Subject/Email Header: The Mountain Man Contest

Title: Schrodinger's Cat

Summary: Emmett, while completely comfortable with his sexuality, has not been as lucky with the continual foster families he's been placed in. In a new home with the Cullens, he finds himself heavily attracted to the mysterious youngest sibling. But is everything as it seems?

Pairing: Emmett/Edward

Rating: T

Word Count: 3019

Disclaimer: Twilight and its inclusive material is copyright to Stephenie Meyer. Original creation, including but not limited to plot and characters, is copyright to the respective authors of each story. No copyright infringement is intended.

Schrodinger's Cat

I rested my head against the desk, ignoring the teacher blather on about some sort of biology I'd never need to know about.

It was a new school, a new town, a new home... a new family. Yet another set of news in a long line of olds.

I supposed I should care, but in all honesty, it didn't matter. Before too long I'd be moved again, placed in yet another foster home. It always happened. After all, I'd been transplanted sixteen times in just the last two years, forget about the three years before it.

I also should probably care about the family I was placed with this time, should care about the people who were my foster parents of the moment, and should care about their other children. But I didn't. I couldn't. What was the point?

I could remember back to happier days, back before my parents died, before my sister and I had been separated, and before the first time I'd kissed a boy.

I just had to put up with the constant transitions for another year and a half and then I'd be eighteen and able to look for my sister. I knew Bella, a mere ten months younger than me, had been adopted by a family who'd seen her as a sweet young thing only a couple of short months after we'd been placed with the first foster family.

I honestly wondered how long it had taken them to realize she wasn't the least bit sweet. Between the two of us, the big muscly boy and the slight wisp of a girl, people always assumed I was the troublemaker. But Bella had been the real troublemaker. She'd been shop-lifting and picking pockets from the time she was five, much to our parents' aggravation – especially our cop father. I was an angel in comparison to her, but I still missed her with every breath I took.

Of course, reality was that even if she hadn't been adopted, I'd have probably been separated from her after I'd kissed that boy in my first foster family... or after he'd kissed me. Honestly, I still wasn't sure which of us had started that kiss from four and a half years ago.

The family I was with now was the most... different of any family I'd so far been placed with. All five of them had golden colored eyes, and pictures of their cousins in Alaska showed five women and a guy who all also had the same unique eye color. More interesting still was the fact that all of the people in this family were on 'special diets,' and in the three weeks since I'd been placed with them I hadn't seen any of them so much as touch a stick of celery.

I wasn't completely unfamiliar with diets, I could remember my mom, Renee, on the Jenny Craig diet with the pre-packaged meals which looked seriously unappetizing when compared to the Swanson meals that Bella and I had practically lived on – both mom and dad had been incapable of cooking. At least, that's what she'd been on before dad and she had passed in the car crash in 1991.

Of course, the most suspicious things about the family I was with now were the way they all acted. I rarely saw my foster dad, Carlisle, as he seemed to work twenty-four/seven at the hospital. But I saw the three kids far more often, all of which had supposedly been adopted.

The first of which was the tall 'boy' by the name of Jasper. He was supposedly seventeen, or at least that's what I'd been told, but if someone was to ask me, I'd guess he was in his early twenties – at the youngest. The thing with him was I'd seen him under a bright light a couple of times and each time it looked like he had hundreds of scars on him, but whenever I got close to him, I couldn't see them. Not that I did it often, because any time I was in his presence he appeared to be in pain.

Then there was Alice, supposedly sixteen. She honestly looked like someone had forgotten to tell her we'd made it out of the eighties already. With the vivacious outfits she wore and her bad haircut she seriously looked like one of those people on the covers of exercise video tapes. I was tempted to offer her my hair-cutting skills – horrible though they were, it had to be better than whoever had done it for her.

Finally, there was Edward, also supposedly sixteen. And I couldn't help but want to run my fingers in his messy hair – perhaps smooth it out or mess it up some more, I wasn't sure. The problem was he looked at me at times with contempt and other times as if he could see right through me. It was nerve-wracking in a way that I wasn't quite sure I'd ever be able to explain.

Esme, the foster mom, was another story altogether though. I was sure if my sister was with me she'd tell me that Esme was some sort of modern-day Snow White meets Alice in Wonderland or something. She just had that otherworldly kind of beauty and beyond annoying compassion. I'd never before met someone who had such a need to continually try and feed me, and just mother me in general. Bella would tell me it was endearing, but I almost found it a little disturbing. I just wasn't sure what to do with it.

On top of that, I was almost completely certain she wouldn't act that way if she knew the thoughts I had about her youngest son.

Part of me just wanted to get the revelation over with so I could move on already, let them know I was gay – perhaps by kissing Edward – and let the chips fall the same way they always did. It was too difficult being stuck in a box, neither alive nor dead, just stuck in a stasis of anxiety. I knew they'd find it out eventually. There was no doubt about it. I wasn't good at keeping secrets, too easy and outgoing to be concerned with trying to hide who I was.

Perhaps, if I thought my parents would have cared it would be a different story, but I knew that both Renee and Charlie would have been fine with me being gay. Bella too, wouldn't have cared. But in the last few years, I'd come to realize most weren't near as accepting of it.

Renee had always thought we'd be the first country to legalize same-sex marriage, at least until Denmark had legalized it in 1989, and then she'd assumed we'd be the second. We weren't, because, in 1993, Norway legalized it. Looking back, I almost wondered if my mom hadn't known I was gay before I had. It wouldn't surprise me if she had, she'd always seemed to have a sixth sense about that type of stuff.

Honestly, I sort of doubted it would ever be legalized in the states at this point. I wasn't a little boy anymore, and I was starting to understand right and left wing politics a little too well. There was so much tensity between the two sides with regards to the rights of a person who wasn't a straight god-fearing Christian that I suspected rights for people like me would be something to never occur – at least not in my lifetime.

It wasn't a huge deal though, not now, and not for me. But I was certain that someday my opinion would likely change. My parents had been extremely in love and happy together, and eventually, I would love to share that same passion with someone else.

The bell signaling the end of class, and the end of the day, rang. I shot out of my desk and headed out into the hall so I could get out of school and to the car Jasper drove. I was the last to the car, as I always was, and the instant I reached it all conversation stopped – also a norm. The drive home was silent, which was, yet again, typical.

After we got home they all went their separate ways. Which was to say that Alice and Jasper headed off together – I legitimately suspected they were a couple but had seen no proof of it aside from the fact that they usually did everything together – while Edward went to his room.

I headed to my own room and promptly fell asleep.

…

I woke up to the sound of a heated conversation.

"I don't even get how Alice can see him as being my mate. I've never felt that way about a man before. Besides, he's human, he should live a normal human life." Edward's voice was cold.

"You know what Alice sees happening if we send him away. Another nineteen months of him being passed around, as if a person can help who they love, and then trying to chase down his sister. Alice can't be sure if he'll find her, but we know where she is now, and I can't imagine it would end well if he was successful in finding her. Least of all while he's still human, son."

The words that Carlisle spoke made absolutely no sense to me as I listened while barely breathing.

"Besides, you can't honestly tell me you'll let him go."

There was a noncommittal sound similar to that of a growl.

"I am not gay," the words were more of a snarl than actually spoken.

I flinched, in spite of my best effort to remain as quiet as possible while I listened.

"You aren't straight either. We've never discussed it before, but you know what both Esme and I had suspected for a long time now. Even when I changed Rosalie in hopes she'd make a mate for you, you weren't the slightest bit interested. And we both know she was. She was so upset by your lack of interest that she joined the Denalis. You know that. And of course, there's them as well. Tanya, Irina, and even Kate would all have been more than a little willing to be with you. You never showed the slightest bit of interest in any of them. Perhaps the reason why was because you've always had a different preference."

"Gentlemen of my time were not queers."

"Edward, neither of us are gentlemen and you know it."

"And just what are you?" I asked loudly, not giving my mind a chance to talk myself out of it.

A moment later, Edward appeared in my doorway. "You're supposed to be asleep."

"Perhaps you shouldn't have a shouting match in the hall when my door is open then. I may be a sound sleeper. But I'm not that sound of a sleeper." Bella used to tease me about my snoring, but that was years ago, before I'd learned there was a reason to fear sleeping soundly.

"I was yelling at you that he was awake, Edward," Alice's voice shouted from down the hall.

I looked at him in confusion because I definitely hadn't heard her shouting.

"I was ignoring you, obviously," Edward muttered before he focused back on me. "You should go back to sleep, everything you heard was some sort of dream."

I sat up, crossing my arms over my chest. "I'm not that vivid of a dreamer. And I want to know what's happened to my sister."

Edward pinched the bridge of his nose. "What you're asking... Do you understand that you may not like the answer you find once this box is opened? There's no going back once you know and Schrodinger's Cat is dead more often than it's alive."

"How did you –" I cut myself off, certain I'd find out when he told me everything. "I'm relatively sure there's no going back already if I'm supposed to be your mate – whatever that means – and you're unable to let me go." Often times I was considered to be a dumb lug by most because I chose to not pay attention, but I wasn't. And I knew what I'd heard.

Edward sighed. "What do you remember of the family who adopted your sister."

My brow furrowed, completely mystified by the direction of his question about my sister. "Average dude who I think was named James and a woman with vividly red hair."

"That's right, his name was James, and the woman with him was Victoria. They were both like my family here, though a bit different. James saw himself as both a hunter and a collector, and to my kind, your sister was a very appealing vintage."

I grabbed onto a key word in his convoluted conversation. "What do you mean was?"

"I'm explaining this badly. I should start from the beginning. My sister, Alice, can see the future. Though rarely does she latch onto humans, but she started seeing both you and your sister shortly before your parents were killed. At the time none of us understood why, least of all her. When we saw the two decide to adopt your sister, we originally thought that it was because of your sister that she was having the visions. We were going to intervene, but your sister... her story would have been worse than it already is had we gotten involved. Jasper and I –" he shook his head "– one of us would have succumbed to temptation for sure and your sister wouldn't have survived.

"But Alice's visions continued even after we decided against interfering. Even after your sister's fate was written in stone. It took us time to realize that it was as much about you as her and now... here we are."

"What fate? And where is here?" I wasn't my mom and I didn't believe in the impossible, which seeing the future fell in that category just as much as fate did. It made me tempted to get up and punch him. He wasn't making any sense.

"I won't stop you if you really want to punch me, but I should warn you that all it will do is end with you having a broken hand."

"How –"

"I apologize, I'm in unfamiliar territory with you and it's making me explain everything to you in a less than ideal order, I'm sure. In a similar fashion to how Alice can see the future, I can read minds. Though I will admit, I can only read your thoughts to a certain degree of success, which is different than most people. That's how I knew you wanted to punch me, of course. As well as how I knew about your cat analogy. And Jasper, who you've often thought was in pain, it's because he is. He's an empath and he feels your fear and anxiety any time you are near him.

"But none of our gifts truly answers what you're asking. As to what I am, what James and Victoria were, and what your sister now is... We're vampires."

I shot off the bed. "There's no such thing!"

"I assure you, we are very real," he said, only he was suddenly directly in front of me instead of twelve feet away.

I blinked, taking a step back.

"And now you believe me –" he looked saddened "– The vampire who took your sister was saving her until her blood was at it's most potent. Usually, that's about nineteen or twenty, though it's different for everyone. He would have killed her then, but he was garnering too much attention and so the guard of our ruling vampires went after him just a few months ago. They killed him and Victoria as well. I'm sure they would have killed your sister too, except she was able to block Jane's gift. Her gift, visible as even a human, prompted them to take her back to Italy with them and she was turned. She is... well taken care of where she's at."

I swallowed, tempted to pinch myself and see if I actually was dreaming. "And you kill humans too." It wasn't a question, his talk of succumbing to my sister left me with virtually no doubt to it.

"No!" He sounded horrified. "My family and I are what we casually refer to as vegetarians, which is to say that we feed on animals instead of humans. But there are some humans, and your sister was one of them, whose blood smells far more potent than most – and it's hard enough to resist normal humans." He reached out and touched my cheek, his skin extremely cold. "I assure you, this isn't a dream, and you are safe here. I will never hurt you – none of my family will."

"Because I'm your mate," I confirmed.

There was torture in his eyes when he replied, "Yes."

"And that disgusts you." I wanted to step farther back from him but there was no room for me to do so.

"Not in the way you are thinking. It isn't because of your sex. In spite of what I said to my father and my own upbringing, this has practically nothing to do with finding out I am gay. But you're human, and the inevitability of what it will mean... This is not something I'd wish on any human."

"What do you mean?"

He shook his head, not replying.

Suddenly, a line Carlisle had said made a strange amount of sense. "I have to become a vampire."

He flinched but uttered, "At some point, yes."

"But you're alright with this? Us?"

I didn't have any warning before he leaned forward and his lips touched mine for the briefest of a second. "Yes." He was gone from my room before I could blink.

I fell back on my bed.