The Twilight Twenty-Five
thetwilight25 dot com
Prompt: 25 (Photo of Room)
Main Character/Pairing: Bella, Edward
Rating: K
Word Count: 1202
AN: I was watching Tangled the other day, so this happened…
- Bella's Point of View -
"Dad," I shouted, rummaging through the laundry basket. "Do you have any clothes for wash? I'm running a load now."
"I already put whatever I had," he yelled back. "Go ahead and add yours."
I thought he said something else, but the roar of the washing machine starting drowned out any noise.
Shutting the lid, I called back, "What?"
No answer.
I shrugged to myself, not surprised if I was starting to hear things, and headed upstairs. Now that senior year was almost coming to an end, the teachers were going insane with tests and revision for final exams. Thanks to Edward's brilliant tutoring, I was fairly confident that I would do well, but the way the teachers were acting was unnecessarily stressing me out.
At this moment, I didn't particularly want to do any studying. It was too hot to even think, let alone memorize theories and equations. For a moment, I considered cleaning the house—my Spring Cleaning was way overdue—but once I wandered in my bedroom and noticed the complete chaos around, that idea flew out the window too.
Finally, I just flung myself onto my bed and turned on my iPod's volume to maximum. The lullaby Edward had composed for me slowly filled my ears. For several moments, I was motionless, listening to the beautiful piece of music in awe, before I let it gradually lull me to sleep…
Plink, plink.
Where was that music coming from?
Plink, plink.
"... hair!"
What in the world?
Plink, plink.
Groaning, I rolled over, blinking sleepily and frowning in confusion. My lullaby, which I had apparently set to repeat, was still playing, and I realized that I had forgotten to remove the cords from my ears.
Plink, plink.
How long had I been asleep for?
I ran a hand across my face, brushing away the hair from my eyes to peer at the clock — and gasping. Three hours? Holy crow!
"... let down your hair!"
Plink, plink.
I glanced over at the window, which seemed to be the source of the noise. For a few seconds, I simply watched, and sure enough, tiny pebbles flew out of nowhere, hit the glass briefly — plink, plink — and dropped back down to the grass.
"Rapunzel, Rapunzel… let down your hair!"
Oh, that voice was extremely familiar.
And in trouble right now.
Stalking over to the window, I grabbed the handle and flung the glass open as high as it could. Leaning out of the window, I hissed furiously, "What the frig are you doing? Do you want me to get in trouble?"
The epitome of sereness, Edward was leaning against the closest tree, arms crossed in front of his chest. Scattered around his feet as well as right below my window were dozens of tiny stones.
He kissed his fingertips and extended his hand slightly to me. Before I allowed myself to get distracted over Edward blowing me kisses, I leaned out the window, desperately hoping that Charlie wasn't looking out the balcony window.
"Perfect," Edward approved, making no effort to lower his voice and pushing himself off the tree, as my long hair tumbled neatly out the window frame and swung lightly with my movements. "Hold it right there while I climb up."
"Oh, for Pete's sake," I grumbled, slumping against the window. "Charlie might catch you!"
"I'm impossible to catch… literally" was all I heard before Edward breezed through my window and grinned crookedly. He explained, "He's not even at home, love."
"No?" I asked in surprise. "How did I miss that?"
Edward's eyes grew affectionate and he pulled me to him by my waist. "You were asleep when he left. Speaking of which, I'm sorry I woke you."
I yawned and leaned my head against his chest. "No, I'm glad you did." I shook my head. "I have things to get done."
"Such as?"
"Studying. Cleaning. More studying. More cleaning."
He kissed my forehead, leading me to the stairs. "You do the studying, while I do the cleaning?" he proposed.
My eyes went wide. "What? I'm not going to make you clean my house!"
"You're not making me do anything," Edward began patiently. "I offered."
"And I refuse."
Edward rolled his eyes. "What's the problem? It'll save you a lot of time for yourself later, and you won't have to be stressed about it."
"But it's not your mess," I insisted, shuddering at the idea of Edward cleaning, especially the chaos that Charlie and I had created.
"Oh, come on, love," he pleaded. "It would take you three hours to accomplish something that would take me ten minutes. It might even be fun."
"When has scrubbing dishes and sweeping away dust ever been equated to fun?" I demanded.
"We never get to do these things at our home. Esme takes care of the practically nonexistent dusting, Alice never lets us do the laundry since all our clothes are 'one-time' use, and of course, we don't have dirty dishes… The most Esme makes us do is mow the lawn." Edward's eyes were bright with anticipation. I couldn't believe he was getting excited over something so... tedious. "Think of it… as a human experience for me."
I snorted, shaking my head in disbelief. "You don't get to have human experiences if you're not human, Edward."
He smiled. "Exactly. That's why I'm living them with you. Through you. If you expect me to change you so that you're no longer human, the least you can do is allow both of us a few human experiences before that. It's a small price to pay for making me damn you for eternity."
I crossed my arms across my chest. "Is that blackmail?"
He laughed gently, the sound so musical. "Call it what you want."
His expression was so earnest and hopeful, it was ridiculous. I appreciated that he wanted to take on the responsibility… weird but sweet at the same time.
"Okay," I conceded, staring at him doubtfully as his eyes lit up. "Go ahead and clean to your heart's content but, er, leave the laundry to me."
My cheeks turned red at the thought of Edward sifting through my laundry basket or even folding my clothes.
He gaze me a quizzical look, but stepped forward to give me a light squeeze before he was gone. He needed no instructions—frustrating, but not surprising; I'd been hoping to show him that I was good at something he wasn't.
True to his word, he was finished with the entire house cleaning, not including my room and the laundry, within ten minutes, and though we had made a deal that I would study while he worked, I had not even read a single page from my chapter. I'd been too distracted with Edward's whooshing back and forth in the house.
"All done, sweetheart," he informed me, his eyes alight with energy. There was a tiny wet spot on his shirt, but apart from that, he looked just as pristine as ever. "How's your progress?"
I glanced down at my unopened textbook. "Yet to happen."
He chuckled, scooping me up from the living room and carrying me to the table.
"How about I help you with that, too?"