Twilight -- Best Kept Secret [Emmett/Bella]
Title: Best Kept Secret
Author: Mariusgirl
Pairing: Emmett/Bella (if you squint)
Prompt: #37 - Hell
Word Count: 2,008
Rating: PG
Summary: When Edward goes away for the weekend, leaving Bella in the not-so-capable hands of Emmett and Alice, havoc ensues when they insist on a night out in Seattle. Much to Bella's mortification, Emmett has an ace up his sleeve that may lead to her dying of embarrasment before the night is through.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Additional Notes: My first attempt at fic in this fandom. Unbeta'd.
My intuition flickered; warning me too late that trouble was fast headed my way.
I saw Emmett grin mischievously out of the corner of my eye, saw Alice nod once with an equally malignant smirk, but by then it was already too late.
I frantically searched for an exit, but the mass of seething bodies that surrounded me made it nearly impossible to move toward the brightly lit neon sign that glared salvation down at me. I took a step forward, but a cold hand seized my wrist and I felt myself being hauled backwards.
“Come on, Bella,” Emmett said as he towed me toward the brightly shining stage that had been erected in the middle of the floor.
I tried to pull away from him, to run, but his iron grip prevented any sort of escape on my part. My heart felt like a runaway freight train as I grabbed at a nearby table to latch onto, but my fingers barely grazed the smooth surface as he pulled me closer to his side.
“Let go,” I hissed, shooting him a icy glare.
My face contorted and I poured every ounce of anger, hatred, and humiliation I could muster into that glare. The corners of his lips tipped upward in response and he laughed.
I quickly scanned the distance we had to cover and did the math in my head, wondering exactly how long it would take me to gnaw my arm off before I was put on display. And whether or not I could get away before I made too big a fool of myself.
Apparently, he guessed my thoughts because in the next instant his arm moved to completely encircle my waist, destroying my plans and making escape impossible. I shot him another cold glare, but my scowl was lost on him and he grinned cheekily down at me.
“Relax,” he chided, “I’ve got you.”
Dragging my feet could only delay the inevitable so long, and far too soon for my liking we were standing on the stairs that led to the polished stage and my foreseeable doom. My stomach heaved threateningly and I bit back the bile that rose in my throat.
I continued to protest, my words becoming garbled and incomprehensible as I tripped over myself, trying to make him see logic. He hauled me onward, heedless of my stream of incoherent sentences, every word falling on deaf ears.
Five more steps and I was ready to die a slow and agonizing death rather than face that which awaited me in the glare of the spotlights that anchored precariously on the high ceiling above our inadequately protected heads. I silently hoped that one of them would fall and crush me to death before I was subjected to flailing around like a fish out of water on that impossibly polished dance floor. And with my luck, I knew both outcomes were entirely plausible.
Emmett’s arm tightened securely around my waist and I felt my feet leave the ground as he loped gracefully onto the stage, shooting me one of those big grins that he was so famous for as if he saw absolutely nothing wrong with this picture.
I wanted to slap that grin right off of his extraordinarily perfect face, but his hand had slipped into mine and I decided it was safer if I stared at the ground where my traitorous feet were currently planted. Even if I could see them moving, there was no telling where they might go. I stood prone; my body pressed against his as I wished the earth would open up and swallow me.
“You look like this is the end of the world or something,” he remarked lightly from somewhere far above me.
Refusing to look up, I concentrated on my feet, my face already burning with anticipated humiliation. Someone of my natural grace should never be allowed within five hundred feet of a dance competition, let alone be deposited on the stage itself.
Eyes bored into me from all directions and I could already envision myself falling face first off of the stage, right into the judge’s table. Maybe I’d take one of their eyes out with the heel of my high heeled shoe, or better yet, I’d fall into the innocent cameraman and break the camera as well as my neck.
Somewhere, music started, and my feet were suddenly moving.
I clung to Emmett, crushed myself to his cool body as he swung me around. It didn’t take me long to realize that he was cheating, but it made me feel instantly better. Even thought it looked like I was dancing too, my feet were actually a few millimeters above the shiny death trap of a floor. He held all of my weight as if I were nothing more than a feather.
My heart was pounding furiously in my chest, drumming out a one man rock song as I twirled and pirouetted, all under Emmett’s power.
The music pulsed around us and drowned out the excited shouts of the crowd as I fought to keep my eyes focused. The room swirled into a dark blur punctuated by streaming yellow and red lights as we twirled around and around.
I decided that if I lived through this experience, without injury to myself or any innocent bystanders who happened to get too close, I would kill Emmett Cullen. It didn’t matter that he was already dead, or undead, or whatever. I was sure Jacob would cheerfully give me some pointers on how to remedy that.
Finally, to my immense relief, the music stopped and so did my feet.
All the twirling and spinning had left me light headed and dizzy, and I was nearly one hundred percent positive that I would be revisiting my lunch again sometimes in the imminent future, but Emmett held me steady and I sank back into his body, seeking out the coolness that emanated from him.
“Smile,” he encouraged, giving me a reassuring squeeze as we turned to face the judges table.
My face contorted into something resembling a grimace as I vainly tried to comply with his request. I was hot and tired by the time he hauled me off of the stage, but I recovered quickly, turning on him the second we were clear of the cameras.
“You! You!” I glared deathly murder at him, my hand instinctively curling into a fist and lashing out to strike him, hard, in the chest.
He caught my hand easily, swatting it playfully away as he shook his head. That grin returned and I felt my anger mount higher. I was sure my blood was close to boiling by now, if the heat I felt in my face was any indication.
“I - You! I hate you. You know that?”
Emmett merely shrugged, his eyes practically dancing in amusement. “It wasn’t that bad Bella. You didn’t make a spectacle of yourself.”
“I agree, it went rather well,” sang Alice as she skipped over to join us.
I turned my vitriolic glare on her but she was not easily deterred, and she knew that my anger would burn itself out quite quickly. An innocent grin spread over her pixie like features and she hugged me lightly.
I couldn’t help it. Her grin was infectious and I couldn’t stay mad at her forever. Emmett on the other hand...
“You two are the worst babysitters ever,” I spat, but my anger had mostly evaporated, fizzling in the wake of her cheerful smile and for a moment I looked around, half expecting to see Jasper leaning against a wall somewhere, but the calm that was spreading through my veins was a natural reaction as the adrenaline wore off.
Alice’s smile broadened and Emmett rolled his eyes as I threatened them with Edward’s unholy wrath.
“When he get’s back, and I tell him what you two made me do, oh, you’re both gonna be so sorry.”
My statement was met with a derisive snort from Emmett. “I’m not afraid of Edward,” he declared laughingly. “What’s he gonna do? Ban me from ever babysitting you again? Gee, that’ll break my heart.”
I started to lash out again, this time with my tongue, but I resisted the urge to spew something vitriolic at him. Instead, I sighed in frustration as every ounce of resistance leeched out of my body, and found my lips twitching upward, itching to return his smile.
“Your heart can break if it doesn’t beat,” I retorted, still not ready to let him see that he had gotten the best of me.
He feigned injury, clutching at his chest where his silent heart lay, but the light never left his eyes, and before long he was laughing at my shotty attempt at sarcasm.
There was no way I could stay mad with him for long either, not if I was being completely honest with myself. He was a huge, lovable, if somewhat scary, teddy bear.
As if reading my thoughts, he scooped me up into a bone crushing hug; his way of showing his gratitude in being forgiven.
“Can’t - breath-Emmett!”
“Oops!”
Alice threw her arm around my shoulders as we made our way toward the door, “Don’t you want to stay and see if you’ve won?”
My eyebrow quirked upward and I nearly laughed in her face. “You’re joking right? Me, win a dance competition? Yes, that’ll happen the day after I stop tripping over air.”
“Hey,” said Emmett, his tone slightly offended. “You had me as a dance partner! That’s got to count for something.”
Rolling my eyes, I disengaged myself from Alice and made a beeline for the door before either of them could come up with any more clever ideas to keep me there.
Alice glanced back at the stage and I knew from the look on her face that she was plotting something, something painful and likely mortifying, so I faked a yawn and stretched impatiently.
She finally shrugged her shoulders and I knew that I had won. But the tang of victory in my mouth had the aftertaste of defeat. I may have won this battle, but she and Emmett had already won the war.
My mind was reeling as I stepped out into the fresh air. I took a deep breath, my heart still pumping viciously from the exhilarating and equally humiliating dancing. But, truth be told, it was more than just the strenuous activity that had my heart turning all sorts of summersaults. I could still feel the ice from Emmett’s body as it clung to my skin and his sweet scent still filled my nostrils even as I worked vehemently to clear them, sucking in huge quantities of icy night air.
I shook my head, trying to make regain some semblance of self, but nothing I did appeared to help.
Glancing to my left, I saw Emmett smirking hugely as he climbed into the drivers seat of a sleek black sedan. The echo of his door slamming and the ringing silence that followed jarred my numb brain into action and for the first time since prying myself away from the older Cullen did I fully understand what had just transpired between us.
Nothing. And yet, everything.
I grinned to myself in coy amusement as I reached for the handle, my thoughts spinning wildly in a thousand wrong directions.
I saw his victorious smile replay in slow motion as he twirled me around and around underneath the bright lights of the stage. And I realized that it didn’t matter what music had been playing in the background, he would have still shone brighter than the lights that flooded down from the ceiling, bathing us in an ephemeral white glow.
Emmet Cullen, gigantic vampire who preferred grizzle bears to mountain lions, and who wouldn’t know how to be serious if his undead life depended on it. He was perfect; it was true, just like the others. But never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that Emmett Cullen could actually dance.
Author: Mariusgirl
Pairing: Emmett/Bella (if you squint)
Prompt: #37 - Hell
Word Count: 2,008
Rating: PG
Summary: When Edward goes away for the weekend, leaving Bella in the not-so-capable hands of Emmett and Alice, havoc ensues when they insist on a night out in Seattle. Much to Bella's mortification, Emmett has an ace up his sleeve that may lead to her dying of embarrasment before the night is through.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Additional Notes: My first attempt at fic in this fandom. Unbeta'd.
My intuition flickered; warning me too late that trouble was fast headed my way.
I saw Emmett grin mischievously out of the corner of my eye, saw Alice nod once with an equally malignant smirk, but by then it was already too late.
I frantically searched for an exit, but the mass of seething bodies that surrounded me made it nearly impossible to move toward the brightly lit neon sign that glared salvation down at me. I took a step forward, but a cold hand seized my wrist and I felt myself being hauled backwards.
“Come on, Bella,” Emmett said as he towed me toward the brightly shining stage that had been erected in the middle of the floor.
I tried to pull away from him, to run, but his iron grip prevented any sort of escape on my part. My heart felt like a runaway freight train as I grabbed at a nearby table to latch onto, but my fingers barely grazed the smooth surface as he pulled me closer to his side.
“Let go,” I hissed, shooting him a icy glare.
My face contorted and I poured every ounce of anger, hatred, and humiliation I could muster into that glare. The corners of his lips tipped upward in response and he laughed.
I quickly scanned the distance we had to cover and did the math in my head, wondering exactly how long it would take me to gnaw my arm off before I was put on display. And whether or not I could get away before I made too big a fool of myself.
Apparently, he guessed my thoughts because in the next instant his arm moved to completely encircle my waist, destroying my plans and making escape impossible. I shot him another cold glare, but my scowl was lost on him and he grinned cheekily down at me.
“Relax,” he chided, “I’ve got you.”
Dragging my feet could only delay the inevitable so long, and far too soon for my liking we were standing on the stairs that led to the polished stage and my foreseeable doom. My stomach heaved threateningly and I bit back the bile that rose in my throat.
I continued to protest, my words becoming garbled and incomprehensible as I tripped over myself, trying to make him see logic. He hauled me onward, heedless of my stream of incoherent sentences, every word falling on deaf ears.
Five more steps and I was ready to die a slow and agonizing death rather than face that which awaited me in the glare of the spotlights that anchored precariously on the high ceiling above our inadequately protected heads. I silently hoped that one of them would fall and crush me to death before I was subjected to flailing around like a fish out of water on that impossibly polished dance floor. And with my luck, I knew both outcomes were entirely plausible.
Emmett’s arm tightened securely around my waist and I felt my feet leave the ground as he loped gracefully onto the stage, shooting me one of those big grins that he was so famous for as if he saw absolutely nothing wrong with this picture.
I wanted to slap that grin right off of his extraordinarily perfect face, but his hand had slipped into mine and I decided it was safer if I stared at the ground where my traitorous feet were currently planted. Even if I could see them moving, there was no telling where they might go. I stood prone; my body pressed against his as I wished the earth would open up and swallow me.
“You look like this is the end of the world or something,” he remarked lightly from somewhere far above me.
Refusing to look up, I concentrated on my feet, my face already burning with anticipated humiliation. Someone of my natural grace should never be allowed within five hundred feet of a dance competition, let alone be deposited on the stage itself.
Eyes bored into me from all directions and I could already envision myself falling face first off of the stage, right into the judge’s table. Maybe I’d take one of their eyes out with the heel of my high heeled shoe, or better yet, I’d fall into the innocent cameraman and break the camera as well as my neck.
Somewhere, music started, and my feet were suddenly moving.
I clung to Emmett, crushed myself to his cool body as he swung me around. It didn’t take me long to realize that he was cheating, but it made me feel instantly better. Even thought it looked like I was dancing too, my feet were actually a few millimeters above the shiny death trap of a floor. He held all of my weight as if I were nothing more than a feather.
My heart was pounding furiously in my chest, drumming out a one man rock song as I twirled and pirouetted, all under Emmett’s power.
The music pulsed around us and drowned out the excited shouts of the crowd as I fought to keep my eyes focused. The room swirled into a dark blur punctuated by streaming yellow and red lights as we twirled around and around.
I decided that if I lived through this experience, without injury to myself or any innocent bystanders who happened to get too close, I would kill Emmett Cullen. It didn’t matter that he was already dead, or undead, or whatever. I was sure Jacob would cheerfully give me some pointers on how to remedy that.
Finally, to my immense relief, the music stopped and so did my feet.
All the twirling and spinning had left me light headed and dizzy, and I was nearly one hundred percent positive that I would be revisiting my lunch again sometimes in the imminent future, but Emmett held me steady and I sank back into his body, seeking out the coolness that emanated from him.
“Smile,” he encouraged, giving me a reassuring squeeze as we turned to face the judges table.
My face contorted into something resembling a grimace as I vainly tried to comply with his request. I was hot and tired by the time he hauled me off of the stage, but I recovered quickly, turning on him the second we were clear of the cameras.
“You! You!” I glared deathly murder at him, my hand instinctively curling into a fist and lashing out to strike him, hard, in the chest.
He caught my hand easily, swatting it playfully away as he shook his head. That grin returned and I felt my anger mount higher. I was sure my blood was close to boiling by now, if the heat I felt in my face was any indication.
“I - You! I hate you. You know that?”
Emmett merely shrugged, his eyes practically dancing in amusement. “It wasn’t that bad Bella. You didn’t make a spectacle of yourself.”
“I agree, it went rather well,” sang Alice as she skipped over to join us.
I turned my vitriolic glare on her but she was not easily deterred, and she knew that my anger would burn itself out quite quickly. An innocent grin spread over her pixie like features and she hugged me lightly.
I couldn’t help it. Her grin was infectious and I couldn’t stay mad at her forever. Emmett on the other hand...
“You two are the worst babysitters ever,” I spat, but my anger had mostly evaporated, fizzling in the wake of her cheerful smile and for a moment I looked around, half expecting to see Jasper leaning against a wall somewhere, but the calm that was spreading through my veins was a natural reaction as the adrenaline wore off.
Alice’s smile broadened and Emmett rolled his eyes as I threatened them with Edward’s unholy wrath.
“When he get’s back, and I tell him what you two made me do, oh, you’re both gonna be so sorry.”
My statement was met with a derisive snort from Emmett. “I’m not afraid of Edward,” he declared laughingly. “What’s he gonna do? Ban me from ever babysitting you again? Gee, that’ll break my heart.”
I started to lash out again, this time with my tongue, but I resisted the urge to spew something vitriolic at him. Instead, I sighed in frustration as every ounce of resistance leeched out of my body, and found my lips twitching upward, itching to return his smile.
“Your heart can break if it doesn’t beat,” I retorted, still not ready to let him see that he had gotten the best of me.
He feigned injury, clutching at his chest where his silent heart lay, but the light never left his eyes, and before long he was laughing at my shotty attempt at sarcasm.
There was no way I could stay mad with him for long either, not if I was being completely honest with myself. He was a huge, lovable, if somewhat scary, teddy bear.
As if reading my thoughts, he scooped me up into a bone crushing hug; his way of showing his gratitude in being forgiven.
“Can’t - breath-Emmett!”
“Oops!”
Alice threw her arm around my shoulders as we made our way toward the door, “Don’t you want to stay and see if you’ve won?”
My eyebrow quirked upward and I nearly laughed in her face. “You’re joking right? Me, win a dance competition? Yes, that’ll happen the day after I stop tripping over air.”
“Hey,” said Emmett, his tone slightly offended. “You had me as a dance partner! That’s got to count for something.”
Rolling my eyes, I disengaged myself from Alice and made a beeline for the door before either of them could come up with any more clever ideas to keep me there.
Alice glanced back at the stage and I knew from the look on her face that she was plotting something, something painful and likely mortifying, so I faked a yawn and stretched impatiently.
She finally shrugged her shoulders and I knew that I had won. But the tang of victory in my mouth had the aftertaste of defeat. I may have won this battle, but she and Emmett had already won the war.
My mind was reeling as I stepped out into the fresh air. I took a deep breath, my heart still pumping viciously from the exhilarating and equally humiliating dancing. But, truth be told, it was more than just the strenuous activity that had my heart turning all sorts of summersaults. I could still feel the ice from Emmett’s body as it clung to my skin and his sweet scent still filled my nostrils even as I worked vehemently to clear them, sucking in huge quantities of icy night air.
I shook my head, trying to make regain some semblance of self, but nothing I did appeared to help.
Glancing to my left, I saw Emmett smirking hugely as he climbed into the drivers seat of a sleek black sedan. The echo of his door slamming and the ringing silence that followed jarred my numb brain into action and for the first time since prying myself away from the older Cullen did I fully understand what had just transpired between us.
Nothing. And yet, everything.
I grinned to myself in coy amusement as I reached for the handle, my thoughts spinning wildly in a thousand wrong directions.
I saw his victorious smile replay in slow motion as he twirled me around and around underneath the bright lights of the stage. And I realized that it didn’t matter what music had been playing in the background, he would have still shone brighter than the lights that flooded down from the ceiling, bathing us in an ephemeral white glow.
Emmet Cullen, gigantic vampire who preferred grizzle bears to mountain lions, and who wouldn’t know how to be serious if his undead life depended on it. He was perfect; it was true, just like the others. But never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that Emmett Cullen could actually dance.