peryton

[shesepankh]

Summer vacation elapses, and sees their storefront doing one heck of a business in the Avalon with the help of their griffin employee. There is a suggestion box for new spells they should invent, some of which have to be long-term projects but others of which are converted into new product fairly promptly.

School starts up again. Darren and Bella are both skipping straight into twelfth grade. (Bella looked into just starting college early, but while she does technically have the sort of resume that can lead to that kind of thing, she can't exactly write an essay about how she saved the life of another person and this caused her to have Moral Character, let alone about how she started a small business - so skipping one grade it is.)

They apply to colleges. They both get into University of Washington and get sufficient scholarships to accommodate both going there.

Summer ensues again.

One afternoon, Bella is over at Darren's, and has fallen asleep - in purring fullform - across his lap on the couch.

Comments

[castmyown]

"Well, what sorts of situations would those be?"

[shesepankh]

"If I'd known how to kill everybody in the warehouse," she suggests darkly.

[castmyown]

He winces.

"The problem with that is hitting other people that are innocents in the warehouse, or missing guards that are just outside of it," he points out gently.

[shesepankh]

"...you and Savannah did, in fact, wind up killing everybody in the warehouse," Bella points out. "And I knew there were guards present. I'm assuming here a reasonable state of knowledge about where I'm aiming my magic carpet bombing."

[castmyown]

"I mean in a future warehouse situation. I uh - yeah, we did end up killing everybody in the warehouse."

[shesepankh]

"Yeah."

[castmyown]

Hug.

"We got there as quickly as we could," he promises.

[shesepankh]

"I know."

[castmyown]

"I - maybe there's a way to do automatic defensive magic? Put a shield up and be safely asleep inside it where no - ink monsters or anything can get you."

[shesepankh]

"...That sounds worth doing. I'll try it before I go to bed, maybe, passing out during the daytime wrecks my sleep schedule."

[castmyown]

He nods.

"I love you."

[shesepankh]

"I love you too."

[castmyown]

"Good!"

And then there are snuggles. "Any other experiments we can do? I bet you can do some cool things to technology if given the chance."

[shesepankh]

"I'm afraid I'd break any technology I got if I tried to do something more complicated than fix a cracked screen."

[castmyown]

"We'll throw money at it after we're rich. Give you lots of things to play with."

[shesepankh]

"Yay, toys. I mean, if you have busted stuff cluttering up the garage, that's another thing entirely, but I don't want to touch anything hard to replace."

[castmyown]

"Nnnope we had some broken stuff but we left it in Detroit. Sorry."

[shesepankh]

"No big deal. I'll - try magic on various things that come up in everyday life, get a feel for it."

[castmyown]

"Okay. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help? Fairy princess magic is pretty cool."

[shesepankh]

"Will do."

[castmyown]

He grins at her, and then starts being a huge magic geek and talking about his various magic projects - he's still trying at true invisibility, something that works on cameras along with people, but there are other things, too. One to be bulletproof, for example.

[shesepankh]

Bella will happily magic geek with him all day long.

College approaches. There's a big shopping trip for all the essentials. They rent the furnished apartment above their store from the same Avalon landlord, and move in, a few weeks before school starts. It has one bed in it. They wind up falling asleep on each other all the time already, quite innocently; Charlie doesn't fuss. There are housewarming presents.

Bella's birthday is a short while before the start of classes.

[castmyown]

Vernon doesn't fuss, either, but he does drop off various housewarming presents. A few of which he hides. The most notable of these is found at around eleven o'clock at night, when Darren drops a sheet of scratch paper for magic and goes to retrieve it. He sees something red under the bed, and peers at it.

"Bella," he says, confused, "Why is there a huge bowl with a bright red bow on it under our bed?" Pause. "Why is it filled with condoms?"

[shesepankh]

"What - what? I didn't put that there. And I can't really see Charlie doing it, it must have been your dad."

[castmyown]

Darren retrieves it, turning red to match the bow and looking - generally embarrassed. "I don't even - he left a note."

'Congrats on the apartment,' it reads. 'Now if you make me a grandfather before I'm fifty we will be having words. Here you go.'

"Dad did it," snorts Darren. "Wow. Wow."