Chapter 21: Ben & Bella's Day Out

It's been a while, so to recap: Ben and Bella were going to have a day out together, bonding and shit. Edward does not know what they were going to do, but then a very angry Bella walks in.

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Edward looked at me warily. I'd just unleashed the Evil Look that trumps all other Evil Looks on him, and he was probably expecting a tirade. Instead, I plopped down on the couch and let out a long groan.

"I am too physically tired to work up the enthusiasm for an impassioned rant."

Edward's face relaxed instantly, and he cleared his throat. "H-how was your day, honey?"

I rolled my eyes at his exaggerated sugary-sweet voice. "So, so tired. And bruised. Ow. Ouch. Ugh." I let gravity take over, my body falling onto the couch sideways like the pathetic sack of potatoes that I was.

Edward, ever the hospitality expert, materialized in front of me with a cup of tea and a gigantic white chocolate chip cookie and patted my shoulder in the most exaggeratingly patronizing way possible. "There, there," he cooed in the voice your annoying aunt uses to talk to babies. "It'll be okay, honey. Shush, now, sweetie pie."

Despite my fatigue, I giggled at his ridiculousness. "Youthinkyou'resofunnyhuh," I mumbled into the couch cushions.

He grinned unapologetically. "Kinda, yeah." He shrugged. "Now, wanna tell me about your day?"

"Will you think less of me if I talk while munching on that giant cookie?"

"Probably, but that won't stop you."

Good point, I thought, and took a bite, trying to find a starting point for today's story.

I'd been half-excited, half-scared about the prospect of spending a day with Ben. He was a nice kid, definitely a cooler teenager than I'd been, and it was important to me and Edward that we get along, obviously. But, well, there were so many things that could go wrong, and I was just … not great at talking to children. Or teenagers, whatever. And I tended to fuck up more often when I was nervous, so there was that.

We decided to do a two-part day—he would choose one thing and I would choose another. I chickened out on anything that could be considered a true bonding activity and took him to the latest Avengers movie because, at least, we both liked superheroes, and I really liked Chris Hemsworth. And Chris Evans.

Fine, and Robert Downey Jr.

Getting off track a bit. Whoops.

"The movie part of the day was fine," I summarized. "Popcorn, loud noises, flashing lights, things getting blown up by attractive people. 'Twas all good." I took another bite of the cookie, making a show of chewing slowly.

"Okay, so what did Ben plan for the rest of the day?" Edward asked with pretend patience.

"Well … first, you should keep in mind that Ben doesn't know me all that well. He just knows there are a few things we both like, you know? The Princess Bride, a bunch of comics you've never heard of because you're ancient …"

Edward cleared his throat.

"Whoops, sorry!" I said without any conviction whatsoever. "Got a little sidetracked there. Anyway, there are the superhero movies, of course … and Harry Potter."

"Hmm-hmm," he hummed, not seeing where this was going.

"He took me to play Quidditch, okay!" I all but yelled.

Edward frowned. "Isn't that the Harry Potter sport thing?"

I rolled my eyes. Of course, Edward wouldn't have read the books, and he wouldn't know much about Quidditch. "Yeah, it's the sport they play in the books. With killer balls and a golden one with wings, and broomsticks, and three hoops and stuff."

"So … you channeled your inner witch to fly a broomstick? You really should've taken pictures of that. In other words, how do you do the flying a broomstick part of the Quidsomethingsomething?"

"Right. That's the part that caused my anger and fatigue. I'll explain."

And so I did. A few years ago, a few enthusiastic Muggles decided to reenact Quidditch as a real sport, and since then, it's grown exponentially. There are teams everywhere, and there was a small, local tournament today which Ben made us join because a buddy of his needed two more players or they wouldn't be able to play, so he and his fellow fourteen-year-old friends used their wonderful teenage pouty faces to guilt me into joining. Damn Ben was a master con artist with his: "Oh, but Bella, it'll be an awesome bonding activity, right?" As well as: "But, Bella, Quidditch is all for gender equality, and we're only allowed to play if we get another girl on our team. Be a proper feminist and join!"

Right.

So the next thing I knew, I was a beater, which I already knew didn't bode well for me because I was supposed to hit other people with a dodgeball—and I have the hand-eye coordination as well as the physical fitness level of a snail—and I was also prone to being hit by other beaters' balls. As someone who still had some lingering traumas from childhood games of dodgeball in gym class, this whole set-up worried me greatly.

I also had to do all this while running around holding a broomstick between my legs. We were the Seattle Sorcerers, and we looked absolutely puny and pathetic compared to some of the other teams. We were going down.

I got a quick introduction to the game's rules, was assigned a broomstick and a purple T-shirt, and Ben's friend Peter painted two quick black stripes on my cheek, meant to make me look intimidating. It didn't work.

By the time we were getting ready for our first match, a light drizzle had started, quickly turning into a proper Seattle rain shower that lasted the rest of the afternoon. When we stepped onto the playing field, the grass had already gotten muddy. My poor Chucks—I had not prepared for sports and running, obviously—made a squishing sound with every step I took.

The referee, dressed in an actual Slytherin cape and scarf, blew his whistle, and the Seattle Sorcerers vs the UDub Dementors was a go. The opposing team's name said it all—they were all college students, whereas I was the oldest one on our team, which was mostly filled with gangly, awkward, pimply teenagers.

I was hit in the shoulder with a bludger-slash-dodgeball within two minutes and dropped the damn broom, so I had to walk back to our goal posts before joining the game again. Them's the rules. "Off broom!" the referee had yelled, as if I didn't know that yet.

Ben, one of our team's chasers, managed to score a goal, but it didn't take long before we were miserably behind. The cold rain seeped through my shirt; the fingers holding my broomstick were freezing. Looking around, I saw all my team members with tragically smudged war stripes on their cheeks, looking more like failed, sad Halloween kids than Quidditch warriors.

Twenty minutes later, the score was 70-10 for the Dementors. I was drenched, tired, angry, and my "broom fingers" were cramped up and white from the cold. Mud from the field splashed all over my legs with every step I took. I'd attempted to not move around for a while, but that had led to more and more bludgers hitting me, so that didn't work. I'd grabbed a few dodgeballs and tried to hit the opposing team members, but I had worse aim than a blind man, and my puny little arms put absolutely no force behind the throws. Pathetic.

Then Garrett, our seeker, spotted the Snitch. Unfortunately, the Snitch in muggle Quidditch wasn't a cute little gold ball with silver wings. It was a fat dude dressed in bright yellow, with a knee-length sock hanging out his ass with the word "SNITCH" handwritten on it with a Sharpie and a tennis ball dangling at the end of it.

I'm not even kidding.

So Garrett took off running after the yellow Snitch dude, splashing through the mud, closely followed by the other team's seeker. The Snitch gleefully jumped through puddles and tried to escape, looking so happy I was certain he was high on something. The sight of the tennis ball swishing up and down with the tail cracked me up for a second, but I was instantly shoved by a damn UDub Dementor—an illegal move because contact like that was only allowed if I'd been holding a ball, but the referee was looking at the Snitch, and so was everyone else. No one saw the glorious nose dive into the mud that I made.

Cheers erupted around me, so I lifted my head and opened my mud-caked eyes. I was on eye-level with Garrett, a few yards away, who was in the exact same position as me. Meanwhile, a UDub Dementor was dancing around with a yellow-socked tennis ball in his hand.

I groaned.

Rain, mud, bruises, and dodgeballs, and we'd lost miserably. I let my head drop into the mud again.

Edward had a look of sympathy plastered on his face that was about as sincere as a porn star's orgasm.

"You're thinking: 'if you spent twenty minutes in the rain and mud and that was all, you're being a whiny bitch.' Am I right?"

It took him just a second too long to reply. "Um, n-no, of course not."

I shot him a look. "Right."

He hesitated. "All right, maybe a little bit exactly what you just said."

"I knew it, you lying scumbag," I replied, but I'd dropped my head onto the couch cushions again so there was little chance of him understanding my words. After some mental preparation, I pulled myself up again to face him. "Five games, mister. Five. Games. We somehow managed to win the second game, so we were required to advance to the next round before we were allowed to give up."

"Ouch."

"Yeah." I scowled and slowly pulled up my sleeves. "Look at all the bruises. And how drenched I am. And the mud. And, oh shit, I just realized I dropped down on the couch while resembling a swamp monster."

"Yeah, but you're my swamp monster." Edward chuckled. I was beginning to suspect a sadistic side of him.

"You are a mean, mean man."

"I know." He put his hands on my ass and shoulders and effortlessly lifted my tired, bruised body—mud and all. "I'm so mean, I'm going to draw you a bath now."

I groaned in relief. "Earlier statement retracted. I'm so keeping you."

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A/N I know, I know, it's very short, BUT it's already taken me weeks to write something because I was on vacation, so I thought I'd just get it out instead of having an even longer stretch of radio silence here. A lot of people guessed a visit to ComicCon, which I liked, but I think Bella would've liked that too. Muggle Quidditch actually exists. All of this is real, even the human Snitch with a tennis-ball-in-sock-tail. I'm sure lots of people like it but I just...can't. Nope.

Thank you, Alice's White Rabbit, for your awesome and fast beta work!

Thanks to everyone who reviewed when I was away, and thanks to everyone who's voted for Flushed at Twifanfictionrecs! :)

And thanks to you, readers, for sticking with this random ass story ;)