A Vampire's Failure To Launch
By: Mackenzie Leigh Hauntelle
Summary: For professional interventionist Bella Swan, getting a guy out of his parents' house is simple. So how different would it be for a 107-year-old vampire with a tortured soul?
Author's Note: I'm going to be really brief. Okay. Here goes.
#1: Yes, this story is based from the movie "Failure To Launch" starring Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew McConaughey.
#2: Yes, Edward, Carlisle and Esme, Emmett, and Jasper are all vampires. No, Bella, Rosalie, and Alice are not.
#3: No, this is not a cheap rip-off (but I'll leave that all to you). A good writer once wrote that even if your plot isn't completely original, and that similar stuffs have been written over and over again, yours would still be different because you made it and it's got your own trademark.
#4: No, you don't need to watch the movie to get anything here.
#5: I wrote this because my 12-year-old I-don't-think-he's-gay-he's-just-a-really-sensitive-type-of-guy brother Lyle is a big fan of this movie. This one's for you, you big cheese loser. :)
Disclaimer: I do own Twilight and Failure to Launch. See you all in court!
Chapter 1
Esme
My mother never dreamed for me to marry a doctor, much less a brilliant surgeon.
I've been married to Carlisle for almost a century now, but my teenage farm girl crush never really faded over time.
I mean, I still stagger for enough air (not that I actually need any, in the first place) every time we'd be close to each other.
Though, I can't say we have so much time to be alone. For one thing, his brilliant mind is constantly being demanded in the hospital. For another, our 107-year-old melancholic son Edward still lives with us.
So when Carlisle asked me if I wanted to go hunting with him today, I cheerfully jumped to the idea. Even if that meant him seeing me in my most vicious and uncontrolled state, not to mention unpleasant appearance.
I fed quickly, afterwards, fixed myself up a bit. I combed my hair, changed my clothes, and pouted as I put on my baby pink lipstick. I spotted him a few hundred trees away and snuck up behind him as he was finishing on his meal.
He let out a low growl shortly, eyes closed.
"That was sexy," I said in my most seductive voice.
He opened his very light topaz eyes and flashed a seductive smile back. Blood still trickled down his lower lip and I bent down to lick it away.
"No, that was sexy," he whispered as he led me to a clearing where the rest was history.
The rare sunny Forks sky began to darken, rain clouds were forming in the late Saturday afternoon. The forest was absolutely peaceful. It would've been more perfect if there were birds chirping in their nests. But the action earlier probably drove them away.
"That was beautiful," Carlisle sighed, and gave me an innocent kiss on my forehead.
I smiled teasingly, "Yeah but you soiled my shirt."
"Well you tore off my favorite blue polo. I say we're even," he cooed.
"So you're saying," I sat up on the bed of wild flowers, "that we're going back to the house with a big mud stain on my shirt and you topless. What in the world will Edward say?"
He removed a stray branch from my messy curls. "I don't know why you care so much what our son thinks of us. It's only understandable that we get a little cozy sometimes."
"I just feel uneasy doing these things at home. Carlisle, he reads minds, for God's sake!"
"It's his gift."
"It's annoying," I mumbled under my breath.
"Okay. I see your point there. But where are you going with all these?"
I was secretly glad deep inside. He took the bait ... erm hint. I tried to keep my poker face up.
"I'm saying we get a professional help. An expert interventionist. I'd overheard Mrs. Newton and Mrs. Stanley talk in the supermarket yesterday. Apparently, the chief's daughter has an incredible secret talent."
"Are you saying that she could possibly be behind Mike's moving out of his parents' home?" he sounded interested, at the very least.
I wanted to scream yes and beg him desperately to hire the young Swan girl by now.
"I can't argue with the whole Edward still not moving thing. I mean, he's 100 and 7 years old. It's about time. Why couldn't he have had it easy like ..." he began to wonder aloud.
"You and me," I suggested quietly, "Just think, honey, once we get Edward out of the house, it would be just you and me. We don't have to wait for Saturday huntings just to be a couple."
Carlisle looked like he was relishing the thought.
"Call her tomorrow," he begged, lust covered his angelic voice.
"Will do," I moaned, mad with pleasure.
Edward
I sure hope Carlisle stops thinking about what had happened earlier ... I know I can't.
God no.
That was way too fantastic. Esme will always have it going on.
I think I just swallowed my tongue.
Oh no. I can't look at his face. That smile's bound to give us away.
Are you kidding, mother?
There's the house. I wonder if Esme...
Slide thought. Slide.
Double oh no. I'm sure Edward can hear us from here now. Edward Cullen, this is your mother speaking ... in her head. Stop listening to two adults talking.
Whoah. She's good.
I rushed over to the couch in the living room, lounging about, trying to clear my head from all that adult content.
I'd spent more than a hundred years of my life knowing that it's never a good idea to eavesdrop. But I don't see any way out of this.
A knock came from the door sooner than I'd hoped it would. Carlisle and Esme shuffled in the door, my topless father with his hands all over my mud-stained mother (for once). Esme was too ashamed for her own good, whereas Carlisle gave me a wink before they dashed up the stairs.
I heard the bedroom door slam shut.
I felt like it was 1922 all over again. I was that same teenage kid trying to block out those sounds he heard coming from his parents' bedroom door.
I left the house with my Debussy-filled Ipod. I was in no mood to go out hunting.
It's not like I was terrified of finding Esme's stray lingerie or Carlisle's heart-patterned boxers high up in one of the trees. Although that would scare the crap out of me, for sure.
I just didn't like the way I was living my eternity of damnation. I had nothing better to do than to pretend like I was a 21-year-old medical intern in Forks Hospital. All I ever did with my time was read and hunt, listen to some music and hunt, play the piano, watch TV, then hunt-and it gets really lonely sometimes.
Okay so I am lonely. And what's worse is that I don't really know why. I don't know what I want to do with my life.
Living in my parents' house was not a choice. So I could always get my own place, but I was always haunted with thoughts of getting more lonely than I am today. Having nobody to talk to. I am still, more or less, a social creature. Despite my vampire-ness.
All the contradictions were killing me inside.
There was simply no way out of this eternity-worth of a mess.
Bella
"Wake up, sleepy head," were the first words I'd heard when I woke up that morning.
It was a Sunday morning. And judging by the amount of sunlight coming from the small glass-paned window, I'd say my dad Charlie might've gone fishing for the day.
"What time is it?" I croaked.
"7.30. But I woke up at around 5 because of all the weird things Rose was pulling," Alice whispered, trying to keep her squeaky voice low.
Rosalie sighed from across the room, sitting on her meditation mat in a position she calls the "Lotus Bud".
"It's called meditation yoga. It's to keep myself from going mad after hearing your Tweety-Bird-like of a voice every single day," she said in a perfectly calm mask.
"Eh ... it's not going to keep you in shape, Rosie. You're supposed to learn all those positions in the manual-but you're all too worried about getting wet and stinky!" Alice tattled.
But this time, Rosalie just let her childish remarks pass with a deep breath of serenity, and we let her do her thing.
"So really, I just wanted to congratulate you on another job well done," Alice smiled and reached both her hands for mine and shook them several times, "Mike got the boot and kicked himself out of the Newton's house last night. Or so I'd heard."
Okay, so here Alice was referring to another successful work day. The end of the intended 2-week program that I'd formulated myself (thanks to the numerous researches and self-studies I'd done) that had never ever failed.
I am what you might call professional interventionist. I simply 'intervene' a 20's to 30's something guy who's in the state of what I like to call 'Failure to Launch'. It means he still hasn't moved out of his parents' house or gotten a life of his own.
But seriously, don't ask me how I got started. It's not a pretty picture.
"How do you do it, Bella?" Rosalie said, interest tainted her voice. She was rolling her mat and taking a seat at the foot of my bed.
"Well," I looked smug already early in the morning, "you just fish out for some information from your employer, aka, his mom and dad. You learn about those things even if they're extremely boring. And then you pretend to like them if they ask you."
"Just like that?" Alice giggled.
"No ... secret weapon? Sex, per say?" Rosalie suggested with utmost doubts.
I was exasperated with the thought of it. Having sex with my clients would seem so unprofessional ... and cheap of me. I mean, as soon as Rose had brought it up, a powerpoint flickered in my head automatically. It documented all the clients I'd had, their pictures, their profiles ...
Rosalie and Alice only knew half of my clients. The better half-but even that cracked them up.
I shivered instinctively. "No."
"Well I'll take whatever Bella's just said. She tops her Anthropology and Psychology classes so it comes in to no surprise. Congratulations again!" she beamed at me, but only half-heartedly.
I knew that look, and apparently, Rose did too. She scoffed.
"Yes Alice, I'll treat you both for Sunday brunch in Port Angeles," I rolled my eyes.
"Great. I'll drive," she jumped out of my bed enthusiastically and bounded into the bathroom.
"It's the least she can do," Rosalie yawned, "I can chip in if you want to."
"Thanks but no thanks, Rosie. I got this one," I smiled at her confidently.
"Riiight. 'Coz you're just so rich now, huh? I wonder how much Mr. and Mrs. Newton paid you exactly. Or worse," she let out a sarcastic gasp, "how much you demanded them for your pricey services!"
I'd decided to come home to Forks for spring break with my two best friends Alice Brandon and Rosalie Hale.
Our original plan was a vacation at Cancun, Mexico, but everyone in school was headed there. By the time we'd raised enough money, either the plane tickets were all sold out or all the cheap hotels were fully booked.
I also wanted to give my dad a visit. He's the chief police of Forks-the town that spells bad business. See when you're trying to run a business like mine in a small town, word gets out fast. And my father has absolutely no idea what type of career path his daughter's just taken up that made her quickly financially dependent.
"What are you looking at me like that for?" Alice asked with a haughty expression on her face.
Rosalie and I just stared at her dumbfounded in her mini baby blue tube dress and tiny white shorts. She even had Dolce and Gabbana shades on her micro face.
"You stupid girl. We're in the Olympic Peninsula. Translation: the wettest place in continental U.S.," Rosalie scolded.
"But it looks so nice outside!" Alice pointed to the sunshine outside in her defense.
"Yeah and in a day like this in Arizona, it would be like, rainy in 10 seconds!" Rose countered.
"Whoah, here comes Little Miss Sunshine's evil twin sister. Look out!" Alice faked a frightened expression.
I grabbed their arms and led them out of the house. Alice insisted I'd take the front passenger seat and Rosalie happily took her spacy place at the back of the car.
Mum mum mum mah. Mum mum mum mah. I wanna hold 'em like they do in Texas place ...
"Oh my God!" Rosalie rolled with laughter at the back and I couldn't help but join her.
Lately, Alice has been listening to a lot of Lady Gaga's, in addition to her eternal devotion to 80's and 90's pop songs and new waves from Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, Sheena Easton, and Roxette to name a few.
"It's actually a very good song," Alice didn't sound in the least discouraged. "Can't read my, can't read my, no he can't read my poker face..."
I pretended to admire the view outside my window and mumbled real low, "She's got to love nobody."
Author's Note: And that's it for the first chapter. Let me know what you think.
And would it really hurt to drop a short and helpful review on the way out? You know I'm crossing my fingers!