For those of you that liked Triumphant, here are more of the Cullens's misdoings. This takes place in the summer after Twilight. Enjoy…

Disclaimer: Continuing my legacy of not owning Twilight, but still making the characters feel uncomfortable in awkward situations.


Guilty as Charged

"So…" came a voice from the surrounding darkness before an unseen hand flicked on the light switch to a large lamp, making sure it was right in the criminal's face. "What exactly were you and your brothers doing earlier tonight?"

The boy started to open his mouth, but the cop interrupted him, practically growling in his face, "And don't give me any of that garbage about how 'you can't prove it was us' because we have eye witnesses!"

The boy looked irritably in the direction where he thought this angry voice was coming from and cleared his throat. "It was all Emmett's fault."

The voice seemed puzzled as he shuffled through some papers. "You mean the big one?"

"Yes, looks like a bear but acts like a four year old; that's our Emmett."

More rustling papers. "But I thought he was at Dartmouth."

"Oh, well…he was…coming home for a visit."

The suspicion that had seemed permanently ingrained in the cop's mind was now lessening. He nodded in understanding as he felt a rush of sympathy for the poor boy, dragged into a scheme by his older brother. "So he wanted to pull a little prank and made you participate?" The boy nodded with fake, but entirely believable sadness. "If you can explain everything to me, without excluding details, then I'm sure we can make this as painless as possible for you." The ominous voice, belonging to Rick Spalding of the Forks police force, was growing minutely less commanding and more understanding.

Jasper smiled smugly as he began his story.

000

Half an hour later, Jasper emerged from the only interrogation room in the small police station. Being escorted by another policeman, they made their way to a large cell with two other figures hunched on the seats inside.

When the cop left, Jasper saw his brothers' inquiring looks and answered, "He feels sorry for me." He glared at Emmett while he said in a woe is me voice, "Being dragged into a silly and childish prank by my big old mean brother."

Emmett looked at his brother in horror. "No! You can't just pin this whole thing on me, you know! You agreed to it wholeheartedly and I'm not going to take the heat for this!"

His brothers ignored him as Edward jumped up to his feet…and then sat hurriedly back down, holding the blanket even tighter around himself. It couldn't even be called at blanket really; it was smaller than a regular towel and he found that he had trouble holding it around the waist of his naked body without it falling down. "What did you say about me though?"

Jasper held back a laugh and answered, "Nothing more than the usual…why you're naked, and all that, but I'm sure you can jump on the 'blame Emmett' train if you want."

At seeing Edward's nod of agreement, Emmett threw his arms extravagantly into the air before hurling himself onto the bench, making it shudder and creak with the force of the impact. "Unfair! You can't do this to me, I won't stand for it!"

"But you came up with it!" shouted his brothers in unison.

Emmett shot up from the bench and wound his big hands around the bars of their cell. "Why are we even here? We could so easily just bend the bars and escape…"

He didn't get any further as both Edward and Jasper started pulling him away from the bars, Edward making sure to keep one hand firmly at his waist, whispering things like, "You can't blow our cover," "They already know who we are and why we're here," and "Charlie would kill me if he found out I broke out from his jail!"

Someone coughed into their fist discreetly and the boys turned to see the escorting policeman had come back. "Sorry to, uh, break up this little love fest here, but Officer Spalding wants to interrogate the Naked Boy Wonder over there next."

Emmett and Jasper immediately starting laughing raucously as Edward walked out of the now-open door to the cell, taking awkward small steps to ensure that the blanket wouldn't slip. He gave a scathing glare to his brothers before following the cop into a dark room. A hand came out of nowhere and Edward was surprised to find that Officer Spalding was trying to shove him into the wooded chair in the center of the room. He realized that this was the 'bad cop' routine, so he pretended to have his knees buckle and fall into the chair.

"You're cold, Edward," the voice pointed out like it was a federal crime. "Does that have anything to do with the fact that you are wearing practically nothing?"

Edward, having no patience for any more idiocy, couldn't restrain himself from snapping, "So that's why I keep feeling a draft! Thank you so much for clearing that up, officer."

Insulted thoughts about his smart aleck behavior sprang up in the man's mind and seeing how this wouldn't help him, he amended, "Sorry, Officer Spalding, I just…have had such a strenuous night, I didn't mean to take it out on you."

Spalding's ego fluffed itself up as the thoughts now turned to how he had intimidated the boy. "Would you now tell me what happened earlier tonight, including how you came to…this condition?"

Edward found himself morally struggling between decades of loyalty and the thought of saving his naked ass from how Charlie would shorten, or forbid, the time he could spend with his Bella. Let's just say it didn't last too long. "Emmett made me do it."

000

Charlie Swan stared in confusion across his desk at the witness. "Wait…what did you just say?"

The elderly lady adjusted her large spectacles and blinked owlishly at the chief. "I said that after I came out of the grocery store, buying food for my Mr. Whiskers, I saw this young man jogging down the sidewalk of the store next door, buck naked."

Several rooms over, a boy in an interrogation room shuddered involuntarily at what this supposedly innocent grandmother was thinking.

Charlie checked the paper on his desk. He had thought that this had to do with the Cullen boys, not streaking. He read on, seeing the list of breaking and entering, theft, use of illegal fireworks, and…

Oh.

"Could you describe this young man, Mrs. Fielder?"

Excitement seemed to animate her wrinkled face as she described the naked boy. "He was tall, I'd say six foot three, and terribly pale. He had copper colored hair, and was very fit, not to mention-"

"Ah, that's enough, Mrs. Fielder," Charlie interrupted. He knew exactly who she was talking about. "Now, can you tell me about the explosion?"

She seemed to blush as she said, "Well, Chief Swan, I was rather too distracted to notice the explosion…"

Charlie resisted the urge to slam his head against his desk.

000

"So…Emmett," the ominous voice sneered, "I've heard that you are the ringleader behind this whole scheme." He pulled a Polaroid picture of an object so snarled and broken, it was unnamable, and handed it to Emmett. "Can you tell me how this," he stabbed his forefinger viciously at the photograph, "happened?"

Emmett shifted in the too-small chair, putting a hand in front of that damn infuriating light that was pointed right in his face so he could see the picture. He looked up at the shadowed face of Officer Spalding and tried to smile. "It was like that when I got there?"


Earlier that day...

"Look what he did!" Emmett screamed when he pulled into his driveway, jumping out of the car and pointing at the door with anguish on his face. "That – I can't even think of a word bad enough for that kid!" By then Edward, Jasper, and Rosalie (the only ones home since Carlisle was at work, Esme was on her way home from having lunch with him, and Alice was having a Charlie-approved visit with Bella) had rushed out of the house, seeing what all the commotion was about.

On the side of his car door, there was a long scratch, cutting through the glossy paint of his enormous jeep.

Rosalie tried to calm her husband down, gently stroking his arm and soothingly purring, "It's alright sweetie. I can buff that out in no time; just leave it to me."

"It's the principal of the thing, Rosie! You just can't erase the intentional offence that this creates!"

"How do you know it was intentional, Em? Who did it?"

"Newton. Do I need to explain further?"

There was a contemplative silence before Rosalie announced, "I don't want to get involved in whatever you are going to do Em, so I'll just take your car and fix it as good as new, okay?" She got in the car and drove off to the garage, already thinking of ways to increase its speed and how she'd have to fix the brake because it seemed to stop the car a little too slowly for her liking.

When she left, Jasper turned to Emmett and asked, "What's going to happen now?"

The answer was simple, "Revenge."

000

"Are you sure Newton's at work right now, Edward?" Emmett checked for the eleventh time.

"Yes, now would you care to explain to us what we are doing and to stop saying, 'Newton's gonna get it, Newton's gonna get it, Newton's gonna get it' over and over in your head?"

Emmett explained the plan in detail, even adding several realistic sound effects, slowly and surely in the backseat of Edward's car. When he was done, he held his hands up as if he were stopping a tirade of applause and beamed. "Isn't it brilliant?"

Jasper and Edward looked at each other in disbelief before they began the methodical and thorough process of poking holes into his plan. "You do know m 80s are illegal in the state of Washington, don't you?" "Esme will kill us." "We can be sued if we are caught." "How do you even plan on getting the fireworks?"

That one, Emmett could answer. "You see, I know this guy named Tony, who works at the CD joint in between the grocery store and Newton's dad's shop, and, if you ask specifically for them, he'll sell you any kind of firework you want. It's all very hush hush, you know?"

Right then, they parked beside the sidewalk running beside all the stores, and, what do you know, the CD place was closed. Emmett thought fast and amended his plan. "Okay, so we'll just have to break in. I'm sure he won't mind if we leave a few hundreds on the counter."

Edward turned in his seat to face his brother. "How do you expect to break into a store on a crowded street?"

Emmett smiled; he had hoped Edward would ask that. "We'll just need a distraction…"

000

After several minutes of pointless fighting, Edward had given up when Emmett had threatened to show Bella some incriminating photos (i.e. when Alice and Rosalie forced him to wear woman's clothing and curled his hair until he looked like Little Orphan Annie). Jasper and Emmett were now loitering on the stairs leading up to the CD store, waiting for Edward to finish undressing.

Finding no other excuse to stall, Edward stepped hesitantly out of the car, in only an Italian pair of pointed toe shoes, and gave a loud whistle to attract everyone's attention before he started a slow jog down the sidewalk.

From the thoughts around him, he had their attention. In every mind, he saw himself reflected through their eyes, naked, defenseless. Oh, he was going to kill Emmett for this! Hopefully though, no one would recognize him and-

That's the Cullen boy! My, my, he certainly has grown up nicely…

I think my daughter goes to school with him; if only I was young again, I'm sure I could get a piece of that…

Wow! Wow, wow, wow, wow, WOW!!

Too late.

Edward closed his eyes when he saw a camera flash somewhere in the distance. He'd have to get that later, but for the time being, he just focused on not seeing anyone around him. He imagined he was completely alone, and soon he would be in the forest again, safe from prying eyes where he could run back to his home in peace.

With his eyes still closed and the thought of safety in his mind, Edward quickened his pace and…

…ran into a police officer.

000

The explosion was deafening.

After exiting the CD store with their arms laden with m 80s, Jasper and Emmett broke one of the windows to Newton's care and whipped out a lighter. "Ready?" he asked Jasper.

"Always," he responded, beginning to enjoy himself, and one by one they threw in the m 80s. They did it so quickly, that by the time they were done, the first one's fuse was just coming to an end, and all the little bangs turned into one collective explosion.

The ratty old car Newton had been in possession of was now all twisted metal and smoking flames. Jasper and Emmett turned tail to run, but stopped when they saw a police officer pushing Edward, who had his hands cupped over his more exposed area, with his nightstick.

"You boys!" the cop shouted, "you're under arrest!"


Now, they were all sitting in the cells again, awaiting the verdict. There were sour spirits all around when Edward informed his brothers that blaming everything on Emmett hadn't worked like they had hoped and that they were all still getting equal punishment. Edward just wanted a pair of pants.

Chief Swan came out of his office and passed the cell, staring Edward down before shaking his head and muttering something about how a boy named Jacob would never pull this kind of stunt. Charlie walked on to the front desk, out of sight from the boys, but not out of hearing range, and they heard a very familiar voice.

"Hi Charlie!" it seemed to sing, and the boys sat up a bit straighter.

"Well, hello Alice. Are you here for your brothers?" He was still trying to hold on to his big tough police officer voice, but it was fading fast under the innocent gaze of the pixie.

"You do know that they face many criminal charges that could bring them to court, though, don't you?"

"I do Charlie," she replied with the correct amount of sadness, embarrassment and anger. "And let me tell you, our parents have never been angrier! Esme is already thinking of spirit-breaking chores and punishments for them. Shopping with me is on the top of the list!" she exclaimed excitably, earning a chuckle from Charlie.

"The bail is pretty expensive, Alice. Are you sure you don't just want me to keep them here?" He sounded much more hopeful than he should have.

"And I have come prepared. Carlisle gave me the money for bail," there was a silence as they assumed she passed him the money, "and could you please send this to the Newton family? It is more than enough to replace his car. Esme wrote a note that is in the envelope apologizing profusely and asking if there is anything our family could do for them, we'd be happy to help."

This seemed to throw Charlie off because he was now stuttering helplessly. "W-well, you covered everything that probably would have taken weeks to resolve in court. I guess I should release your brothers, shouldn't I?" His reluctance carried on until he was at their jail cell, saying nothing as he set them free.

The boys in turn thanked him on their way out and said their "sorry"s before fleeing as fast as they could. When they thought they were going to be safe, they were stopped by his voice yelling, "I expect to get that blanket back, Edward. After, of course, you wash it." His shame followed him out the door as all the officers, a criminal, and his siblings burst into hysterics.

"By the way," Alice managed to say through her laughs as they walked through the parking lot, "I have a little present for you!" She reached into her purse and pulled out a Polaroid picture, handing it to her brother.

"How did you get this?" he demanded after he noticed that the pale, naked person in the picture was, in fact, him. Then he remembered the camera flash from earlier, and he would have been beat red if there was blood in his veins.

"That's not the only copy, too," Alice sang. "I left one underneath Bella's pillow as a surprise."

They laughed again at Edward's humiliation, who would have ran to get the picture if he had another piece of clothing, and Jasper took the opportunity to slide to Alice's side, whispering in her ear, "I haven't had a chance to thank you properly, love. Perhaps I can do that later…"

He was using his "sexy" voice, and was about to add a little desire to Alice's mood, when she abruptly turned serious and barked, "Jasper Whitlock, if you even think of doing what I see you trying to do, then there will be a world of pain for your southern ass, no matter how cute it may be." He shut up and didn't talk the rest of the way.

They were almost to the car when Emmett asked, "Are Carlisle and Esme home?"

Alice nodded with a smug smile on her face.

He gulped and hesitantly inquired, "Do they know?"

"No, the rest of the family doesn't know."

The boys simultaneously sighed in relief. There seemed to be something wrong, though, because Edward had stopped smiling was slowly growing paler and had a positively terrified expression on his face.

Alice smiled wickedly as she stepped into her car, only to roll down the window and say, "But they do now."