: X :

I realize this rewrite has a lot of filler, but so
did the original. Hahaa.

In the meantime: sound off if you're still with
us. I need to do a headcount.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Mind Over Matter

I was a Bernardo-shaped stain in the sea of dark, plush carpeting. Felt like I was sinking into the floor, head buzzing with every new fucking possibility stretching into the future. Vampire boyfriend: still a pretty heavy concept, man. We could rob banks. Live out the ultimate action movie adventures, vigorous post-mission fucking and all. Donate the bank job money to whatever charity because fuck it, vampires don't need money.

Oh my fuck, we could go all vigilante justice in some big city, no, in ALL BIG CITIES. Pretty fitting origins story; the son of a Sheriff gets a righteous fire lit all up under the ass of a superhuman creature of the night. Let's just face it, I'd be the side-kick in that one. Sexy fucking journalist side-kick, like, bandaging up gunshot wounds and hunting up new cases all the while sporting some trendy as fuck trenchcoat and stubble. Fucking… yesssss.

Edward has joined my musing on the floor, probably just enjoying the fact that he couldn't hear my inane head-babble - since that seemed to be both a huge relief and the source of his interest/tolerance/big dumb excuse for latent attraction to yours truly. He stretched out on his back in a familiar position, legs sprawled the opposite direction of mine, ears nearly touching while we contemplated the scalloped ceiling, a few fingers grazing against my neck. I could feel my own pulse throb against the back of chill knuckles, dazed that it had gotten this far and I hadn't even had to resort to flowers or roadkill or whatever it is you're supposed to use to court a vampire.

"William Masen was my father; he died in 1906. I was five. He was a member of Chicago's volunteer Fire Brigade; disasters like that were common before asbestos. A bad way to go."

I start out of the reverie, pulling the borrowed t-shirt straight. "Well, I mean at least that's kinda..."

"Heroic for an accountant? Yes. We lived frugally and unhappily until the Spanish Influenza struck much of the city and claimed my mother's life. My life as well, technically. Carlisle was a doctor by then, 1918. I was seventeen, and too distracted by pain and delirium to make much of a case on my own behalf. I know I wanted to live. I know my mother wanted me to live, and to become a virtuous man like my father."

"So, what, Carlisle infected you because you were the most wholesome fever-ravaged teen in the city? Like a fucked up Miss America Pageant?"

A scoff. "Closer to the mark than you think. I was probably the most moral candidate, the least likely to go on a hedonistic feeding spree and there was no promise that I'd even survive the original infection, much less a vampiric contribution. Though I think, in the end, Carlisle acted from loneliness as much as he did from pity." I let him reflect in peace for a moment. "She begged him, my mother did. Don't think he would have bothered if all three hadn't come into play; the pity and the loneliness and the guilt."

"… Wow. So you were alive for like the Prohibition and Depression and Dust-bowl and all that shit?"

"Not technically alive, no. I had no real solid awareness of what was going on in the world around me, moving by night and having lost all interest in things like newspapers and property ownership and governmental control over the use of alcohol. Glimpses of lives when I fed, a piecemeal illustration of the times as they were. You'd be surprised how much of the same worries occupy peoples' minds today as they did back then. Food, sex. Mortgage payment a distant cousin to the primal, more intimate things that fill the waking thoughts of humanity. Faces, voices, small anxieties of who loves whom more, do they smell right, are their teeth perfect, did that joke make her uncomfortable, all that and not a single broadcast the likes of 'This is Depression Era America and It Sucks'."

"Livin' in your own nocturnal bubble."

"Yes. But around the fifties, even small towns began to take the night for themselves, which made hunting more difficult and bled a little humanity back into us monsters who had no experience with soda fountains and ice-cream socials and the marvel that was the drive-in movie."

"You had the rest of your family by then, though, right?"

"Mmhm." His knuckles, warmed slightly by own body heat, began an idle caress that took every scrap of tactful willpower to ignore in light of the topic at hand. "Esme had been created a few months after me… To complete the sort of broken family we had, since I was unmanageable. I think Carlisle had help; other vampires, perhaps even his patrons. Despite her nature, Esme too had to suffer the early stages of adapting to a life built solely on instinct. It was taking on more than he could handle in the attempt to fix whatever went wrong with me."

"What went wrong?"

A scoff. "I was a teenager. I spat on his philosophy and resented everything and everyone. Killed a lot of people; 'bad guys' whose thoughts betrayed their worthlessness." The bitter tone of voice crept in through our quiet dialogue, cold and flinty. "After a while all those poisonous thoughts started to build up. I was afraid of becoming what I ate, and rejoined Carlisle mid 1950s. This time, to try and keep me around, he brought Rosalie into our family."

"What the fuck."

"Pretty much my reaction at the time, though nobody could fault her for hunting down those who had wronged her. Carlisle naturally figured that I would find with Rosalie what he had found with Esme."

"In a sort of creepy, share-the-same-vampire-dad kinda way?"

"What about any of this is not creepy?"

"Hahaha, that's fucking fair enough! Just so you know, Rosalie intimidates me in every way imaginable. I'm pretty sure if she had a dick, it'd be way bigger than mine." A clock chimes somewhere in the depths of large house, soft and distant.

"If Rosie's bravado and tenacity were represented by genital size, then yes. Biggest dick out of everyone, ever." We share a manly chuckle over this, and by 'manly chuckle' I mean we snicker nervously because heehee, genitals. Yeah, fuck it, if he can travel with me down the road of penis jokes, that's love. That's fucking love, right here, sprawled on the carpet having goddamned gigglefits over how horrifying the crime scene would look if Rosalie ever overheard us. She was, what, nineteen forever? That's not quite out of the woods in accordance to teenaged rationality and the having none thereof.

"Was Alice also an arranged marriage dealy?"

"No... Alice showed up out of nowhere, prophesying Jasper's arrival to an exact detail. The world wasn't kind to either of them, and let's just leave it at that. Right now, you're hungry."

"I am! Obviously you have a bit of the prophet in you as well. Or are a witch, and should be weighed against a duck."

"I am both heavier than a duck and larger than a breadbox."

"Don't build up my expectations or anything. Oh shit, man, this is serious. I've got the low blood sugars and it is making me say retarded things. To the pantry~!" I roll halfheartedly to my side, pointing dramatically up at the ceiling.

"The pantry is without food~!" Edward mimics despair, grasping my hand because heeeee. Ridiculous brand-spankin'-new couple behavior, engage.

"Bah, fuck it. Chief is expecting me home early anyway." I rolled up to a sit, digging bare toes into the carpet. "My vestments, good sir."

"Right, of course." Suddenly, an empty room.

"Well, I mean, we could do this Stockholm style if you really w - " I am interrupted by a faceful of freshly laundered trousers and shirt, respectively. "Nff frr."

I could have driven home alone. Coulda eaten at the empty kitchen table, tested out the Sheriff's new internet connection and bemoaned the hilarious lag until he got home and sent me to bed early for the fishing trip tomorrow morning. I could have even called Edward, maybe, like a normal and dutiful boyfriend, and spoken with the hushed tones of someone staying up well past curfew because the fucker didn't need sleep. I did not do any of this, because I did not drive home alone.

We didn't speak much until Clifford left the grind of the country road, and then only the awkward small talk of two people who had to completely reorganize their evaluations of one another. Edward seemed to have it pretty well in hand that I wasn't some woe-begone emo cutter, and instead just a Pretty Strange Dude 'cos that's how some of us artfags get wired early on and there was no real changing my mind about how Fucking Cool monsters were.

I was saving some of the heavier questions about his family for future conversations, preferably those held in the post-coital stupor. By the time home crept into view, my limbs were shaky and I had a pounding headache (either from hunger or the previous exercise or just cigarette withdrawal or what). My stomach didn't growl so much as keep itself in the tight knot to which it had been tangled - before all the lusting got in the way and totally blew my thoughts far away from mundane shit like basic survival.

"You wanna come in?" I was halfway out of the truck, and threw the question over my shoulder before Edward could slink away as per flighty virgin habit. It wasn't like the proposal was totally suspect or anything, since we both knew Charlie'd be back sometime eventually, but man… that it took so long for him to answer, fucking - ghh!

"Yes. I do."

"Okay, well, you can use the front door and everything. No spelunking equipment required." A dry chuckle as he followed me to the porch. The sun was just beginning to set, throwing hard grey lines into Edward's face and neck, and he ducked through the front door as soon as it was opened. "So. Photosensitivity in cell tissue?"

"UVB radiation, is the theory."

"Evolved that way, maybe? The germ or virus or whatever it is."

"Or perhaps we are aaalieeens…?" Wiggling his fingers at me like a goddamn Houdini sonofabitch.

"I've been reassured that you are neither alien nor robot." I draw the kitchen curtains shut, flipping on the small stove light because our overhead fluorescent was burnt out. It was a dim atmosphere. Intimate. A plate of leftover lasagna made it to the microwave - now all I needed was a fat violinist in an apron and a checkered table cloth.

Edward shrugs, taking up Charlie's usual spot at the table. "I liken it to a contagious form of cancer. Your cells change; they stop doing what they used to do because there is a break or warp in their DNA instruction. Unlike cancer - where they multiply and devour without pause - the cells simply die. Everything speeds up - muscle tissue still requires fuel, brain activity is normal, for all intent and purpose. Your blood doesn't pump so much as turn your veins into telephone wires. Every structure and protein is there, but it's on pause. Does that make sense?"

I swallow the lukewarm forkful of cheesy tomato deliciousness. "Can't imagine there's been much study in the modern medical community on vampirism, babe. What's Carlisle say?"

Edward runs his finger along the rim of a stray coffee mug, the porcelain ringing lightly. "He doesn't like to discuss it. I don't know if he's terrified of finding a cure, or spent most of his years looking only to be disappointed."

"So is that what you're gonna do? Study medicine and biology just to get shit figured out?"

"That's the plan. You've been a bit of an interruption."

"Oh, haha, well sorry." I suck a bit of cheese from the inner snag of my left snakebite, which pulls my bottom lip into an exaggerated pout.

Edward laughs. "No time left for studies. Haven't had a night to myself since Port Angeles."

My hand stills over the paper napkin. I lean back in my chair, squinting through the weak light. "What's that supposed to mean." All those restless nights when I couldn't even wank because something felt fundamentally out of place about the world… Holy fucking shit, I was going pop a fucking gasket and fork-stab a bitch if all that was just a socially inept vampire hanging out in my closet reading National fucking Geographic.

Edward lightly clears his throat, tapping the handle of the coffee mug with a fingernail, studying the table. He looks up with a brief attempt at a smile, which drops as our eyes meet. "Sleepwalking is a natural reaction to mental duress."

I pull a deep breath through my nose, slapping the napkin to the empty plate. "Every night? Every night? Every. Night."

He turns his nose away, scrutinizing the air above the sink. "You're angry."

"I'm… sure as fuck something." Swiftly piling the mug and fork and glass onto the plate, standing to dump everything into the sink with a loud clatter.

"I was worried, Bernardo. I saw you leave the house. You pulled your boots on and walked down the stairs with your eyes closed, through the porch, all the way to the end of the driveway in your pyjamas. Looked as if you were checking the mail, but all you did was pat the top of the mailbox and return."

That made sense. I used to run laps up and down the driveway as a child, waiting for cars to arrive or Charlie to take me on a trip. Tagging the mailbox. I chew a bit of food fished out from behind a molar, kicking at the errant cupboard door beneath the sink. It creaks open again, swollen and warped with age and damp. I kick harder, wedging it closed.

"Don't be upset," he implored, standing within an elbow's reach, the front of one shoulder brushing the back of mine.

"I'm not mad." A grim smile. "I'm disappointed."

"I realize it was an invasion of privacy. I could apologize for the offense, but I'm not sorry for keeping an eye on you."

"No, Edward. I'm literally disappointed." I turn on heel, nudging an elbow into his ribs. "All that time we could have been making out and I didn't even know you were in the house. Perfectly good waste of nightly bedroom occupation, 'f you ask me."

The grin is tired and wary and he elbows me back none too gently. "You are a little upset though, aren't you?"

"Yes. It's creepy. Don't do it anymore, at least not without telling me so I can leave a lamp on or something. Fuck, had I known there'd been an audience - !"

"You would have… what? Slept in a carefully attenuated pose?"

"Maybe just held off the shame-faced dick-touching until you left?"

The laugh is jerked out of his throat and bit off halfway, a hand flying up to cover his mouth under wide eyes.

"Didn't even consider it? You honestly don't remember being a warm-blooded teenager?"

"It's definitely coming back to me."

"So other than the sleep-walking and the interrupted self-love, what else did you stick around for? If you say the reading material I will eat my fucking shoe."

"I… what? Nothing. I only watched you sleep." He winces, probably just now realizing how bad it was when admitted out loud like that. "I… found out that you rest more peacefully when it rains. That and the sleep-walking; that's all."

"What do you mean, I sleep better when it rains?"

A shrug. "That you might have heard the rain a lot in the womb. Which means that your mother lived here at least for the duration of her pregnancy. Deductive reasoning."

"Holy shit, you really could fight crime."

"Bernardo could you work to be a little less obtuse?"

"Mmh…" I smirk. "No. Thanks for telling me, though. About the night-watching thing." I clap the side of his arm and turn to the sink to wash up the day's pile of used dining ware, scraping food into the garbage disposal while Edward leans back against the nearby counter, doing what he does best.

The headlights from the Sheriff's cruiser flash through the kitchen curtains and Edward twitches away from the window. "Ought I leave?"

"Oh. Uh…" I peer over my shoulder at the kitchen door, wicking soap from a plate. Tried to imagine Charlie Sr. walking through, the look on his face, the latent attempt at re-introductions. What either of us would say. "Maybe, yeah. You gonna hang around tonight?" I meant the question to be acidic, but it came out with a high note of anticipation.

"Yes." A cold face pressed to the side of my own, the brush of eyelashes across the top of my cheek. An empty kitchen.

Dad's key turned in the lock, heavy boots clumping as he kicked dirt off at the door mat. "Charlie?" Didn't know why he was calling since I was the only other one who lived here, but maybe his own sixth sense was telling him that shit was askew in the usual order of business.

"Yep," I called from the sink. It came out as a yelp just as the kitchen doorway was rounded and Charlie Sr. poked his head in.

"Oh, hey there kiddo," he half-whispered, as if we'd just met in a library. I blamed the awful excuse for a lamp over the stove - it was maybe a thirty year old fixture, with the wattage to prove it, and droned on like a bee with a headcold. "You already ate, huh?" He sets a bag of takeout on the tabletop and begins to rifle through it, sitting down to his chair - adjusting the distance and angle from the table with a small frown. I put my attention squarely back to the sink. "Get me a beer while you're over there?"

"Yeah." I shake my hands and wipe them on my jeans, pulling the fridge open. The beer lands in front of the Sheriff and I sit opposite, nosing in the paper bag for a stray won-ton.

"So." Charlie cracks the beer open on the edge of the table, slapping the top down between us. "How was your day? Make it to Seattle?"

"No."

"Truck issues?"

"No." I nibble a beansprout from one of the compact white cardboard cartons. His chopsticks still halfway into the fried rice. I pop the sprout into my mouth and sit on my hands, trying to look innocent because Charlie Swan's son Did Not Hesitate With Food. His son devoured, shoveled, or inhaled. He did not pick or nibble or graze.

"So what's up."

"Had lasagna."

"Yeah, I can smell it. Bet it was good. Where did you go, if not Seattle?"

My voice was a little tight, and a hangnail held most of my attention. "Hung out at Edward's place instead. We didn't wanna drive anywhere."

The deadpan question-that-was-not-a-question. "Were his parents home."

I bite the hangnail, eyebrows pinching up. "No?" Tried not to squirm under the inspection. Failed.

The chopsticks slowly resume their dismantling. He sighs, practically a growl. "You know the rule about that, Chuck."

"Yeah but come on, you've met Edward. He's like, all-american, wheaties-for-breakfast, four-point-oh A.P. student."

"Uh-huh. And you two were... what, exactly? Working on a class project? Studying for a test?"

The heat of a blush stings my face and I pick at a splinter in the cheap break-away chopsticks. His sarcasm was warranted - that much I was willing to admit. "Maybe what we were doing... falls into the category…" I mumble, tucking my chin to my chest. "None of your business?" I'm chewing the hangnail again, shoulders hitched up tight. Would rather be anywhere than in this kitchen, having this discussion.

I count the seconds as they tick away, Charlie's face inscrutable. He's frowning at me, that much is sure. Now he's frowning at his dinner, stabbing the chopsticks into the carton to set it all down and to the side. Smooths a palm over the tabletop, collecting crumbs of rice. "Have you been to the clinic yet?"

The part inside of me that just wants to curl up and die finally lunges to punch its reaper in the nuts. "No! Godammit, dad." I lean my face into my hands, scrubbing at my temples. "I'm not that fast. Christ."

"We set down rules. I want you being smart about this. I want you safe."

"I know! Ugh, I know. Okay. Shit. Thanks."

"I'll take you both if I have to."

Thunderous silence. I swallow, elbows on the table. That was a bluff I wasn't even going to try and call. The old man was serious. "Dad. Please. Be cool about this. I don't think his family knows, you know?"

"Taking his son's partner to the free clinic is about the coolest thing a father can do, Chuck. I'm sorry you seem to think otherwise."

I groan, bouncing my knee. That was 'partner' with a capital 'P'. Kill me now. "Okay. Yes, thank you. You are the best and most coolest dad alive. Can I turn in now?"

He jabs the tabletop with a finger. "We're not done talking about this."

"Right. You've got all of tomorrow to humiliate me." I stand, bracing the back of the chair. "Good night, Sheriff."

"Bernardo."

I cringe, halfway to the door. "What."

"Cellphone and laptop."

"What…? Oh, god, ffffine." I dash up the stairs, returning to a still kitchen with the requested items in hand. Charlie has stowed the food in the fridge, apparently off his appetite and nursing the beer like it was injured. I plunk the laptop on the counter and slap the phone on top. "Going to sleep now, is that okay?"

"Chuck,"

"What."

He sits back in his chair, crossing his arms. "You're my son and I love you."

"Okay already."

"But you've pulled a lot of ridiculous stunts in your time. Maybe it's some fault of mine, or your mother's, who knows."

I stare down the frame of the kitchen door, dread bracing my knees. "It's not."

"No? Well… nevermind. Get to bed."

I flee. Brush my teeth angry. Shower terrified. Dress for the night reluctantly. Stare blankly down the top floor hallway, deliberating. Charlie hails a good night from the kitchen, no doubt listening to me scamper around in agitation. I make sure to close my door loud enough, then stand motionless for fear the floorboards of my room would betray me. The kitchen radio's news station flickers up through the room's vent and I relax. Charlie would probably take an hour to unwind with his beer before turning in.

"Maybe not such a good idea, you sticking around." I whisper into the dark, feeling a bit stupid.

"Figured you would want me here, after all that."

I sneer, "Are you kidding?" Eyes adjusting to the semi-dark, I step carefully to my bed, where Edward is lounging with a paperback. "Pretty thoroughly mortified you could hear us."

Edward sits, clasping the book between his knees, thumb in the margin. "I already told you how much your father cares. It's no real surprise."

I wave him to slide over, keeping my voice at a rasp. "Right, right. You've got a backstage pass for all things left unsaid. I forgot."

"All things left unsaid. That's… poetic. I like that."

I flop down on the mattress, then turn on my side to poke Edward in the hip. "I gotta sleep."

"Fishing tomorrow."

"Yep."

Edward's weight leaves the bed and he takes the chair at my desk, flipping a page of his paperback. He looks up, chuckles, then bends his head back to his reading.

I've kicked the blankets into place and peek over the edge of a half-flat feather pillow. "What."

"Charlie thinks you're going to sneak out."

"Fuck, he's probably heard me sleepwalking again and thinks I'm, like… fuck." I punch the pillow into a semblance of better shape. "Why are you way over there?"

"You want to sleep," he whispers, eyes to the book. Out of the corner of my eye, he seems like nothing more than a trick of the light. A bit of clothing draped over a chair and mingled with shadows to resemble a sitting person.

"Sleep is what I intend, yes." Edward drops his book to his knee, craning his head around. I shuffle to make room on the narrow twin-size, smile tired. Yes, I wanted to fucking cuddle. Sue me. "My libido has been properly collared by all that awkward filial concern and everything."

A flicker of doubt, and then my bed is full of chilly metrosexual mythos, tucking the blankets between us. It's not like I had cooties (and would probably soon have the paperwork to prove it, fuck my life) but I'd take it for the baby-step it was. Twenty minutes after the pillow-punching and settling in, Edward sighs. "If I'm keeping you awake…"

I smile, eyes shut against his shoulder. "You can hear it, can't you?" My pulse had sped up when I'd offered half my bed and hadn't slowed since the second he accepted. "Y'make my heart go boom, boom boom," I sang, turning on my stomach with a small hushed laugh. "Is it, like, too much? Too close?"

"No." A dry, cold finger traces a path across the back of my neck, hooking into the collar of my t-shirt to tug lightly. "I guess I am strong enough, after all."

"Heh." I stretch, yawning despite the crack-addled hamster running its wheel through my chest. "Why do you think that is?"

The jostle of a shrug. "As simple as mind over matter."

"Oh. Simple. A technique it takes monks on mountaintops their entire lifetimes to achieve. Sure."

"I've had a lifetime to myself already, haven't I?" I don't suppose vampires have much opinion on the matter of physical comfort, but Edward settles further into the mattress as lax as a corpse can. "I am trying, though. If it gets to be too much, I promise you that I'll leave."

"Your breath smells like newspaper ink."

"Bernardo,"

I turn my head to grin, eyes heavy-lidded, burying my arms under the pillow. "You're in complete control of your impulses. My exact opposite. I get it already."

"It might not be this easy after tomorrow. Any time away from you and it feels like I have to start all over again."

"So stick around."

Edward turns on his side to face me, hand sliding under the pillow to rest against my arm. I am once again struck by his sincerity and the ease with which he was handling the whole oops-I'm-gay-afterall shindig. "You have my nights from now on." The hand slides up, gripping my wrist. "If I have yours."

My stomach trembled. His fingers tightened, fishing out my pulse. "I… got nothing else planned. Let me check my calendar." I roll my eyes. "Yep, every night from here until graduation, you got me. We'll call it vampiric parole."

A silent laugh shakes the bed, his whisper subdued. "What happens after graduation?"

"I go to college, most likely. Hopefully a real hoity-toity art school. But by then, who knows?"

His fingers gentle their grip, sliding up into my palm. "I have not felt the sting of uncertainty for the passage of time in over fifty years."

"You're welcome."

"Jerk."

"You'll get used to it."

Low, furtive: "I don't want to get used to it."

Since it was pretty obvious by this point I wasn't going to get any sleep, I pick my head up and scoot closer, hooking an ankle over his leg. The fabric of his slacks felt thick and unyielding compared to the usual bedtime faire of flannel and cotton. Do vampires wear pyjamas? The great mystery of our time. "Well you either get used to it or get sick of it. I'd rather the former."

He closes his eyes in that pinched way he does whenever I've ruined his angst. "Just… don't ever stop changing. Don't become still and cold, like the rest of us."

"So do not want to die, so you don't have to worry 'bout that. Oh - fuck, hang on, I forgot." I don't let him stew in apprehension: "You can't have all my nights. I promised Jennifer I'd take her to the Sadie Hawkin's. She's trying to make Mike jelly." To his pinched brow and frown: "Jealous."

Dawning comprehension, a smirk. "I guess I'll have to attend the wretched thing after all, then. Make sure our young man doesn't overstep in his gallantry."

"Keep my pretty face intact? That'd be cool." I elbow him through the barrier of sheets. "From parole officer to bodyguard; consider yourself promoted." Another yawn, deeper than the last. "Teach me how to waltz if I sleepwalk."

"Scared me, seeing it for the first time. I didn't rightly know what to do, and you were mumbling."

"What'd I say?"

"Nonsense mostly. I think you were quoting a Spanish soap opera at one point."

I had to stifle the laugh with a faceful of pillow. "Te quiero, por que, Mariano~! I had the biggest celebrity crush on Eduardo Verastegui as a kid."

Edward props himself up on an elbow, drawing his hand back to his side of the invisible wall, though he had yet to shy away from my foot. "Oh?"

"Never had a fascination like that with anyone? Besides your huge obvious crush on me, of course." I matched his posture, propping myself up with the pillow.

"Oh, of course." He peers into the no-space between us, foot wagging off the end of the bed because aaahaha, fuck, twin-size. He shakes his head. "I don't think I even want to try remembering back that far."

"No good comes from living in the past?"

"Exactly so, Bernardo." The barest gleam of a toothy smile. "So it's fair to say that you are, in fact, the first to hold my fascination."

"Mmmh…" I slide back to my stomach to hide the giant ecstatic grin in the pillow. "I'm honored," I rasp, after resurfacing. Edward had tipped himself very close at this point, and leaned those few centimeters forward to half-cover me over the quilts, nosing at the juncture between shoulder and neck to inhale deeply. I muffle a squawk and the pang of not-quite-fear hits me broadside when I realize he's got me in a grip and happens to remain one strong motherfucker.

"Bernardo…" Edward whispers at my ear. "Get to sleep already."

I hum assent; anything to keep the steely bands of his arms pinning me to the mattress. "Try that vampire hypnotism thing, Professor X."

A pause. "Okay. Feel any sleepier?"

"I think I might sneeze."

Another jostle of voiceless laughter, Edward nosing along the back of my head and neck. He freezes above me. A hiss, "Stay down." An empty room. Late, I catch the militant footfall of the Sheriff, hear my door swing open. I force my breathing slow, heart pounding so loudly I feared he might actually hear it. I watch from under my arm as Charlie takes two steps in, surveys the Beatles poster on the far wall, scoffs at the pile of laundry next to the desk, and meanders out. He leaves the door open a crack, the hallway's night lamp painting an anemic rectangle across my bed.

I count the tasks as I hear them: the flush of the toilet, the run of the shower. A clatter as the bottom-most of the linen closet is dissembled for spare waders. Finally, finally the Sheriff retires.

A cold arm snakes around my middle under the sheets. "Did I alarm you?"

"Yeah."

"I don't suppose you're going to fall asleep any time soon."

"Yeah probably not." I turn my nose to meet his, snagging a kiss.

"That feels different without the metal in." We whisper in ever muted tones, paranoid about the old man sleeping just down the hall.

"Yeah? 'S it better?"

He inclines his head. "Different." I kiss him again just so he can have a proper scientific trial, surprised when his lips fall open under my searching tongue. Maybe I would get that tongue ring on my eighteenth; got a responsibility to keep shit spontaneous, after all. Holy fuck, you guys, we are officially making out in my bed. He rasps my name when I come up for air, a gritty undertone of warning that makes my toes curl. "Thought you said your libido was properly leashed."

"Leashed, not muzzled."

He shifts, sighs. "If you don't sleep now, there will be questions tomorrow."

"So put me to sleep, baby." I croon, scratching at his stomach.

He catches my hand. "I can try." Curls his thin digits between mine. "If you want." We were already whispering, so how was it that he managed to sound so damn meek?

"What, going to sing me a lullaby?" I would kick myself if that turned out to be true. Foot, meet mouth.

"Not quite." A dip in the bed as he shifts, slides easily between my back and the wall without much jostling. "It's a medical fact, after orgasm the body readily shuts down for slumber."

I almost choke on my own tongue. "What?"

A dark chuckle. "Basic physiology, Bernardo."

I am actually too stunned to speak, the rustle of sheets and quilt narrating in my stead. His body is remarkably still behind me, waiting. A dry cough, rasp: "I can't believe I'm actually going to turn you down. Fuck. Charlie is right down the hall." I hiss, throwing a hand toward the open door. "Fucking cocktease, christ."

A measured silence. "I should leave, then."

I wanted to kick something. "Don't you fucking dare."

A helpless noise, protest aborted. "It's a torture sometimes that your thoughts are so unreadable. I'll stay."

I pull his arm over and down, curling in over the cold branch. Slide his palm down my thigh, growling into the feather pillow. A sharp exhale against my ear, Edward wriggling his other arm under my ribs. A shift, his hands sliding back to grip mine, pushing all part and parcel down past the elastic of pyjamas and boxers in one smooth motion. I strangle a moan down into a hiccough, legs kicking slowly through the blankets like pedaling a bike underwater. What his icy touch doesn't meet he orchestrates my hands to reach instead, pads of his fingers gliding over my knuckles as they did over piano keys.

"You're warm."

I huff a curse, "You're not."