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For many, a bar is a place of solitude, of misery, a place to go and simply reflect on all the things that make life exceptionally unpleasant. It is a place of desolation, torment, and heartache, filled with people sitting alone at the bar top nursing a strong drink in the hope that all their problems will be washed away with the alcohol. Somewhere in between Sunnydale, CA and Forks, WA, two such people sat at either end of a grimy bar, each with a bottle in front of them.
Buffy Summers sat with a bottle of the strongest beer in the joint, moping about her recent departure from Heaven. Bella Swan stared into the depths of her glass of bourbon with an air of hopelessness and despair. The two women looked up at the same time, and, seeing the despondent expression in the other's eyes, toasted each other before standing and sitting side by side in matching barstools.
"So, what's up with your life?" Bella asked expressionlessly, gazing at the dark liquid in front of her.
Buffy smirked bitterly. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you, honey."
"You'd be surprised," Bella replied. She turned to face Buffy, holding out her hand. "Bella Swan."
"Buffy Summers," Buffy took her hand and shook it gently before taking another swig of beer.
"So, tell me, Buffy, what brings you to this craphole of a bar?" Bella inquired.
"I wasn't kidding, you won't believe me," Buffy replied flatly. "What's up with you?"
Bella sighed. What wasn't? She thought she loved Edward, but now… now she was having doubts. She'd just got back from Italy, she'd had to go and save his sparkly suicidal ass, and now… well, hindsight's a real bitch.
"There's this guy-" she began before Buffy interrupted with a nod and a mutter of "guy troubles".
"Tell me about it." Bella agreed before continuing. "Anyway, he's… let's say… different. Strong, powerful, beautiful- dangerous. And he says he loves me." Bella took a breath, looking at Buffy. "The thing is, he and his family left. He broke up with me in the middle of the woods, he said he never loved me and that I should forget all about him. And then he left me. I got lost trying to get back to town; I was alone and lost for hours before anyone found me.
"So there's this guy called Jake, he's my best friend. A little reckless though- he did all these extreme sports with me. One of them was… cliff-jumping."
"You jumped off a cliff?" Buffy gasped. Was this girl suicidal?
Bella smiled slightly. "It was purely for recreational purposes. Anyway, word got back to Edward- that's my boyfriend- that I had jumped off a cliff. He thought I was dead, and then he went all crazy and suicidal. His sister, Alice, came back to town, asking for my help in saving him before he officially offed himself. I went with her. We saved him," Bella took a long draught of bourbon, draining the glass. She filled it up from the bottle in front of her.
"But the thing is, since we got back, I've been thinking about…" Bella stopped suddenly. Buffy took up the reigns.
"Let me guess. He did break your heart, broke his own, and made you glue his back together after he went all 'Romeo and Juliet'. And now you're… reevaluating your relationship. Correctamundo?" Buffy asked. Bella chuckled slightly.
"You're exactly right. I've been thinking… some of the things he's done are… less than healthy."
Buffy frowned. She knew all about unhealthy relationships. She practically had a degree in the subject. There was the dual-personality vampire and the military man who experimented on demons, not to mention the post-resurrection sex with a former (im)mortal enemy (who was also a vampire). She smiled in understanding. "Trust me, I know all about less-that-healthy relationships. What did Ed-weird do?"
Bella laughed at the nickname before sobering up. What hadn't he done?
"Well, er… he followed me and, er, watched me sleep. He also acts like I'm an incompetent child incapable of independence and forming an intelligent thought. And, he-" she stopped talking abruptly. She couldn't tell Buffy that he regularly thought about eating her for breakfast- Buffy would think she was on drugs or something.
"And what, Bella?" she inquired. Was Edward supernatural or something? She did say that he was strong and dangerous… a demon of some sort?
"Nothing, it's nothing," Bella muttered nervously. Stupid, she thought to herself.
"Do you love him?" Buffy asked abruptly. Bella hesitated before answering.
"Sometimes, it's like nothing's wrong, and we're just a normal, happy couple. But other times… I'm scared- of him. What he might do. Sometimes I want to run, but I know he'll find me. The love we had… I think it was really a heavily disguised sort of obsession, but now the smokescreen has fallen. I can see everything that's wrong with our relationship. I think I was in love with the idea of being in love, so I overlooked all the telltale signs. I thought I was in love with Edward, but now, I'm scared of him. I… I think that-" She took a deep breath followed by a sip of the caramel-brown liquid. "I think that I want him gone, out of my life. But I don't know how to tell him that. He might hurt me."
Suddenly, Buffy sat bolt straight, as though she had been touched with a burning hot poker. She inhaled deeply, a sickly-sweet aroma invading her nostrils. She surveyed the bar. Where are you, you bastard? She thought viciously. Finally, a challenge! A voice interrupted her somewhat murderous thoughts.
"Bella, love?"
The two women spun around on their barstools to see an inhumanly beautiful teenager standing behind them. Buffy smirked in vindication, pleased that her target had so willingly offered itself up to her, while Bella attempted to hide the fact that she was shaking in fear.
"Edward! What… what are you doing here? Were… were you… listening?" She stuttered with a terrified smile.
"I was looking for you, love. I was worried about you, I didn't know where you were." Suddenly, his honeyed smile dropped off his face faster than hail falls from the sky on a stormy night. "What did you mean you don't love me, love? What did you mean when you said that you want me gone? How many of those drinks have you had, silly Bella?" He leered at her, snow-white teeth glinting terrifyingly. Bella leaned back as far as she could go, paralysed with shock and fear.
"I want you out, Edward. Gone. You should leave, now, or I will." Bella told him.
"No."
"No?"
"No, Bella. I won't leave you. We were meant to be together, forever." Edward said, a fanatic gleam in his eye. Bella sat forward, confidence radiating off of her like sunlight.
"Seriously, Edward, go. I'm breaking up with you. I deserve better than a stalker who treats me like I'm challenged or something."
"No one deserves you more than me. I saved your life! If I can't have you, no one can," Edward claimed possessively, gazing at Bella hungrily. "I suppose I'll just have to make sure no one else can." Buffy thought now would be a good time to intervene.
"Bella, you didn't tell me that your creepy stalker boyfriend was a Cold One!" She admonished cheerfully, entering the conversation. "I thought we were being honest with each other!" Edward's head snapped over to look at Buffy, his dark amber eyes boring into hers.
"And who might you be?" He asked in a would-be pleasant tone of voice. Buffy stuck out her hand, which Edward stubbornly ignored. She shrugged, letting her hand fall. "Rather rude of you, but anyway. I'm Buffy Summers, the Vampire Slayer. And you, Ed-weird, are about to become a pile of sparkly ashes." She informed him with a beaming smile.
"Slayer…" He hissed, venom pooling in his mouth. Bella simply looked very confused.
"That's right, Sparkles! Let's say you and me take this outside, hey?" She suggested, placing her hands on his shoulders and driving him out of the bar into the car park, Bella hot on her heels. The second they were outside, Buffy threw a powerful punch to his cheekbone, so strong that Edward collapsed to the ground, cracks forming over the impact zone. She sent a flying kick his way as he attempted to get up, knocking him back to the ground. He got back up, throwing a punch her way. Buffy easily ducked before responding with a powerful barrage of punches and kicks. She ripped off all four of Ed-weird's extremities before looking over at Bella, who had spent the last few minutes with wide eyes and a dropped jaw.
"Can I kill him, Bella?" Buffy asked out of courtesy. He was her creepy Cold One ex-boyfriend, after all, who, by the way, was truly pathetic at fighting. He wasn't even a challenge!
"Bella, Bella please love, help me, save me, and we can be together forever, just like we were meant to! It doesn't have to be this way love, please, I'll turn you, and we can have a house and you can clean it and look after me and we can be happy forever-" Edward's babbling was interrupted by a punch in the face from Buffy.
"You might have missed the memo, grandpa, but that sort of thinking is considered outdated these days. Bella has more to live for than immortality and a sexist stalker, Dickward!" Buffy snapped angrily. "Please, Bella, can I kill him? Pretty please?" she pleaded. Bella reached into her pocket and pulled out a matchbox.
"Burn the misogynistic asshole," she said, a fire returning to her eyes that had extinguished for a long time.
Bella tossed the matches at Buffy, who struck one and lit Edward's hair on fire.
"Stupid hairstyle anyway," she muttered. Bella snapped out of her reverie and collected Edward's dismembered limbs, chucking them on top of his now-flaming torso. The two women stood there watching the flames, listening to Edward's strangled cries of pain and not feeling at all sorry. When the fire finally died, Bella turned to Buffy.
"So, Vampire Slayer, huh? How'd that happen?"
"Oh well, it's kind of a long story. Interesting though, I've even died twice! That's why I'm here, by the way… drowning my mystical sorrows."
"Gosh… so, what about-"
And with that the two women from different worlds linked arms and walked back into the bar, avidly discussing all the things they can never talk about with anyone else, a sense of liberation spreading through each of their veins. Bella Swan smiled to herself, knowing that the worst was over. She could leave Forks and see the world, free to be who she wanted to be. She was no longer tied down and oppressed by Edward Anthony Masen Cullen.
What a damn shame.