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CHAPTER TEN: Interrogative Complications

I got maybe four hours of intermittent sleep that night. I freely admit to being morbidly hooked, like a kid staring at roadkill or those people who listen in on their neighbor's messy gin-fueled divorces. Just couldn't walk away from this, no way.

I threw the coverlet off as often as I dragged myself to the end of the bed to pull it back up, at once too hot and then way too cold. I wanted to jerk off, settle my nerves, but suspected 'pale heat' had been a description of me, of skin and the visceral act of redestruction. Every time my hand sank down my front, the senses rebelled, shouted SOUR WINE BREATH and BLOOD ON YOUR FACE, and my dick would shrivel back like a frightened sea creature.

I so did not look forward to the therapy I'd need when I hit middle age and this shit was still affecting me.

Woke up before Charlie Sr. and made a fresh pot of coffee with the honest intent to drink it. Adding creamer didn't help the ache in my gut, and I slumped over the kitchen table to nap against the cool metal surface before good ol' Sheriff descended to ask after my health. I gave him a thumbs-up and replaced my tired bones to the couch, grunting in answer when he attempted further communication before leaving. The house settled into early morning stillness, coffee machine percolating conversationally from the kitchen.

My eyes popped open.

Wait a minute. Wait just a goddamn minute. Why hadn't anyone bothered me about the Sadie Hawkins or Baskin Robbins or whatthefuckever dance? That shit ain't right. The announcement had only been yesterday, but still. Mr. Tall-Cold-and-Pretty got held back in the halls by requests while I didn't get so much as a phonecall? Laaame. I stirred and prepared to leave, planning a nap in my truck until first bell (or all day, depending on how comfy I got); and do I even have to tell you? Edward's car was in the drive, headlights dimmed.

"So how long am I under probation?" My voice is doing that sexy had-a-rough-night scratchy thing, like I'd spent the evening chain-smoking in a bar instead of boxing my own pillows and kicking at the mattress.

"Good morning, Bernardo. Not much sleep, I take it?"

I'm fishing around the side of the seat for the recline lever, backpack dropped haphazard at my feet. "What was your first clue?" I gave up probing around the unfamiliar vehicle and buckled the seatbelt with a yawn.

"Circles under your eyes."

"Rhetorical question there, pal." I groaned, laying my head back. He had the heat on full-blast and the warmth sank straight to my bones. "So how long are we going to do this babysitter deal?"

"We can take your truck this weekend if it'll make you feel any better."

"Mmm, I love the smell of compromise in the morning." There was no answer, either nothing more to say or the merciful act of Letting Me Sleep. I had just nodded off to the rhythmic pass of road under tires when the car swiveled and lurched to a halt with Edward's signature parking finesse. That kind of black-out sleep - when you can't even tell any time has passed - that's the worst. I didn't think I was going to make it past second period.

Edward was resting one arm against the steering wheel, half-turned like that day in my kitchen. I was too strung out to give a flying fuck whether or not he was staring at me, but he smiled really small and accidental like and my mouth responded the same, without my fucking permission. "So hey, what do vampires do when everyone else is sleeping?" It was an awkward question but c'mon, I'm only firing on three cylinders here.

"Currently, I am studying medicine. You'd have to ask the others what they get up to."

I frown, stretch an arm up behind my head as a pillow. "Kinda wanna know about that, about your family." I blink, rubbing my face before disrupting the whole comfortable setup to lean forward and dial the heat down. The seatbelt goes off, as does the jacket. It's still forty minutes until first bell, so says the dashboard clock. "Like the whole parent-sibling thing. And I guess I got that Alice isn't 'one of Carlisle's', or wait, how does that even work?"

He holds a loose hand up, not exactly a military HALT but more like a conductor telling the strings to take it easy and the brass to just shut the fuck up because nobody could hear the percussion. (What, I'm cultured, shutup.) "I'll tell you, but not until this weekend. I think you owe me a few answers first."

Dude you guys I am so tired I don't even fucking bother to argue I just stare blankly like dear GOD I could be passed out in the nurse's office by now. I just. I don't even. I think I'm gonna weep, because it's not like he's even putting out for any of this shit.

"Why did you move to Forks?"

"...Heh. Yeah, all right, you deserve to know. Sure." Deep breath in, too much gravity in the air. "So, back at my old school, there was a new T.A. in the art department. One day he gets put into the hospital by Nate, who is a friend 'a mine. Nate goes to jail for this, reasonably enough, having been busted for the meth they found in his locker." I wince. "Nobody was really surprised about that, guy's a crazy punk. But there was an investigation as to how a T.A. got involved in the fight, whether it was the drug thing or not. They didn't exactly handcuff him to the hospital bed, but he was given a court date."

"So you factor into this with, what, guilt by association?"

"No, see, the real reason for the fight, see, was this dumb rumor that the new T.A was fucking Nathan's boyfriend."

Thunderous silence.

I plow ahead, wringing tinnitus out of one ear with a pinky. "It was really moreso for the benefit of Nate's inherent need to involve himself in crazy shit than it was anything really, y'know, between him and me. And Gordon never asked to get involved and it was, ah, stupid and my fault entirely." I kick the dash lightly, resting chin on knee.

"And did this T.A. of yours actually sleep with his student?"

"Man, don't even fucking start with me. That 'T.A. of mine' had a name, a life. Gordon got the shit kicked out of him, lost his job, was publicly humiliated; all I had to deal with was one irate maternal figure and exile to Sticksville."

He's not looking at ME, he's trying to look INSIDE of me. "But you're just - "

"Just what?" I am one fucking stunned Bernardo Swan is what I am. "I haven't been 'a kid' since, ooh, let's see, my fourteenth year. Second year of summer camp, if you're really curious." I have no trouble finding my way out of Edward Cullen's car, filled with the bitter kind of energy like so much coffee and anger. "Y'know the term 'teenager' was nonexistent before the fifties. Back then I would have simply been a young adult," I lean down to hiss from the open door. "But of course they'd have killed Gordon. Strung him up in the fucking square!" Wired strength slams the door with an unsatisfying clunk, damn those noiseless new models.

"What do you mean?" Oh yeah, so now Mr. foot-and-a-half-personal-space decides to walk close? Fuck that.

"I mean that it's different for us, Edward!" I shove against his hard stomach, doing more to push myself away than actually budge the supernatural pain-in-my-ass. "Or maybe they'd have shipped me to a fucking mental bin instead, you think? Jesus fucking Christ, we have the obligation to take care of each other! It's not as bad now as it was back then, sure, but Gordon wasn't even Out yet and - " I laugh, breathless. "And you probably have no idea what I'm talking about, you poor lifeless fuck."

The parking lot is filling up, and I guess Edward doesn't want to 'make a scene' (if I may be SO married couple here for a moment) because he doesn't respond or really move. I mean at this point I'm not gonna keep my voice down. I mean really. Ffffff.

A fine mist cools our stand-off before the sky breaks open in an icy deluge. A few early classmates dart past but I let it soak in a moment, dousing my anger. Edward just grows devastatingly sexier in the rain, eyes shadowed under a pinched brow.

I blink, the sidewalk drags under my feet and the rain is blocked out; he had grasped my shoulders and pushed me back so skillfully to the shelter of the overhang that I didn't even have room to get angry (angrier) in the face of surprise. "If your next move isn't to kiss me, I'm gonna sock you." I hiss under my breath and give him to the count of ten to just stand there and stare at me, then I shrug his grip off and punch him in the arm. I'm too tired to put any zest into the swing, and sway against a gum-spotted brick pillar to listen to the rain fall.

Didn't give a fuck if he left or stayed.

"What's your favorite color?" The question was hesitant and far away, and I almost thought I had dreamed it up in the few moments of shut-eye.

"Dude, that is the worst question. I work with colors; I don't choose favorites."

"All right." A small laugh. "Your most favored in a specific category."

"The bright orange crayon labeled 'macaroni and cheese'." I look up and cross my arms over the heavy fabric of my jacket, hugging it to my chest in the disguise of simply hanging on. Casual like. I can wield body language like it ain't no thang, having become the proverbial waterbuffalo in the African bush waving his proverbial ears in proverbial fucking defense.

"Why that one?"

"Fuck man, I don't know. It's the only one my dog didn't eat when I was a kid. What's your favorite color?"

"Nevermind that." Ah yes, Edward being taciturn assured me this wasn't some bizarre latent-coma dream. "I think it's fair if I ask the questions for today. You had a dog?"

"No; I had an appetite for brightly colored things at the age of four, like literally. They serve breakfast in the cafe at this school?"

"I believe so."

"Excellent. I'll buy you a bagel - er. I'll. Nevermind." I could tell him to his face I wanna suck him off without a flinch, but one misstep about his fucking diet and suddenly my ears and neck are on godamn fire? This is my ridiculous life.

So the guy spends what's left of the morning before class just, like, pelting me with these questions. It was all really generic gameshow personality trivia, too. Favorites of food, places, music, hobbies. It was to his advantage I was too fucking tired to be glib or sarcastic, but by the time lunch rolled around, well... So we sat down at the usual deserted table and he asked what my favorite gemstone was and I skipped right past the barbed-wire metallic-enforced bunker-o-tact and answered "Cock. I don't have a favorite fucking gemstone, Edward, I like cock. I favor cock. That doesn't make me an absolute woman, you heinous asshole. And I change my mind about my favorite flower, it's not dandelions when they're all puffy; it's cock.

"My favorite soda, that's cock too. Favorite weather forecast? Cock, with a chance of hot dicking." The impatience that had been piling up behind my drowsiness now burst through the cognition gates despite how many classmates were starting to look our way. "You aren't shipping me over from Russia so I can keep your house and have your babies. Fuck's sake. Or is this another way of making up for the whole can't-read-my-mind thing?" I lowered my voice, chest squeezing out an extra little heartbeat when he leaned in closer with no small amount of concern.

"You really need to lay off the caffeine, Bernardo."

"There it is again, my actual name. You are so fucking weird. Fun story about the origin of the 'Swan' clan, actually. You know the nearby La Push reserve? All those tribal-turned-english last names? Black, Clearwater, and shit? And stuff? 'Swan' is one 'a them, except we don't have swans anywhere near this region. We have geese, though; it's a mistranslation. My name was supposed to be Bernardo Goose, could you fucking imagine? Bernardo Goose." My forehead thunks against the tabletop in theatric exasperation, clenched fist banging weakly in despair.

"Nicotine is also a mood disruptor." He taps the table between us with two fingers, like trying to get a dog to pay attention.

I straighten up, slide my food tray over between us and bite into a spoonful of chili, cracking an edge of the flimsy plastic spork. Chew. Swallow. "Yeah? Okay. I'm like this all the time, though. Ask anybody; ask your sister, fuck, she knows how up and down it can be. You know Renee almost put me on Ritalin once? But she was going through her hippy herbal medicine phase and decided to crush vitamins into every PBJ instead. Like that was the same fucking thing as putting a kid on Speed, haha, damn."

"I don't think badly of you, so you can stop this anytime."

"Then what's with the twenty questions? Think I don't know a conversational distraction when I see one?"

"I'm glad you told me. I am."

"You are really bad at supplementary mind-reading, you know that?" The chili goes down a little harder by the second spoonful. I leave the food at the table and disappear into the restrooms to hunt down a smoke because that's the kind of small-town school this was. By Senior year at least half your peers were jaded or on their way out, the ones not reserving their health for football scholarships were doing the cool thing and the cool thing was still, thank fuck, smoking in the boy's room.

Edward had arrived at Bio before me, and half the class milled around their tables waiting for Banner to wheel in with the audiovisual frame (that's what it's called, derp). Usually I could survive an all-nighter if I could make it past noon, but the drone of rain on the building and dim atmosphere lulled me back into a drowse. Once the lights went off for the film, I'd be doomed. "Shit, I left my notes in your car. Keys?"

"No, you didn't, and car theft is still a crime. Even for the Sheriff's son."

"Ha fucking ha, man. I wasn't going to drive home. I was going to nap." I sat heavily in my chair. "But you're too clever for me."

"You can sleep. Copy my notes." He said it so quietly I had to look twice.

"Hey, really?"

He nodded, already occupied with notebook and pencil. The squeaking wheels heralded Banner's approach, and soon as the lights went off I made a pillow of my arms and dove into the nap.

At least, I would have. Too antsy and nervous, there in the dark with the subdued breathing of my classmates and rustling paper and droning film overpowering the calm of Edward's... well, of the dead silence beside me. I snuck a peek over my shoulder at the stony face outlined in the blue of the monitor light; studied the way muscle and skin lay flawless over bone that would never settle into the heavy strength of late adulthood. Always seventeen, what a mindfuck.

Edward blinks before his gaze flickers away from the documentary, piecing me together from head to toe, probably trying to figure why I wasn't out yet. I'm hardly breathing, a dull ache across my shoulders I wished he could just reach over and soothe out. (Yeah, and then I could drag him to a bathroom stall and make with the wild monkey sexing already, because seriously this movie-theater atmosphere was making me so fucking horny and had it really been that long since I had a good, non-terrifying fuck?) Do vampires fall in love? Yes, obsessively. Unless they don't.

Bah, it's not like it mattered. I diverted my attention back to the genetics lesson on screen, too tired to move but too keyed up to actually sleep. Maybe junior Dr. Dead over there was right, maybe it was just the symptoms of a new coffee habit. Maybe I was just horny as all fuck, and stuck in the daily grind of normal teenhood while my lessons after the schoolbell were Horror Survival 101. I was stewing in stale adrenaline with no outlet for hundreds of square miles, except the one right beside me, who was buried under however many decades of repression you couldn't dent with a tire iron.

The lights finally came on and I blinked away papery dryness, flashing Edward a wry grimace. His return expression was ambivalent as he rose from his chair, fingertips on the edge of the table, clearly waiting for me. Excuse me while I step behind this curtain to do a little victory jig and maybe scream my brains out - waiting to walk me to gym, how facking adorable is that? He didn't even pelt me with another round of psychoanalysis on the way, just strolled along beside.

I jerked my chin in a goodbye salute once we reached the gym doors, turning to join Mike, who was probably waiting to bend my ear about Jenn, judging by that unhappy glare. Cold fingers brushed against my wrist, sending an electric tingle all the way to my shoulder. "Geeze, what?" I turned, rubbing my jittery arm, to the surprised faces of approaching classmates. Edward, nowhere to be seen.

Gym, consequently, was an hour of silent torture. Mike didn't have two words to say to me, and kept aiming the badminton bird at my head. I was too tired to respond with the aggression this deserved, at least until he shouldered past me on the way out of the locker rooms and I socked him in the back of the head to show him what it FEELS LIKE and it dissolved into a scuffle. I think he actually grazed my jaw, but the end tally was just a lot of shoving and cursing."The fuck, man?" I held up both hands after a particularly vicious shove separated us. "What crawled up your ass and died?"

"Newton, Swan, front and center."

Fuuuck me.

So I was late getting out of gym, having been paired with a stony-faced Mike Newton to fold tumble mats and stow balls (the athletic kind, you pervs, although surliness was certainly an improvement on Mike's babe factor). When I joined Edward in his car he was calmly staring ahead, music that sounded suspiciously like Modest Mouse thumping from across the lot.

"This Jasper's CD, too?" I shouted from the driver's side window. Edward, startled because haha couldn't sense ME coming, dialed the volume down before starting the engine. He paused mid-turnover, swinging around in his seat to look behind us as I climbed in. When he didn't turn frontward again, I swiveled to see what the fuck was up. He was glaring at a figure just leaving the building, making their way to what I recognized as Mike's car on the far side of the lot.

"What did you do, Bernardo?"

"Me?" I squawked. "He tried to pick a fight in gym just now. No fucking reason."

Edward made a low noise. "There IS a reason."

"You gonna go ahead and tell me what that is?"

"He resents you. A lot."

I laugh. "Yeah, okay, but why?"

"I'm not psychic. You should ask him."

"Cute."

"It's the truth, and good advice besides."

"Are you waiting for him to leave the lot first? I mean, it's not like he'd try and run us off the road - "

Again, startled. Again, keys the ignition. "So do you miss it? Living in Arizona?"

I sigh. Here we go again, ladies and gents. "I miss the heat. Never thought I'd say that."

"The sun?"

"Not exactly, but yeah that too. More like what the sun does to the scenery; desert landscape is so uncluttered and vast, but when you look closer, it's really complex." I yawn. "Do you miss the sun?"

"No."

Well, that was... kinda surprising. "They did a study about areas of the world that don't get the twelve hours of light every day, like the Netherlands and shit. That it affects the brain in the long term. Icelandic art and mythology is super fucked up, probably from lack of sunlight during them long winter days 'n shit." I kick my foot up on the dash, resting chin on knee to keep myself awake. Edward's car: great for personal revelation AND napping!

The rain had started again twice as fiercely by the time we got to my driveway, and the prospect of an icy dousing kept me in Edward's car more than the agonizing conversation that was certified All About Me.

Parting of the Sensory came up from the Modest Mouse album and I cranked the volume and pretended to rock out with a set of drumstick improv pencils. "This song is about dying!" I mock-whispered when Edward hastily reached forward to kill the volume and skip ahead to Ocean Breathes Salty. I groaned. "You're into this band for it's feel-good songs, aren't you? You absolute fucking sap."

He shrugged. "I think all music is about life and living, even when it's about death. Especially so."

"That... yeah. Okay." I sat back and Edward slowly took the volume back up as the rain pounded its own accompaniment around us. Upon closer inspection, though, this wasn't one of their more optimistic set of lyrics after all. The song's end would be the cue to get out into the mess the sky was making of the yard, so to prevent this inevitability I skipped ahead to the next song. "Bankrupt on Selling, ick, slow guitar."

"Thought you liked the tragic stuff."

"I just realized it's all tragic." Dialed ahead to Float On. "Except this one. You can't tell me there's anything sad in these here fucking amazing lyrics."

"Maybe everything in the refrain."

"Glass half empty kinda guy, hey Cullen?" I cranked the volume, mouthing the chorus and closing my eyes in bliss. We'll all float on all right, so don't worry. Fuck yeah. I think I even saw Edward smile, and DEFINITELY saw him mouth along with the part about getting scammed but learning sleight-of-hand so it ended up being worth it. Wasn't gonna make a big deal out of it lest that send him scuttling back into his shell, but still. STILL. Heehee, we were totally just jamming out for like, the better half of the evening.

I would like to take this moment to thank Modest Mouse for making their songs longer than the usual three minutes. They might not have been perfect make-out tunes, but they were hella good stall-in-the-driveway background noise. Edward even unbuckled his seatbelt and took his hands from the steering wheel! Progress.

"AHAHA! Fuck yes, The Devil's Workday!" I just let the wail of the sax bite right through flesh and bone because man, it just doesn't get any better than gritty bayou-rock. And yes, Edward IS smiling, for the whole two minutes it takes for the song to finish.

"Thought that would have been too old-timey for you."

"A-are you being glib? Fuck that scene, man, I don't care when it was made, so long as it was made with soul, man." Too easily did I pull up that smokes-too-much blues voice. "To be fair, I thought it would be too, y'know, blasphemous for you."

"I'm not a Puritan, Bernardo. I'm... not even a Christian."

"Wha - really?"

"I was a Christian, back when I had a soul to be preserved."

"Oh. Well. Good to know." Awwwkward. "So uh." A cough. "Guess this means you'll behave because it's, like, the right thing to do. And not because there's some threat of damnation hanging over your head or whatever." I'm a subversive little atheist, yes I am.

"Yes." Edward brings the music down further, so that it is a tinned whisper lost in the rain. "Yes, that's exactly what - that's exactly right. Why? Do you think I'm going to break my promise and attack you?"

"I - no! Hey, look, I've been awake for a night and a day, I'm not really at a hundred percent right now. I'm just, you know... you're 'damned', I guess. So what's stopping you from doing the uh, the less-than-damning, er, sins or whatever?"

"You're going to have to be more specific." But he was giving me that 'you're not the sharpest tack in the box' grin again.

"Nothing. The answer, Edward, is 'nothing'. There is nothing stopping you from enjoying, like, booze and gambling and fucking and whatever else it is in which Jesus-camp freaks do not imbibe."

"Ooh. All right." He is nodding, eyebrows high but eyes guarded and smile just on this side of patronizing. "Thank you for enlightening me."

"Hahaaa. Fuck it, nevermind."

"I'm not going to judge you for a few scratch-card tickets, you know."

"Fucking - shut up!" The laughter explodes in the middle of my anger, a sort of growling helpless mirth. "Don't be a twatwaffle."

Thus it is Edward's turn to laugh. "That was, ah, colorful. How. Did you come up with that."

"Internet."

"I'm taking the internet away from you."

Okay, so, shitty beginning to the day, fan-fucking-tastic way to end it. "So am I done for now? No more pressing concerns about what flavor ice cream I prefer or other trivial regard?"

"I need no reassurance that your favorite flavor icecream is cock."

"Damn straight it is. Time is it, anyway?"

Instead of turning the car on so he could read the dash, Edward glances out the window. The rain is still going strong, but there's a brightness to the air that suggests the sun is closer to the horizon, maybe even setting. "It is, in fact, twilight. Safest time of day for us, you know."

"You and every big cat on the Serengeti." What, I watch educational programs, thought we went over this already.

Edward smiles wistfully. "Never been to the African continent."

"Don't tell me; Emmet wants to hunt himself a godamn lion. Else his manliness would go unconfirmed."

"Not Emmet, no."

"You?"

A casual shrug; methinks my incredulity hath given offense. "Like Hemmingway."

"AHAHA! Oh, oh man. You're a republican too, aren'tcha? Fffuck me, that's precious."

"Isn't your father returning from work soon?"

"Yeah yeah, I'm gettin'. Don't want you parked in."

"Did you tell him where you're going this Saturday?"

"Uh... not yet." Color me suspicious. "Why?"

"It's just a good idea to tell people when you leave town. And to mention with whom you are leaving."

"Ahaha, this sounds like, what, I don't even know. Like a Stranger Danger conference."

"You have to meet me halfway, Bernardo. Give me some incentive not to just - " A frustrated sigh. "Some small threatening incentive to bring you back."

My eyes, o my droogs, are wide as saucepans. And not those dinky little apartment sets, either, I'm talking Polish Grandmother kitchenware here. "Mkay. Tell my cop dad. Got it."

"Did I scare you?"

"Fucking - yes! Yes, that's a little scary. Thanks. Fuck. Not like I planned on sleeping tonight, either."

"I didn't mean to alarm you, but we should be practical about this. Do you want to call it off?"

"No." Yes. If only for peace of mind enough to not wake up in cold sweats every night for the rest of my life. "It's not even you - it's that guy. I had his blood on my face. And his spunk all over my front bits." I gesture frantically, as if trying to brush invisible crumbs from my shirt. That were also spiders. "Kinda hard to just let that go."

Edward's shoulders relaxed, expression softening around the edges. "That's why you asked about him? About his last thoughts?"

I fidgeted with my backpack, which I had dragged into my lap in preparation to leave. "I suppose, yeah." I blew the hair out of my eyes. It was getting long, maybe I'd be able to tie it back soon. "Think it just made it worse, though."

"Sounds about right." We shared a moment of companionable misery.

"Well, I guess I could just knock myself out with the usual narcotic cocktail. Unless there's some mystical hypnotic vampire power you could use to make this any easier. 'Cos that would be supreme."

"I'm sorry; there isn't. At least not for you."

"Bah. You haven't even tried."

Low, reluctantly, "I have tried."

"Oh. Haha. Well then! See you tomorrow. Thanks for the ride, again." He waited till I was to the porch before starting the engine, though I told myself that I couldn't feel his eyes against my back.