Emmett McCarthy always joked about going head to head with a bear. It was one thing to boast about it to his friends and siblings. Emmett was tall and muscled from working at the railroad and lumberyard. He regularly hunted game and chopped down trees with his brothers. He had been a big baby and his mother told him she was nearly ripped her apart when his big head came outta her. He was strong and tough and no mean old bear could take him.
Finally seeing a black bear in person was singularly terrifying. His hands shook but he was able to get a shot with his rifle before the bear got on its hind legs and smacked him down with a huge paw. He crumbled like a dandelion in the wind. He tasted his own blood, the cuts on his face stinging from his tears and he realized that his little sister Evelyn was right. He was a big, dumb idiot.
He was going to get killed by a bear and his family would have to live with the shame that their eldest child died because he decided to go on a hunt by himself. The bear was reaching down to finish the deed and he wondered if anyone would even find his body or would he just be a cautionary tale for children not to go into the woods? Would Evie look outside her bedroom window and wait for him to never return? Would his brothers spend days looking for nothing?
A white blur knocked down the bear and he was too weak to sit up and see what was happening. There was what sounded like a struggle with the bear growling loudly. It lasted about a minute before there was a crack, bone breaking he realized, and silence. He waited, blood seeping from his wounds on the ground, as a tall man came over and stood over him.
His eyes were blood red, the same shade as the red stain on his mouth, his skin white as fresh snow. He could've been a demon like the ones Father Walter would rant about during Sunday Mass but they never said demons would be so…pretty. He expected horns and a forked tail, not someone that could've been a prince in the fairytales Evie used to adore.
"I'm not pretty," the stranger grumbled, eyebrows furrowed. "Though you're not too far off to say I'm a demon."
"What are you then, princess?"
Emmett's strength was weakening by the second but he'd be damned to spend his last moments a crying mess. He always told everyone if he was gonna go, he was gonna go laughing.
The stranger leaned down, observing his wounds critically as he swallowed. "What's your name?"
"Emmett McCarthy," he replied. "When…when it's over, please tell my family I went down with a fight. I don't want them to think I pissed myself during the attack. My brothers would laugh over my grave."
"Usually people are terrified when they're about to die," There was a worrying certainty to the stranger's words. "Not making jokes."
"Who says I'm not scared?" Emmett gave him his best devil-may-care smile. "I'm fucking terrified, princess, but that doesn't mean I'm gonna cry about it."
"My name is Edward. You can quit calling me 'princess'."
"Nice to meet you, Edward," He finally closed his eyes. He couldn't feel his limbs anymore. "Sorry our time together has to be so short."
There was a sigh and a cold hand was on his shoulder and jostled him gently. He opened his eyes and Edward was staring down at him with those disturbing red gaze.
"I could save you," Edward offered. "I was never given the choice so I'm offering it. You won't die but you'll become like me."
"Are you really a demon?"
"I'm a vampire."
Certain death or become a creature of the night? He had heard the myths about monsters that feasted on blood and lived forever but he never thought he'd ever get to meet one. He never thought he'd get mauled by a bear either but this was turning out to be the strangest day. What did he even have to lose? His soul? He never had much use for it anyway.
Emmett snorted. "Will I be pretty like you?"
Edward rolled his eyes and picked up Emmett with surprising strength. Emmett was not light but Edward treated him like he was a bundle of feathers.
"Hold on, Emmett McCarthy," Edward told him. "Don't die on me just yet."
Emmett had a type. He learned early on through puberty that he liked blonde women. He fancied himself in love with his next door neighbor Frances when he was fifteen. All he dreamt about what having her in his bed and he would've promised her the world to have that come true. She was wiser than both of them and laughed away his clumsy attempts at wooing and married his best friend Roger three years later.
He danced with the bride at their wedding and asked her why she didn't choose him. It could've been the two of them instead. Frannie laughed and told him, "You're not the marrying sort, Emmett."
She turned out to be right. She had chosen the better man, steadfast and loyal Roger who she never had to worry would ever fall out of love with her. Emmett fell in and out of love faster than a train changing stations. There were a string of pretty blondes before and after his turning.
Then there was Tanya. He met her when he was a wild and starved newborn. Sex kept the thirst at bay when all he wanted was to drain every man and woman he came across. Tanya was always accommodating and a good match for him in many ways.
He thought he was in love with her. Being with her was easy and they always returned to each other no matter how much time passed. When he told her this, Tanya smiled sadly and said, "You're not the staying sort, Emmett."
She had to be wrong. He had never abandoned his family even when there wasn't much food and through the harshest of winters. He always found a way to provide for them especially after his father died one winter. After he became a vampire, he left them a large bag of money on the porch and hoped that Ethan and Elliot remembered everything he taught them. He hoped Evie found somebody kind and strong to marry.
Emmett wanted to prove Tanya wrong but as the years passed by and every relationship he was in crumbled in his hands he began to wonder if he was a fool fighting against the truth. Frannie was right. Tanya was right. Emmett could only really love his family and that was all he was capable of.
It wasn't the worst thing. He loved his adopted family. Carlisle and Esme could never replace his parents as they were too different from Frank and Ruth McCarthy who had been strict but loving parents. His adopted siblings didn't need him to take care of them like he had his younger siblings. They wanted his company and nothing more.
Emmett had to accept that he wasn't the relationship sort. He wasn't alone in this. Edward was single too (even if it was more a lack of trying than anything else for his brother). He would be fine.
Then, after the first full moon after Lauren Mallory's eighteenth birthday, he bumped into her in the hallway and his world was turned upside down.
"This is a bad idea," Edward said not for the first time as they made their way to the Mallorys' property. "She's going to get angry at you again."
"She's been angry before," Emmett replied, flippantly. Lauren was always angry. It was her default setting. "And she'll find this charming."
"No. She won't," his brother refuted. "Trust the mind-reader."
Emmett put down the boombox that he found stashed in the attic on the ground and glared at his brother. "Do you want to leave? I asked for a wingman not a bringer-of-doubt."
"I am not a bringer-of-doubt. I'm just pointing out the flaws in your plan."
"Doubt-bringer," Emmett said it like it was a dirty word. "You go back to your Cave of No-Hope and leave me be to woo my girl."
Edward scowled and began walking away. "If she sets you on fire, I'm not calling Carlisle. You're on your own."
Emmett bent down and checked if the mixed tape was inside the boombox before turning it on. He turned the volume up to max and lifted it over his head. Air Supply's All Out Of Love screeched through the speakers. He kept his gaze on Lauren Mallory's bedroom window and waited.
He remembered watching Say Anything back in the eighties and how girls had melted at the scene of John Cusack with the boombox. This had to work. Edward and his doubt-bringer ways be damned.
"I'm all out of love, I'm so lost without you," the boombox sang. "I know you were right believing for so long…"
He perked up when Lauren appeared at her window, her hair messy from sleep. She was the prettiest thing he'd ever seen. She was staring at him in disbelief through the glass as if he was an apparition in the desert. She pushed the window open and called out, "Cullen?"
"Hey, gorgeous!" He grinned at her. "You come here often?"
"I'm all out love, what am I without you," the boombox continued. "I can't be too late to say that I was so wrong…"
"What are you doing here?" Lauren demanded, shouting to be heard over the music. "It's midnight!"
"I missed you!" he admitted, needing to shout too cause the boombox was muffling both their super hearing. "And you won't talk to me at school so here we are!"
Lauren gaped at him, her shock turning to dismay then fury. "I'm calling the cops!"
He shrugged and began singing along to the music, loudly and off-key. "I'm all out love, what am I without you…"
Sheriff Swan arrived in a squad car with a deputy and tried to talk to him about leaving. Emmett ignored them and continued his unappreciated musical performance. Lauren glared at him from the window and shook her head at him. Sheriff Swan finally took the boombox from him and turned it off.
That did not stop Emmett singing the rest of the song except there was no more loud music to cover how bad his voice was. Sheriff Swan threatened to call his father.
"I don't care if you call my Dad – I'm all out of love," Emmett was not leaving that lawn voluntarily. "What am I without you?"
Dr. Carlisle Cullen had been at the hospital on his shift and arrived at the scene still in his scrubs. He was more than exasperated as he dragged his son with surprising strength and one-handedly while Emmett bellowed out the last line to the song. Lauren was rubbing at her temples as she staved off a headache. Carlisle pushed him into the back seat of his car.
Esme was in the passenger seat and seemed to be reevaluating her desire to have children. "Emmett, why are you harassing that poor girl?"
"I'm trying to woo her," he replied. "It worked in that rom-com."
Carlisle was now in the driver's seat and turned to him, holding out his hand. "Give me the mix tape."
Emmett reluctantly took it out of the boombox and handed it over. He wasn't surprised when Carlisle rolled down his window and threw the mix tape out where it flew through the forest and probably hit a squirrel. Carlisle stared the engine and they began driving away. Emmett stared at the Mallorys' house as it disappeared from view and resolved to try again tomorrow.
He wasn't giving up that easily. Frannie and Tanya had been wrong about him. He was the relationship sort. He just hadn't met the right girl yet. If only he'd known he'd been waiting all this time for a werewolf.
I am solely placing the blame on cafeanna for this. She knew I loved Emmett and I couldn't resist. This is obviously an alternate universe/uncanon fic so please don't go on about Emmett and Rosalie. I love those two and they belong together. But this idea attacked me and would not let go.
1. Where is Rosalie? For this AU to work, she never became a vampire. She married a nice man and had children. Royce never met her and was hit by a train. There is also no Bella because I say so.
2. Emmett McCarthy's background info is from the Twilight wiki mixed with my own ideas. The names of his family was never revealed so I chose for them.
