AN- someone asked me "why Jacob and Leah?". And well this is something I wrote off-handily while writing this little fic. This is pretty much what happened leading up to that car scene. Since it was off-handed I never really went into detail in the fic as too dealing with the feeling and mental scaring that Ren would have been going through at the time. But yeah, I don't plan on rewriting anything, since I feel it's been like a MONTHS since I even wrote this little thing. Anyway welcome to how Jacob and Leah and came to be. And what finally pushed for the pivotal 'break-up' scene. sorry for any editing issues, I'm giving you the slightly edited raw version of this! Enjoy!

p.s. no one ever said that Leah and Jacob were a healthy couple. It's actually pretty toxic if you ask me!

Drunken Bliss

Life's too short to even care at all, oh

I'm losing my mind losing my mind losing control, oh oh

These fishes in the sea they're staring at me oh oh

Oh oh oh oh

A wet world aches for a beat of a drum

Oh

Cough syrup- Young the Giants

His days were spent in stony silences, his nights in bars drowning. Drowning in dull sounds and fuzzy images. The empty vodka bottles clutched possessively in his hands. The image of blood staining his hands burned into his eyes. Whispers drifted around his head, caressing his skin before digging into his heart. Seth had been so young. So young.

You could have helped, it mumbled against his skin, you are useless. In response he asked the bartender for another bottle. It burned as the new bottle's contents emptied into his mouth, like the ash and fire that burned at his skin as they burned the body. What had he done?

Cool fingers touched his bicep, a quiet understanding passing between them.

"What are you doing here?" he slurred, choking down the hark liquor like it was going to be his last. Seth's mangled body still lying in a lake of blood in his mind's eye. The solemn eyes of a halfling laying curled carefully around the mess, like a warrior angel. Blood seeping through wounds on her chest, dripping down her fingers. They had said she would recover, but Seth. He was already gone. Taking another swig of his drink, he can't remember if she had answered. Everything was spinning slowly into a bottomless pit of sorrow. He could have saved him. He knew.

"He was my brother too," he thinks she says, the words like smoke in the dim bar. Another swig and the memories are fading behind his eyes, the real world just a moving picture with muffled sounds.

He can't remember the words that are passed. If there were even any, the images vague and flashes of color. In the smokey room, he does remember touching her face, grasping for some drunken understanding. He doesn't remember why he kissed her. Only that it was warm and full of slobber. The rest is lost with sensations. Tongue, fabric, hair.

In the morning there is only pain and a burning heat curled close to him. A sense of wronging follows as he sits up, the sheets crumbled and stained with his mistakes. His problem lays in the familiar bed that isn't his, and the girl sleeping next to him. He should leave, he thinks. Pants next to the bed, his car keys hanging on a hook near the still open door. It's all there. Logically he should leave. But why. To face the forgiving child .

"Hey," a drowsy voice rumbles, "you staying?"

Here sat an opening. An opening to a life without looking upon a face that had been marred by his mistakes. By his lack of being able to save a life that used to bring sunshine to everything he touched. This one mistake could fix it all. This mistake he thinks he could live with.

"Yeah, I think I am," laying back down, Jacob watched his reflection in the glass. Watched the slow movement of a slender arm curling up around his abdomen, the flash of short brown hair as a head tucked itself sleepily into his shoulder.

Now, the child that once sat at his center of his universe was at home still recovering from broken bones and deep scars. But she would heal, she had a family. He needed to fix his. Glue all the broken pieces that has shattered and melted since the attack back into place. Starting with Leah.

He hadn't meant for the tryst to continue. The sweet abuse of alcohol and sex. He'd meant to leave that day. But he had stayed. Stayed to put the pieces back together only to fall into a trap of sex that took the pain away. Like a drug he now could never run away from. Addicted to and needing in the scant hours of the night when he should be comforting the small red head that still had nightmares. Should be comforting the women that she was now, only to find she's found comfort in a ratty scarf given to her years ago by a monster hiding behind sweet words and understanding.

"I'm imprinted," he spoke against her neck, finding comfort in the smell of sweat coating her skin. He shouldn't be doing this. But the warmth encompassing him, swallowing him whole, pulled him in again. And again.

Leah groaned, "Shut up, not now."

He'd never meant for this to happen. Every drunk incident that left him in Leah's bed, as well as the not so drunk incidents. Or for it all to stay silent. Six years he had put it off. Letting Renesmee think he had a job that kept him long after midnight. Told her that shifters got headaches due to shifting to cover-up his hang overs.

"What do I do?" he sighed, "I meet her for dinner in two hours."

Leah rolled over, laying a sweaty palm onto his chest, "tell her it's not going to be like that." She nuzzled into his shoulder, yawning.

"Its supposed to be," pushing away from Leah with a gently hand, "hell, I can't even think of her like that."

"Do whatever," she rolled back over, "just know that there is a pack meeting at seven no matter where your whipped ass is."

"yeah," Jacob rubbed the back of his neck, sitting on the edge of the bed in silence.

What was he going to do?