising an eyebrow at him.
"About that kiss?" he started, causing Belle's face to heat up.
"You mean the kiss that didn't happen? What about it?" she asked, trying to cover her slight embarrassment with a tone of annoyance.
"Well, since I was about to get one last night, and because I deserve one for getting kicked this morning I was wondering if I could get one now?" Ben said, grinning wickedly. Belle had already caught on that it was both a joke and a small attempt to see if he could in fact get one. She smirked as she decided to play along.
"Well, I guess you're right," she purred as she came close to him and gently rubbed against him. She had to use a lot of will power to keep from laughing as Ben's grin immediately changed into a look of surprise, his face turning red. "I mean, It was really,really mean of me to kick you the way I had. And you were so close to getting a kiss last night too," she cooed, holding back her laughter as Ben's face turned into a dark shade of red.
She leaned up to his face with half-lidded eyes, and smirked when he closed his eyes and leaned down. She grinned wickedly to herself and quickly reached up and bit his nose. He screamed in surprise and Belle made a dash up the hill.
"You-! You-! You vixen!" He shouted as he chased after her.
Belle laughed loudly, "At least I'm not a pervert!"
"Ugh! I told you that I am not like that!" he exclaimed. Belle smiled to herself, glad to finally be on the way to Bowerstone and highly entertained by the now angry Ben Finn, who was still chasing her and once again defending himself against her accusation of him being a pervert.
Author's Note: First off, I'm really sorry for how long this took. The past couple of weeks were chaotic and I was forced to put this on the back burner so to speak for those couple of weeks.
With things a bit back to normal now, I have time to work on this though, so this story should be getting back on track.
And I also wanted to thank everyone for suggesting names for the queen. I entered them in an application on classtools . net that randomly selected the name choosen for me. Which turned out to pick Persephone (Percy for short) which was submitted by Padame4000!
The title for the chapter is from a Ghostbuster reference, because that damn song has been stuck in my head for over a week now lol.
Hope you enjoyed this chapter! Let me know in a review!
