Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight; neither does my friend who wrote this story.
A/N: My bff Teresa wrote this story and asked me to post in to so I did.
La la la Laurent
I sat up stiffly after about ten minutes of just lying in bed, staring at the ceiling. I stretched my arms, my legs, cracked my neck on both sides, clenched my fingers individually and then simultaneously, swung my leg below the knee back and forth, skimming the floor with the balls of my feet, and then finally getting to my feet. The sudden, albeit not unexpected, rush of dizziness hit me. The room seemed to jerk and I stumbled, putting my hand on the bedpost for balance as I found my footing. The sound of people in the streets, walking and laughing, came drifting through my still closed window as sunlight glittered through the glass. I waved dust out of the air with my hand as I knelt on my bed and pushed my windows open. They had stubbornly refused to move smoothly when I'd oiled them the previous night, and I noticed that there were blots of oil all over the sill and down my wall. The tips of my fingers were also greasy and black. I sighed and rolled off my bed.
I wondered vaguely how long I'd been sleeping. I ticked the hours off on my fingers; it had been about midnight when I'd fallen asleep, and it looked to be about...ten in the morning. I tapped my fingers off on my thumb as I counted the hours; one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight...nine, ten. I ended up with my middle on the pad of my thumb. I'd been sleeping for ten hours, exactly. I realized that I could've figured that out on my own and was glad that no one in the house was there to see me.
Le Havre had nice weather. I had always been fond of the cooler areas of France, and today was particularly mild. Waving my hand to get dust and one particularly durable gnat out of the air, I sneezed. I crossed the room and opened my closet. A brief dispute in my mind made me pull out some dark pants and shoes and a light-colored, lightweight shirt. There was no reason to bundle up on such a gorgeous day.
I lived in a two-story house nuzzled in between two other homes that appeared much younger than mine on Avenue Foch. My entire building was coating in a light blanket of kudzu or other vine-like plants other than the front door, around the windows and nearing and on the roof. Other than that, it did not seem any different that other homes in the city.
I stumbled on my untied shoelaces and caught myself on the wall with both hands. I looked down grimly at my laces, looking back up at me innocently like little black worms and then crouched down to tie them. I fumbled a bit on the small strings before managing them into a tight, yet somewhat lopsided, bow (one loop was twice as large as the other). I tried to fix my mistake by pulling on the loose string of the lace and ended up pulling out the bow. My shoulders sagged; this time I'd just leave the darn things alone, balanced or not.
The cat came in and nuzzled my cheek. Some old female cat had come up to me one day and hadn't left my front door, whilst yowling at the top of her lungs, until I'd let her inside. After that, even if I had seriously considered drop-kicking her over my low wall in front of my home, she'd come back. I'd given up after a few years of this. She remained thin, but in a content sort of way, and happy. Her bright green eyes stared at me. I patted her angular head; she bit down hard on my finger, dull teeth not breaking the skin but feeling like a good strong pinch. I raised my eyebrows at her and tried to pull my finger out of her mouth. She hissed around it and gave it a tug; feed me.
I wrenched my finger out of her teeth before she could tell what was happening and scooped her up in my arm. She settled in the crook of it, entire body trembling with the force of her purrs. She probably felt quite smug. I ran my fingers through her thinning fur across her back. Her purrs rumbled through her sides and back and she pressed her hand into my palm when I scratched him behind the ears.
When I reached the top of the stairs, I dumped her down the stairway, took three steps down, and out both hands on the wall with a considerable amount of force. I swung my feet over the step I was standing on, now kept up singularly by my arms. I gave myself a swing and leaped from the third step up.
Unfortunately, I had miscalculated and landed on the bottom step with a crash. I groaned and felt my ribs to insure that I hadn't broken one. I took a deep breath and massaged my ribcage. The cat came and sat on my chest and started chewing on my fingers. I knocked her off and got to my feet shakily.
After getting myself some coffee, I looked out the window. The woman who lived next door was watering her azaleas; her white-blonde hair was in a braid over her shoulders and her funny blue eyes were intense on the flowers as if staring at the purple and pink blossoms would make them bloom faster. She looked up suddenly and caught me staring. I jumped and slipped over the cat, which had been attempting to claw up my leg without my noticing. I landed on the floor with a crash and groaned. The cat jumped up on my shoulder, then onto the counter, and started lapping the coffee out of my mug. I shooed her off the counter, dumped the coffee out in the sink and set the mug down on the counter. She came over and sniffed the mug, and then meowed in disbelief. I flicked her in the nose, gathered myself up and opened the front door.
She zoomed out before I could step outside. I took the key out of my pocket and locked the door behind me. It was nicely cool this morning and I stretched my arms in the streaming light, coming in through the tall trees in front of me, casting a greenish glow. I looked over; the woman was staring at me, a small smile on her face. I stepped back and hid in the lancet before my door over my porch. I peered out from around the stone and found her still staring; now looking amused. I cleared my throat and stepped out casually, stumbling and then tripping over the cat, which had streaked past me. I landed with a hollow thud on the ground, mercifully shielded by the squat wall between the two houses and her azalea bush. I popped back up and brushed myself off.
We stared at each other for a long moment. Then I said, "Wonderful weather we're having."
Immediately I felt stupid and reminded myself to let the cat claw my hand later. But she smiled and said back, "I like it in the fifties. How are you, Laurent?"
"Good," I replied lamely and shuffled my foot. The cat yowled loudly from the doorway, pawing at the threshold. I ignored her; we both did. "And you?"
"Fine," she sighed and accidentally dropped her watering can. She jumped and ducked under to get it. Then she peered up from the azaleas and turned a bright shade of pink. "Sorry. How did you sleep?"
This was getting extremely awkward. "Alright I guess. I had the cat sitting on me all night..."
"Is that your cat?" she asked.
"Ah, no," I said back, leaning over and scooping her up; she purred. "No, it's not."
She smiled. "I figured not. I saw you trying to kick her over your wall there." She pointed to my wall, and I immediately went red. "I thought you really hated your cat or you didn't own it." She smiled at me, wider this time. "Is there any reason you were spying on me from the confines of your home, Mr. de Revin?"
I cleared my throat when the initial shock of her question wore off. "No. You have, um, lovely...flowers," I finished weakly.
"Flowers?" she laughed.
"I'm going on a walk," I said uncomfortably, and I strutted through the road, avoiding young children racing around, people chasing after the young children racing around, dogs following the people chasing after the young children racing around and some bread carts. I realized nothing until the silence alerted me to the fact that I was no longer in the city and had wandered, not unlike me, into the little woods around us.
As I sat on a rock and thought, I felt that horrible feeling that I was being watched. I looked around and saw nothing. The feeling didn't go away, so I got to my feet and did a full 360 sweep of the area I was in. Something moved, but I figured it was just a squirrel or something.
Out of the blue, something hard and heavy hit me in the back of the head. I fell over with a groan and felt something slash at my back. I rolled over.
A large, brown, thin, furry bear loomed over me. It's great, yellowed teeth were bared at me and puffs of its hot breath made faint clouds in the air. I tried to remember if it was bears you were suppose to play dead at, or if that was alligators. No, defiantly bears; alligators liked dead meat. I quickly flopped to the ground and tried to play dead. The bear poked me and groaned angrily. My heart hammered my chest, but it didn't seem to notice, because it lumbered grumpily away.
However, something smaller than a bear but larger than a squirrel loomed ominously closely to me. I tried to push myself up, but I realized that the bear had hit me hard across the back and drawn blood. I looked around.
Two figured emerged from the shadows of the trees in the bear's wake; the first was a fiery-haired woman with a fancy top and tight pants, the other was an ordinary-looking man with light brown hair. They both had burgundy eyes and had a predatorily look about them.
"Look at what we have here," the man said in a curtly cool voice, circling me with an oddly hungry look in his eyes. I didn't break my gaze with him. "Stop teasing, and let's get this over with, Victoria."
The woman didn't approach me. She was watching from afar. She was exceptionally beautiful in a cruel sort of way. She swept over to the man and practically held him back. She whispered something in his ear, lips moving so quickly they were nearly a blur. I blinked at the speed and wondered if he could understand a word she was saying.
"I'm hungry," the man said, pointing at me; I was trying to edge away while moving as little as possible. "He looks good. Put two and two together."
She nudged him. He lunged like an animal, and then next thing I felt was unimaginable pain beyond any description. I felt myself writhing, but there was something about it that felt pointless. I was going to die if I didn't claw all my nerve endings out first. I didn't know how long I was in pain, but after what could've been years or seconds, I felt it ebbing, and then it was gone completely.
My eyes opened. It was like seeing light for the very first time, except it was dark. I looked around; it was that woman again, and the man. I sat up; it was dark and felt cold. I felt strong, unstoppable and I realized that everything about me felt the same way. I then felt a scratching, powerful thirst in my throat. It was a sort of thirst that water or milk could never quench. I drew myself up to fill height and looked at them. They stared back at me with deep, tawny eyes. And for the first time in a long time, I felt unstoppable.