dress for success

[self_composed]

By the time when Alice first shows up at Stanford visibly (as opposed to lurking around the ceiling at Bella's classes, making smart remarks in her head), Janine has put in a request, and so have four other girls on the hall. (Lillian wants a summery floral dress, Tasha wants a midnight blue evening gown, Ruth has expressed a fondness for polka dots, and Kuo wants something gothy. Bella politely makes no remarks about anyone's taste.)

Bella likes all her teachers okay, and also the orchestra conductor and her soccer coach. Life is good.

Comments

[self_composed]

Bella starts thinking about that. [Any guidelines I should bear in mind?]

[edgeofyourseat]

[Mm... dunno,] he says, and starts thinking of vague mental images. He kind of likes that thing his wishcoins do, where they're flat glossy black unless you see them out of the corner of your eye, and then all of a sudden there's colours. Possibly that is too magical to use for a pretending-to-be-normal bike, though.

[self_composed]

[A little bit. I was thinking a bolder color scheme for you anyway. If I mess with the finish it could look different colors from different angles? Not traditional but hardly magical; they do it for advertisements, something to do with ridges on the surface.]

[edgeofyourseat]

[Awesome,] says Alice.

[self_composed]

['Kay,] says Bella merrily. [There's also the question of where I should appear it.]

[edgeofyourseat]

[Not a clue,] says Alice.

[self_composed]

[I guess I could door back to Forks invisible, and pop it into your garage, and you can say your mysterious internet motorcycle supplier delivered it when no one was watching.]

The design's forming up in her head. Pretty bike.

[edgeofyourseat]

[Works for me,] he says serenely.

[self_composed]

[We can go when we're through looking at this pretty garden.]

They finish looking at the pretty garden in due course, and then hop on Tegu back towards school, and duck into the door into Alice's basement when no one is looking. Janine, even if she sees Tegu, will probably just think they slipped off somewhere to make out. (Which might also wind up being true.)

[edgeofyourseat]

Alice's lair and its magic doors are so convenient!

Alice has no need to be invisible in his own home when no one actually knows for sure that he isn't in it; he leads invisi-Bella up out of the basement and out to the garage.

[self_composed]

In the garage - which is unoccupied - she creates him a bike.

The exposed piping is all black and arranged to look like it's got a rainbow sheen of oil over selected parts. Seen from the front, the surfaces - not those underportions but the carapace - look brilliantly red, fading pinker towards each edge, like someone shot the bike in the middle of each panel and it bled very carefully. Seen from the back, it looks blue fading to sky-cyan, and viewed directly from the side both colors muddle to purple-lavender. It's bulkier than Tegu, it looks more like a spaceship than a cat, but it's low to the ground and glimmers with every saccade of the eye.

[Ta-da!]

[edgeofyourseat]

He marvels at it for a moment.

Then he says, [Can I have sex with this one?]

[self_composed]

[It is yours,] Bella says. [I'm not gonna supervise if you do, so warn me if I'm reading you when you take it into your head to hump your bike, in case I'm not paying full attention at the time.]

[edgeofyourseat]

He laughs. [Okay, sure.]

[self_composed]

[Want a matching outfit or are you more of a hop-on-in-whatever-you're-already-wearing person? Anyone who's met you would find it plausible that you're courting road rash.]

[edgeofyourseat]

[You know what,] he decides, [I would love a matching outfit.]

[self_composed]

Bella thinks, and produces one. Leather won't do the same different-colors-from-different-angles thing, alas, so the jacket has red-fading-pink in its various parts, accented blue, and the pants are blue accented red, similarly. Dark purple gloves and boots with stitching in both other colors. It is exactly the right sort of garish.

[edgeofyourseat]

It is awesome is what it is. Alice hugs her impulsively, not that he ever does anything any other way.

[self_composed]

Bella is quite happy to hug him back! [I'm glad you like 'em.]

[edgeofyourseat]

He kisses her forehead, also impulsively, and hugs her some more.

[I love you. You're the best.]

[self_composed]

[Yes. Yes I am,] Bella laughs.

[edgeofyourseat]

Alice shuts up and just loves her. Bella is perfect and hugging her is perfect and the things she gives him are perfect and there is nothing he would change about this moment.

[self_composed]

Bella leans into him and into the thought and sighs comfortably.

[No one's going to walk into the garage and see you hugging the empty air, right?]

[edgeofyourseat]

Alice turns invisible.

"Nope."

[self_composed]

Bella snickers softly. [Good.]