Cracked chapter 1
Title: Cracked
Fandom: Twilight
Genre: Humor/Parody
Rating: T
Pairing: Bella and Edward (for now)
Also on ff.net
Summary: Welcome to an experiment in dark humor, with alternating emphasis on the "dark" and the "humor." I present to you, in no particular order or relation to each other, rewritten scenes from the Twilight series. I have no set posting schedule-this is purely for my own amusement and steam-letting, although I hope you'll be amused as well. My thanks to Ms. Meyer, for creating such memorable characters and for not minding that we all play with them.
From Twilight Chapter 5: "Blood Type"
“You actually listened to me,” Edward marveled as he shut the door to the school nurse’s office, sealing away the scent of the boy’s comparatively bland, flowing blood in favor of a different kind of human distraction. Bella Swan was forever contrary, as far as Edward Cullen was concerned. Of course, she would not have seemed so contradictory if he’d been behaving like a normal person. But Edward insisted on inconsistency-saving Bella one minute, flirting with her the next, and then becoming hostile before proceeding directly to aloof indifference. Bella ‘listened’ all right, but until now she had no good reason to obey.
In fact, she wasn’t obedient out of trust-she didn’t think of herself as obedient at all-and her quick exit was based on her own observation, thank you very much. “I smelled the blood.”
“People can’t smell blood.” Edward, ever the Wise Beyond His Apparent Years, pronounced this ‘fact’ as though it ended all arguments. Not that there was an argument, but he was not in the habit of receiving further commentary after making such declarations.
“Well, I can,” Bella protested, her subtle but uncompromising tone catching Edward off guard-she was not in the habit of entering conversations in which she was not treated as an equal partner in the discussion. “That’s what makes me sick. It smells like rust…and salt.”
Of course the boy stared, though whether it was in wonder at the girl’s humanity or at her audacity, Bella couldn’t say. “Why are you looking at me like that?” she demanded.
“Because you smell blood!” he blurted unwisely.
If Bella had a little more time to collect her thoughts, she’d have asked Edward how he knew there was blood when none was obviously visible. Instead, she went with the foremost idea in her head, which was less intrusive but much more macabre. “My dad’s a cop. When I spent summers here as a child, sometimes he’d come home reeking of decay from old people who lived alone and fell down their stairs. Trust me: humans can smell blood just fine.”
“That’s different. Decay is distinctive, but it’s not the same as fresh blood.” He would certainly know-back when he sought out psychotics to be his next meal, on occasion Edward came across a truly disturbed individual who held on to the corpses of his victims. Those types of killers he made quick work of, finding himself put off his dinner by the stench of rotting death clinging to the murderers’ skin. At the moment, he hoped Bella would write off his knowledge of bodily scent differentials to having the town doctor for a father.
“I know,” Bella said breezily, as if this were the most normal conversation she’d ever had. With this particular young man it was, if only because it was straightforward, uncensored (on her part, at least), and consisted of the mutual exchange of information. “Decay doesn’t nauseate me the way fresh blood does.”
“You’re not serious.” Really, this human girl’s contrary nature was beginning to grate on Edward’s nerves.
“Once there was a massive logging accident out near La Push,” Bella launched into her tale. “The town’s only police-trained bloodhound was in surgery, and the next nearest cadaver dog was all the way in the county seat, so Charlie had to use me instead. I located two expired bodies and one live victim. The live one made me nauseous, but the dead ones just smelled dead.”
“Okay, now I know this is a joke,” Edward laughed. Gruesome though it was, it was certainly imaginative, and quite funny to a vampire. Though why Bella should have a vampire sense of humor instead of a human one was still a mystery.
“Oh no, she’s serious,” Mrs. Cope piped up, clearly eavesdropping on the conversation and wondering at their conducting it so loudly-if they were well enough to tell this story, they were well enough to go back to class, but this was the most entertaining thing she’d seen all day, so she didn’t dismiss them. “For five years after that, we called her Isabella ‘Bloodhound’ Swan. She has the most sensitive nose in all of Clallam County.”
The foreign sensation of personal awkwardness permeated Edward’s mind as he contemplated what he must smell like to this particular human girl of such legendary olfactory sensitivity. Rotten flowers? A middle-aged woman’s perfume?
“When our police hound died,” the secretary continued, oblivious to the young man’s silent discomfort, “we named the new one Izzy.”
Bella rolled her eyes-she hated that the town’s only canine unit was named for her, but she didn’t hold it against the dog. “And Charlie wonders why I stopped coming to visit Forks after I turned fourteen.” She glanced sharply at Mrs. Cope. “By the way, if my old nickname experiences any resurgent popularity after today, I wouldn’t count on Chief Swan letting you flirt your way out of your next traffic ticket, Shelly ‘Speed Demon’ Cope.” Charlie had a wide variety of law enforcement paraphernalia at his house, most notably a police scanner, which Bella had taken to listening to on the nights her father worked second or third shift. It made the house feel less lonely, and the things she learned about the locals came in handy for precisely this type of occasion.
Swallowing carefully, Mrs. Cope replied, “Bella, you still look a little faint. Perhaps you’d like to leave school early? I’d be more than happy to excuse you from your last class.”
Bella smiled, thanked Mrs. Cope and Edward for their help, and sauntered out the door and into the parking lot. Edward found himself strangely in need of support to remain standing. It was a rather pleasant sensation.