AN: This takes place midway through New Moon, when Jacob comes to visit Bella after he changes.
Virgin Sacrifice
You have seen that look before. Jacob Black is standing in your bedroom, without a shirt, without his beautiful long hair, and he is giving you a look that you know very well.
It's the look that says I am leaving and I am never coming back.
Oh yes, you know that look very well.
It's the look that makes all protests die in your throat. Because Jacob Black is about to leave you, and there is nothing you can do to stop him. You possess nothing that can make him stay.
"I can't stay long Bella. I just came to say… to say goodbye I guess." Jacob Black, your best friend, the only reason you're still breathing, rubs the back of his neck and refuses to look at you.
You see the tattoo on his arm, some type of tribal shield, and you know you just know that this is all Sam's fault. You don't know how, but you do know that somehow, some way, Sam Uley has convinced your Jacob to leave you behind.
Somehow Sam Uley has convinced Jacob that you aren't good enough to be kept around.
The thought makes you want to scream. You can feel the hot pressure building up behind your eyes, you can feel stomach acid climbing up the back of your throat, and you can feel your heart crumbling just a little bit more.
"Sam's making you do this, isn't he?" You can barely hear your own voice, but somehow Jacob can hear you, and his gaze snaps back up to yours and his eyes… they aren't full of sun like they should be. His stare is hot and angry. "What has he done to you Jake?"
Jacob snarls, "Nothing! Sam has done nothing but help me," he looks away again, "He helped me. Helped me see the truth, see the real world. Helped me realize what…" Jacob lets the end of the sentence drop and suddenly the room is freezing cold and you are freezing cold and everything is wrong.
"Everything is different now."
The words shatter the silence, and you can feel little bits of you breaking off. "Jake, Jake please," your voice is weak, "Tell me what I can do. Tell me how I can help you, tell me what I can do to make it right." You have no control over your tears, and they fall fast and hot. "What can I do, Jake? What can I give you?"
Jacob's body erupts in spasms and he starts breathing heavily. "What can you do? To help me?" His laugh is harsh and too loud, almost hysterical. His eyes are bright, crazed. "You can't do anything for me, Bella. You have nothing to give. You gave everything you have, everything I want, to him."
The world stops. Only his words exist, and all you can see is them, those words.
You can't do anything for me, Bella. You have nothing to give. You gave everything you have, everything I want, to him.
You want to deny. You want to tell him that he has no idea what he's talking about.
But it's true, what he said. You have nothing left to give. You gave it all to him, to Edward Cullen. Everything you had, you gave to him.
You can't do anything for me, Bella. You have nothing to give. You gave everything you have, everything I want, to him.
You don't know how Jacob knows, you don't know how he found out, but somehow he knows the truth. Somehow, Jacob knows that you are nothing, that you have nothing left.
You clutch blindly for the bedpost, because you can feel yourself going down and the last thing you want, the last thing you need is to collapse like a puppet whose strings have been cut.
Slowly you come to the realization that Jacob is still talking. "…things could be different, I wish that things could be different, that we could just be Jake and Bells, just hang out without pulling dangerous stunts. I wish that I could introduce you to my favorite bands, and that I could take you to a concert, and that you wouldn't flinch whenever I touch you. But mostly I just wish that you could love me the way I love you, the way I've always loved you…"
He's pacing and pulling at his short-cropped hair, and he's grinding his teeth, and he's not even really talking to you anymore. Really he's just muttering to the universe, talking to the room of your childhood summers. Really he's not talking to you anymore, he's just talking to the rain and to the wind and to the sky.
But still…
How many times have you wished for all of the same things that he has? How many times have you wished that things between the two of you could just be as easy as breathing? How many times have you wished that you could love him as much as he loves you?
Too many times to count.
"… And I wish that I could just keep waiting around. I wish that we still had all the time in the world, but Bella, we don't. We don't have all the time in the world, and I can't just wait around for you to love me, and I can't keep believing that someday, someday you'll realize that you still have plenty left to give. I can't do this anymore because now I know, now I know that you've already given everything you had, and now I know that you'll never be able to… able to…"
He falls silent, and now his shoulders shake with something more natural: sadness. Your shoulders shake too, and tears drip off of the end of your nose and chin and settle on the collar of your shirt.
You can't do anything for me, Bella. You have nothing to give. You gave everything you have, everything I want, to him.
It's true. Everything Jacob Black has said tonight is true. Except…
Except you didn't give everything to Edward Cullen. There was always one thing that you never gave, and that he never asked for. There is one thing that Jacob wants that you still have.
Slowly you pull yourself up. Unsteadily you walk to where he stands crying; both of you are crying.
You place your hand on his cheek (he's so much taller than you, always has been) and you bring his face down to yours.
And then you kiss him.
(And the hole in your chest where Edward took out your heart twinges, but you shove that pain aside because it is nothing, nothing compared to what losing Jacob would feel like.)
The kiss is salty from tears, and bitter from all of the words you both have said, but in it is everything you have left.
He pulls away first and tries to turn away, but you hold him in place, resting your forehead against his. He needs to know. Jacob Black needs to know that you still have something left, and that you will give it to him because you know it means that he will stay.
"Jacob," you say, "Jacob. I didn't give him everything. I didn't. Because not everything belonged to him. One thing… one thing was mine to keep. And now…" You take a deep breath, "I love you Jacob Black. And I want you. I want you, and I want you to want me, and I want you to stay with me. I never want to let you go, Jacob I want—"
Nothing more needs to be said, and so you say nothing else, and neither does he.
Instead you do. You touch and you taste and you give and you take and that is all that needs to be done.
It happens quietly, breathily, because neither of you want to wake up Charlie. His hands paint fire down your sides and you touch as much of him as you can, because that is how these things go, how they have always gone. He worships your every curve, and you in turn try to lose yourself in his movements.
Losing your virginity only happens once in a lifetime after all.
Afterwards, after he has kissed every inch of you, buried himself deep inside of you, and taken the one part of yourself you never gave to Edward, you lie sweaty and tangled up in each other. He snores quietly, his enormous hands resting on your back, his legs curled around yours.
Your hair is plastered in damp clumps to your forehead and neck. The salty moisture covering your body is partly sweat and partly tears. There's a small bloodstain on your sheets.
You lay against Jacob Black's massive body, on the bed in your father's house, and you contemplate your situation.
It is, you muse, rather like the ancient Greek myths about virgin sacrifices. You sacrificed your virginity and joined the likes of Macaria, Iphigenia, and Polyxena. This isn't, you convince yourself, like the situations teachers warned you against in eighth grade health class. You aren't one of those girls who gives a guy sex because she's afraid of him, or afraid of losing him. Instead, you gave Jacob the one thing you had left, your body, so that he would be safe. You gave him your body and your virginity to keep him out of harms way.
Through the gauzy curtains that flutter around the open window you can see the sun start to rise. The weak sunlight's beams bounce around your room and ignite the sheen on your naked skin, making it look like you and Jake are sparkling.
You look at him, at his body, and you remember all of those times you wished that you could love him the way he loved you. You remember wishing that things could be easy as breathing between the two of you, and you remember wanting to give him everything he ever wanted.
You still want those things.
Beneath and beside you he stirs and blinks, as though trying to shake off a dream. When his eyes catch yours they sparkle and light up, just like they used to.
"I love you," he says.
"I love you," you echo, and then you say it again. You repeat it over and over, as you slide against him and feel him all around you. "I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you."
You say them over and over again because you know that if you repeat it enough, eventually it will become truth.