Edward the Ambiguous

This is set just before Bella shows up and provides Jasper and Emmett with the definitive answer.

This will be the last fanfiction I write, unless I decide to write another.

Insert your favourite disclaimer here, the gist of which is that I own nothing.

*

Emmett and Jasper were in the front room of the Cullen's house having an intelligent, mature, well thought out argument.

"Uh-huh!" said Emmett.

"Nuh-uh!" said Jasper.

"Uh-huh!" said Emmett.

"Nuh-uh!" said Jasper.

Well, it was an argument, anyway.

The argument had started a few minutes earlier. The two had been watching a movie when Emmett turned to Jasper and said: "Y'know, I've just thought of something."

Jasper groaned inwardly. Emmett thinking was rarely a good thing, quite often a bad thing and occasionally reaching the status of Very Bad Thing. The last time Emmett had uttered those very words had been a few weeks earlier. The two had been watching one of the action adventure movies Emmett was so fond of, when Emmett turned to Jasper and said: "Y'know, I just thought of something."

"What?" asked Jasper, knowing he would soon regret it.

"You ever wonder what it would be like if Samuel L. Jackson was a smurf?"

Jasper pondered those words for several seconds, an eternity for a vampire, rolling them around in his mind, making sure he had heard correctly, before he confessed that no, that particular thought had never occurred to him.

"It'd be cool!" Emmett said with enthusiasm. "Imagine the movie lines. 'Enough is enough!'" he cried in a voice that sounded like a disturbingly accurate impression of Samuel L. Jackson on helium. "`I've had enough of these mother smurfin' snakes on this mother smurfin' plane!'"

It was only Jasper's sense of slack jawed disbelief coupled with his sense of dignity, bred into his very bones during his human days in the South that stopped him from stuffing his fingers in his ears and crying out "LaLaLaLa!"

Emmett took Jasper's silence as encouragement. "Or- imagine Pulp Fiction!"

"Pulp Fiction with smurfs?"

"Yeah! 'Mine's the one that says bad mother smurfer.'"

If this was not bad enough, Emmett's ideas had a strange way of getting embedded in Jasper's head, staying there, quietly growing, until they came out in unexpected ways at inopportune times. In this case it was a few days later at school. Jasper had been paired up with another student for an assignment. The other student, with tremendous energy and an absolute absence of logic or coherence began babbling about how the project should proceed until Jasper irritably interjected: "What the smurf are you talking about?"

The other student stopped his prattle. "What did you just say?" he asked.

What did I just say? thought Jasper. "I said, er…"

"You said 'what the smurf,'" said the other student.

"Um, no I didn't," said Jasper.

"Yes you did," said the student. He looked as though he might break out laughing at Jasper. "I heard it."

'Emmett,' thought Jasper in exasperation. Outwardly he said: "Let's… just do the assignment."

But it was too late. Now when he walked down the hallways of school he could hear the other students whispering "smurf" as he passed. Though he had spoken the words, he knew in his heart it was utterly and absolutely Emmett's fault.

So it was with some trepidation that Jasper turned to Emmett and said: "What's your idea this time?" Inwardly he prayed please don't let it be smurfs.

Emmett looked unusually thoughtful. "I've been thinking about Edward, and I think he's y'know…"

"I know what?" asked Jasper.

"Edward's… You know," said Emmett.

"No I don't," said Jasper.

"Yes you do," said Emmett. "He's a…y'know."

"What the smurf are you talking about?" said Jasper.

Emmett was taken aback. "What did you just say?"

Not again. "I said… We were talking about Edward. You think Edward is something I am supposed to know but don't."

Emmett sighed in exasperation, no mean feat for a vampire who didn't breathe. "I think Edward…. is… I think he's… gay."

Jasper's first reaction to that was Well, at least it's got the smurf thing off my mind. Then he scoffed. "No he's not," he said.

"Yes, he is," said Emmett.

"No, he isn't," said Jasper.

"Yes, he is," said Emmett.

"Is not," said Jasper.

"Is too," said Emmett.

"Is not."

"Is."

"Isn't."

"Uh-huh."

"Nuh-uh."

"Uh-huh!"

"Nuh-uh!"

Which brings us back to the beginning of our story.

"Uh-huh!"

"Nuh… This is stupid," said Jasper.

"No, it's true. I'm telling you, I'm right," said Emmett.

"Care to make a wager?" asked Jasper.

"You're on," said Emmett.

"How much?"

"Five bucks," said Emmett.

"Five bucks?" scoffed Jasper. "We are immortal vampires, wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice, discussing our brother's sexual identity, perhaps the very heart of his being, and you want to bet five bucks?"

Emmett considered this. "Ten, then."

"Deal," said Jasper. They shook hands.

"What's your proof?" asked Jasper.

"First, he doesn't date," said Emmett. "As far as we know, he's never been with a women."

Jasper never even paused to consider this. "There are no vampire women for him to date," he said. "And in the era he was raised a gentleman did not 'be with' a woman to whom he was not married."

"Tanya wanted him," pointed out Emmett. "Still does, as far as we know. She practically threw herself at him."

"He's not attracted to her that way, and they still aren't married," said Jasper.

"He turned down Rosalie!" said Emmett, as though this were the most incomprehensible thing in the universe. "We both know Carlisle and Esme hoped the two of them would join up, but he didn't." Emmett shook his head. "No straight male could ever pass her over."

"Yes, they could," said Jasper. Particularly if they like their women capable of thought, he added internally.

"You wouldn't," said Emmett.

"I would," said Jasper.

"Wouldn't," said Emmett.

"Would," said Jasper. "She's not my type, nor is she Edward's. Anything else?"

"Don't you see?" said Emmett in exasperation. "He has no interest in women."

"And what about men?" asked Jasper.

"What?" said Emmett.

"What about men?" repeated Jasper. "If he is gay, he should show an interest in men. So name one." Jasper quietly regarded Emmett. "I'm waiting."

"Alright," said Emmett at last. "I don't know any. But there's more."

Jasper cocked an eyebrow. "Like what?"

Emmett thought for a moment. "He's always redecorating," he said.

"He's bored," said Jasper. "He doesn't have our distractions."

"He likes music and he sings."

"Doesn't mean anything."

"He sings Julie Andrews' songs," said Emmett. "At Julie Andrews' pitch."

"That doesn't….necessarily… mean anything," said Jasper.

Emmett smirked at Jasper. "You had to think about that one," he said.

"Yes," admitted Jasper. "I thought about it and I rejected it. Isn't. Pay up."

"Is. Pay me."

"Unless you can come up with something else, you haven't made your case," said Jasper.

Emmett rose from the couch and began pacing back and forth. "I don't have anything else," he grumbled. "But there's more. I know it. We need to think of something sneaky to trick him into revealing the truth."

"He's a mind reader," said Jasper. "How do you propose to sneak around him?"

"I'll think of a way," said Emmett.

"Why not just ask him, if you're so interested?" asked Jasper. "That would settle the question quickly and prove me right."

"You can't just go up to him and ask," said Emmett with a shiver. "It's just not done. That would be gross."

Jasper allowed himself to process the idea that a huge, hulking, super strong vampire who wrestled bears before ripping their throats out with his teeth would be squeamish enough to find anything 'gross.' "Well," said Jasper. "He's gone for a few days. That gives you a little time to think of something."

"I'll come up with something," said Emmett. "Just you wait and see."

"Oh, I'll see alright," said Jasper. "You just make sure you have the ten bucks handy."

End of chapter one. Another chapter will be coming at some indeterminate future time. Review if you care.