I haven't written anything in ages, thanks to a combination of apathy and overwork, so it feels really weird to actually start writing fic once more. And I have to admit, this kinda skirts being original fic more than fanfic, thanks to the fact that I'm writing about (1) a canon character whose personality we barely know about (Renesmee) and (2) an original character who commits the cardinal Gary Stu crime of being a son of canon characters. Still, I had a lot of fun reading Breaking Dawn and I'm actually really interested in just how amazingly screwed up Renesmee would realistically be from growing up to adulthood in a really short amount of time-- and how she could inevitably rebel against her ungodly perfect parents. Add that into my steady diet of murder-mystery series and-- wham. I come up with the idea of casting the vampires of Twilight in a neo-noir fic that takes it cues from the Anita Blake series and Pushing Daisies tv show, as much as from anything else. So we get this crazy cocktail of ideas... and we'll see what happens from here!

And believe me, reviews are always appreciated. Please please please review if you want more of this series-- I'm apt to let real life and graduate school swallow me up otherwise!

Title: Joining the Choir Invisible
Fandom: Twilight
Characters/Pairings: Renesmee/OC, Jacob, Leah, Bella/Edward, Cullens, etc.
Rating: R
Summary: She's a half-vampire quasi-telepath who really likes breaking things. He's a half-werewolf half-fairy reanimator who can bring people back from the dead. Together, they fight crime! Or... something like that. A mad hybrid of the worlds of Twilight, Anita Blake and Pushing Daisies.
Note: Slight AU of Breaking Dawn here. The view's much darker and Jacob never imprinted on Renesmee. Otherwise, we wouldn't have her lovely partner over here.

"I really hate," she began their case by muttering bitterly, "nights where we have to actually encounter dead things that are all cut up."

Somewhere behind her came a loud scoff that was, on the whole, about as sarcastic and unbelieving as any scoff could be. "Says the girl who's half-way to being dead herself and actually doesn't have to be the one poking and prodding at them. That's like having Boris Karloff complain about having to deal with coffins. I'm not really sure how you've got room to complain on this one."

She leveled a surprisingly pithy glare at him from beneath her cherry-red bangs, hands already settling firmly on her widely curved hips. It was the sort of glare that could emasculate most men at a distance of thirty feet but didn't seem to bother him at all. "Oh yeah. That's real sensitive of you, Parn. Why don't you go and make some jokes about burning cigarettes in England to some gay men? That'd be just as sensitive overall."

She couldn't quite see his eyes right now but she imagined, from the angle of his neck and his resultant sigh, that he was probably rolling them in exasperation. "Yes, yes, there I go again, being all insensitive to Undead Americans--"

"We prefer reanimated, thanks."

"Reanimated Americans, then. But seriously, you're not the one who has to touch them to get them to spring back to life, or run after them if they decide to get away before their free minute's over."

"Though," the half-vampire pointed out, "I am the one who might end up going to the great Pie Hole in the sky if you don't send them back to death again after a minute. So it's not like I'm getting the best deal right now."

"I dunno," he muttered back, sounding dubious. "Did we ever find out if a human's life could be swapped for a half-vampire's? It could be that I'll be the one in trouble if any of our fang-bangers actually run away. But in any case, you're not the one who has to get all touchy feely on them once they're actual corpsicles. And bitching about having to find dead things-- when your parents qualify as that much, natch-- is really strange considering our line of work."

"Our line of work?" she muttered morosely. "Running a two-bit detective agency catering to supernatural sadists of all stripes and shades, who want to know what happened to their latest human chew-toy?"

Now it was his time to scoff, as he knelt down and carefully turned over the corpse, being sure not to let his bare flesh actually touch the skin of the victim. "Hey, after all the time and effort we put into this operation, it's at least a three-bit shindig by now. Our clientèle's expanded since the early years. And come on-- you've got to admit there's a certain sense of style to this whole business."

Her mouth curved up slightly at that, revealing the unnatural sharp teeth hidden beneath the petal-pink lips. "A certain sense of style? Is that my cue to tell you that, ooh baby, the way you reanimate the dead really gets to me?"

He couldn't help his laugh, even as he slipped his white medical gloves on and probed at the slightly parted lips of the corpse he was crouched next to. "Sasquatch, the sooner you realize how sexy raising the dead is, the better. But until then, you might want to hand me the pliers."

Curious despite herself, his partner did so, edging warily around his body to take a closer look at the almost skeletally thin murder victim as she did so. "Think she's about to bite?"

He waved an airy hand at her, even as he let rigor mortis help him in his struggle to open up the corpse's mouth. "Wouldn't you, if you were a full-fledged vampire and the last thing you saw before you were killed was what had to be a lot of red-hot pokers? Jesus, we were lucky there was enough left to the body to leave a head. As it is, I'm just hoping it doesn't come after me like Satan's little Jack-in-the-box. And I'd really prefer that it not have teeth that could make mince-meat out of little ol' mostly human me."

She made a non-committal noise as she proceeded to fish the pliers out of her medical supplies bag and hand it to him. "Makes sense, though even calling you mostly human's a stretch. And that's the third time we've had to use pliers this week. Things are getting pretty nasty in New York, aren't they?"

"Yeah," he murmured, already getting to work with his morbid insurance policy. "But then again, in a world like ours, when don't they?"

And with a sigh, Renesmee Carlie Cullen looked away from Parnel Jacob Black-- her friend, her partner, her adversary, her evil twin, and the one person whose mother had likely been as high as her own when naming him.

"That," she finally muttered, "is a damn good question."

A couple of quick notes:

1. Renesmee did not get imprinted on as a child and would likely belt anyone who tried it on her now that she's an adult. Free will's an issue that gets her... prickly.

2. More will definitely be introduced about Parnel, whose mother (for the record) was pretty high when she named him such a froo-froo name and wasn't exactly... human either. His power functions quite like the protagonist's on Pushing Daisies. He can raise the dead with a touch but another one will send them back to being dead forever. And if he doesn't send them back to being dead in another minute, someone else will die in their stead.

3. Edward, Bella and the rest of the older generation will definitely be integral to the story, and you'll understand just why Nessie and Parn have disassociated themselves from them eventually...

4. Did I mention how much I'd appreciate comments and constructive criticism here? ;)