Disclaimer: Stephanie Meyer owns all.

Rated M for several reasons.

Chpt 19 Boil on the Ass of Life

BPOV

"Bella and I are busy at the moment Emmett." He says quietly. "What can I help you with?"

"When Kate got home and found Bella gone and you AWOL the balloon went up. If I go home without the pair of you Esme's gonna have my balls with the pruning shears."

For some reason this makes me giggle, the vampire I can see over Asshole's broad shoulder is an enormous wall of rippling muscle and the idea of little Esme chasing him round with the intention of castrating him is highly amusing.

"We'll be with you in five minutes." Asshole growls, glaring down at me so the giggle dies on my lips.

"I'll just wander over there and wait for the five minutes then." The giant responds, disappearing from my view but thankfully not from earshot.

We stare at each other in increasingly uncomfortable silence.

And it dawns on me that this is an extremely intimate position for a man and a woman to be in, his hips resting between my thighs, his body pressing down on me, his face a mere inch from mine.

In fact this is the closest I have ever been to a member of the opposite sex.

And the depressing reality of the situation crashes down on me like a ton of bricks.

I close my eyes, biting my lip to keep from breaking down.

I'm dead. I'm never going to go to parties, get drunk and fumble around in the dark with boys. I've no family and only one person I could call a friend, who is inextricably linked to the only person I could call an enemy. And the man who made me dead and doesn't care is currently lying on top of me in some grotesque parody of the lover I'll probably never have.

"I'm not going to hurt you." He repeats, slightly more gently this time.

I shake my head, eyes still closed. Too late, you already have.

He sighs heavily, his breath wafting across my face and stirring my hair.

If I tap my heels together three times can I go home? Will it make it all go away?

No. It won't.

This I have already learned.

I open my eyes to find him frowning at me.

"Will you please talk to me?"

I don't know what to say.

"If I let you up will you run away again?"

I shake my head and emit a sigh of my own.

He leaps to his feet, towering over me. Does he realise how threatening that is?

Then, like last night, he offers me his hand.

Ignoring it I keep my eyes on his face as I climb to my own feet.

This seems to make him angry again but at least it means we're back in familiar territory.

"Are you coming home with us?" He demands.

I don't have an answer.

"Don't cut your nose off to spite your face." He growls quietly. "I've got nothing to offer you but the others have. Don't lose out on that just because I'm an asshole. This is a damn hard life to make it through on your own, I know.

Take the opportunities when they present themselves.

I've got no problem staying out of your way until you're ready to leave again."

Behind him I can see the muscular giant, Emmett, drawing closer.

He smiles at me encouragingly and nods slightly.

Is that an indication that he thinks Asshole's right? Or is he just concerned about Esme's pruning shears?

As if he can read my mind he winks and covers his bits with his huge hands.

Another giggle bubbles up inside me. And another.

This seems to make Asshole, who can't see what his brother is doing, extremely angry.

And finally I come full circle, does it always have to be so hard? I will go back. I will do what I said I was going to do. I will stay out of A'hole's way and I will leave when I'm good and ready.

Turning away I snatch up my backpack and start back toward the house with the giant Emmett jogging along beside me and A'hole silently bringing up the rear.

By the time we reach the house I have permission to call the giant Em, and his entire life history, both of them . . . .

...

Our return is greeted with a pleasing lack of reaction, only Kate grilling me to find out what actually happened.

Oh I know they talked about it, I heard most of it, but the general consensus seemed to be that at least he'd done something right by me in persuading me to come back. However he'd done it.

It wasn't his charm people, trust me . . . .

Nevertheless with surprising speed everything settles into some kind of routine.

Carlisle's started work at the local hospital almost immediately and Rosalie and Em have started back at High School. Esme offered to enrol me too and although I want to finish school one day I decided that doing it here and now is just a little too permanent for me. And I doubt A'hole would be particularly impressed. Tanya and Carmen are busy preparing to return to Denali. They've issued an open invitation for me to go with them and I'm tempted but I don't think I will, I've promised myself a vacation in the sun in exchange for dealing with all this and I've never liked cold wet things, I'm pretty sure Alaska qualifies . . . .

Not that I won't miss Kate. But isn't that what phones and social media are for, to keep in touch with your distant friends until you can see them again . . . .

It's all taking longer than I imagined though. I thought I'd be gone again in a few days, but this gift stuff . . . .

Eleazar can explain the basics of what he thinks I can do until he's blue in the face but it's such an alien idea I haven't even begun to work it out. Kate's helping as much as she can, talking me through how she learnt and developed hers but it's still so conceptual. He says I'm a mental shield, which makes me think of a Transformer with a shimmering force field for some reason, a reference that goes right over his handsome three hundred year old Spanish head every time.

Apparently the shield means that my mind is closed off and protected from other peoples. Something we all take for granted right? Wouldn't you just die if you thought your parents knew what you were thinking? I would have done, and gladly . . . .

But when you come into the world of the gifted walking dead it's a whole other ball game . . . .

Eleazar thinks that Edward wouldn't have been able to read my mind and we know Kate can't shock me. I was mildly offended to discover that she's been trying on and off since she met me but I was still sceptical until Em let her demonstrate, I've seen tasered humans stand up better than that, nasty . . . .

A'hole, the only other appropriately gifted vampire in the house, was brought in to consult and confirmed that he couldn't read or influence my emotions. There was a bit of a sticky moment when Eleazar asked him if that was also true when I was a human. No, he answered flatly, before walking out and disappearing for five hours.

Human traits, latent gifts, are often amplified by the change Eleazar explained. I filed the thought trail that episode provoked away somewhere I could hopefully ignore later . . . .

The funny thing is, being around vampires that think and act at vampire speed, has helped me to a degree with mastering or perhaps just accepting my wayward brain. Not to a level I'm comfortable with but it's a definite improvement. I still wish there was some other way I could subdue the fucking thing but Eleazar says all that comes with time and experience. Patience, he says, is a whole other mountain to climb . . . .

Anyway in the last couple of days I haven't mastered the fundamentals of what or where my shield is, never mind how I might be able to use it. I'd like to consider leaving again but I have to admit Eleazar's got me curious now and I want to know and understand whatever this thing is lurking in my head. Wanting is one thing, actually getting hold of the damn thing is turning out to be quite another.

And all of this has led to a great deal of frustration which I have been working off by running for hours and hunting to the point of sloshiness, I didn't even know you could do that, it's an odd sensation to say the least . . . .

And because I can't switch myself off very easily and I don't want to think about me I've been thinking about the others.

Carlisle is the owner of the calm authoritative voice, smooth and sophisticated, every inch the consummate doctor. And like Esme you can't help but like him, even if you're trying not to. Rosalie has taken me a little longer to work out, she's like a barracuda in a long blonde wig. But her bitchy ice queen persona isn't meant to be taken personally, she's even like it with Em, who she clearly adores. And she can be quite fun when she puts her mind to it. Em is exactly what it says on his tin, a gentle giant with a low boredom threshold and a sense of mischief that an ordinary person would need a trailer to haul around. I like Tanya, cautiously, she reminds me of the Principal at my old school, friendly and supportive but you knew she had a baseball bat in the bottom drawer of her desk and wouldn't be afraid to use it.

Being around all these vampires is teaching me about me if nothing else. There are just too many of them. The house is never quiet, there's always something going on. I think maybe it's also got something to do with not coming from a big family myself, from time to time I just really feel the urge to be away from them. They're all very understanding about it, even Eleazar who is somewhat obsessed with his lessons,seems to know when I've had enough and need some time off.

And there are other drawbacks to this communal living. Sex. I know Eleazar said it has the same affect calming a vampire as hunting and feeding but god this lot are at it like rabbits, even the single ones who go out most nights and come back in the early hours happy and relaxed, reeking of it. Of course I've always known it goes on, especially since my change improved my hearing and sense of smell, but really, right now I kind of feel like I'm having my face rubbed in it. And it's stirring the most inappropriate carnal impulses in me considering that previously I'd only vaguely considered that I might not be a virgin for eternity and had only a Sex Ed / fictional idea of what's involved in it.

And I'm blaming A'hole for that. If he hadn't been rolling around on top of me maybe I wouldn't have noticed I was missing anything . . . .

And thinking about missing out on sex is a hell of a lot better than focussing on what I'm really missing out on . . . .

Some sort of 'Project Re-Habilitate Jasper' is apparently underway. They might never force us together, or in fact leave us alone together but they seem to manage to ensure we spend more time around each other than I would frankly like. And it always starts out okay, ish, but the more time he spends around me the narkier he gets until its finally so bad that even the other's can't fail to notice the growing atmosphere. That's when I make one of my now infamous exits. If I'm going to stay here for any length of time at all I can't afford to let any of them see how much his attitude gets to me.

I might not want or expect anything from him but in some strange way it hurts like a bitch that I wouldn't get it if I did.

Asshole.

In addition to learning about my gift Em is teaching me self defence and Carlisle thought it would be a good idea if Jasper helps, seeing as how he has the most experience of fighting in the family. Why does that not surprise me?

I managed to muster a vocal objection to that one but Em assured me that I wouldn't actually have to fight with Jasper, rather that he would watch and offer advice.

The first lesson in the meadow near the house was a disaster. Em flattened me so many times I was worried I'd drop a dress size and after an hour A'hole got to his feet muttering about the whole thing being torture and stomped off.

This being in the same State as my sire is even harder than I anticipated. I'm hyper aware of him the whole time. His scent is always the strongest, his movements always the ones I pick out of the background noise, his voice the one that cuts through the general hubbub. It all serves to help me avoid him but at the same time it means I never really do, like a pimple on your butt, just because you can't see it doesn't mean it isn't there.

A/N This is my third attempt to post this chapter, after this its in the lap of the gods. They're probably looking the other way but we can but hope . . .