Chicago Overcoat

So, Laurent is thinking about how to get James out of the bar and James is thinking about how he's going to eat my baby like a potato chip and I'm thinking about the last time I had a vampire bonfire. It's been too long.

"Hey, uh, Laurent?" I get his attention. "Can I get you to hold up there for a second?" I give Emmett a pointed look and nod towards the door. Unbelievably, he understands my non-verbal communication and moves towards the door. I guess Emmett's having a "smart" day.

I'm going to have to go on the presumption that Laurent really wants to keep the peace here, and has no idea what his dickhead friend wants to do. That's what I'm getting from his thoughts, in addition to his embarrassment over James' lack of decorum and poor taste in music.

"I hope you don't mind sticking around for a bit," I say to them jovially, moving still closer. James and Laurent are looking at me curiously, but they have at least paused so I can get close enough to grab James by his scuzzy, denim-covered arms while Emmett moves in to get his legs. James snarls at us squirms, but he can't get away from us without losing a limb, which would also be OK with me. Laurent just stares at us, probably wondering why we are trying to draw and quarter his buddy.

"Does he, uh, have a tendency to pick his prey on the basis of how much it'll piss people off?" I ask Laurent. He rolls his eyes.

"James, you were going to go after a baby?" James is struggling to get away from Emmett and me.

"No! Why would I go after a baby?" I shake my head at Laurent.

"He was totally going after a baby," I say.

"James, I don't think I'm going to be able to help you this time. I don't know why you insist on doing this. Remember the time in Denver when you insisted on going after that stewardess…"

"Flight attendant." Jasper says.

"What?" Laurent asks, looking confused.

"Flight attendant. They don't call them stewardesses anymore. It's not politically correct. They call them flight attendants." Jasper explains patiently.

Laurent just stares at Jasper for a minute and then turns back to James, "Anyway, remember when you decided to go after that flight attendant and we ended up having to hang out in the cargo hold for three days when her flight went to Egypt and I told you that you needed to stop getting obsessive about who you went after? Well, now would be the time to give up on that."

"OK, I will! Just get these guys to let me go!" But I can see that he's some kind of obsessive freak. Not that I'm in any position to judge.

"He's not going to give up on it," I tell Laurent. "We're going to have to kill him. Are you cool with that?" Laurent frowns at James and shakes his head disparagingly.

"Yes, I suppose I must." He shakes a finger at James. "This is your own fault, you know!"

"We can tear him up in here, but we'll have to take him out to the house to barbeque," Emmett says, eying James carefully. "We'll have to use the Trans-Am since the Escalade doesn't have a trunk."

"I am not driving the Trans-Am!" Jasper says.

"Like I am?" I ask him.

"It's your girlfriend's baby. If anyone's gonna drive around looking like a tool, it should be you."

I sigh. Jasper's got a point. Then I remember Jake. "Hey, Scooby? You wanna drive the douche-mobile?" I get an idea. "Hey, Laurent. You don't want to keep it, do you?" Laurent shudders. "God, no," he says, flicking imaginary dust off his velvet coat.

"Jacob, you drive the Trans-Am with the vampire parts in the trunk out to our place, and you can keep it. I'll even throw in a Ted Nugent CD." I am the soul of generosity.

"Yeah, you can keep the CD, but I'll drive the car out there." Jacob shrugs.

"Cool. Shall we?" I gesture to James, who has been struggling against our hold on his limbs.

"Oh, wait a moment," Laurent holds up a lacy-cuffed hand. Which makes me giggle a little. "Victoria, James' mate. We'll have to deal with her as well."

"Yeah, she should have been here by now," Jasper says, frowning.

"Let's tear this guy up and then we'll go look for her," I say.

So we get James broken up into little vampire fragments and we transport them out to the trunk of the Trans-Am – which is gold, by the way - in boxes from the stockroom. We convince Laurent to come with us to help us find James' girlfriend/mate/whatever, who never did show up - which makes me nervous. We call the house to let them know that we're going to be lighting up the grill and that there's a mystery vampire roaming around.

I remind Jacob not to speed or anything because it would really suck if he got pulled over and Chief Swan saw the vampire chunks in the trunk of the Trans-Am. Especially since I know Rin-Tin-Tin would give me up in a heartbeat, and then I'd be in trouble with my hopefully-future-father-in-law. At the very least it would make family holidays awkward. He probably would expect me to carve the turkey.

Emmett drives his atrocity back to the house while I give Laurent a stern warning about keeping his teeth off my girl.

"You have a human girlfriend?" Laurent looks at me curiously. "With a baby?"

"Don't be a dick, Little Lord Fauntleroy!" Emmett yells over the stereo. "We're just happy that Eddie's not sulking in his room anymore. Seriously, he was one moody fucker before he started getting some 'face time', if you know what I mean."

"Thanks Emmett. But don't call me 'Eddie', OK?" I turn back to Laurent. "If you want to stick around, you just have to promise not to feed on humans in this area. This is where we live, and you can't do anything to call suspicion to us."

Laurent nods, although I can tell from his thoughts that he thinks it must be pretty boring eating deer and having human jobs. Which might be true if we were like postal carriers or accountants or one of those guys whose job it is to put flyers under your windshield.

But then we get to the house. At which point Laurent pretty much changes his mind about the entertainment factor inherent in our lifestyle. Because we are met by the sisters, who apparently love his dreadlocks and Prince-like wardrobe. I almost feel bad about throwing him to their mercy, but he seems to be having a good time. I leave them alone so we can immolate James and find his missing girlfriend.

Jake takes off for Dog-Town in his new Trans-Am, thankfully free of vampire scraps, promising he and the pack will be patrolling for the misplaced Victoria.

Emmett and I are watering down the pile of ashes in the back yard - because only we can prevent forest fires – when Bella comes down. She's yawning and she's got pillow scars on her face and, remarkably, seems to have missed all the action, which is good.

"Hey, why is there a guy with dreadlocks and a pirate costume in the living room?" she asks us.

"Oh, that's Laurent. He's thinking about joining us."

"Well, it looks like the sisters are helping him think about the lifestyle change." Bella smiles. "With their boobs," she adds, and Emmett laughs.

I wrap my arms around her. "If you keep talking like Emmett, I don't know if we can be together."

She pulls away to look at me with an expression of hurt surprise. "Really?" she asks.

"No, I'm bluffing. You totally own me. You could tell nothing but knock-knock jokes and I'd laugh just so I could make out with you." I pull her back to my side and she kisses under my jaw, which is pretty much as far as she can reach. Emmett makes a retching noise and goes into the house, passing Alice coming out.

I raise an eyebrow at her. I want to ask her about what she sees with Victoria, but I don't really want to talk about it in front of Bella.

But Alice, of course, has NO such compunction and starts in talking about it. "Edward, I am so sorry I didn't see the thing with Thomas' slipper! It's got to be the wolves. Everything goes all fuzzy once we add them into the equation."

"Where's Thomas' slipper?" Bella asks, sleepily.

"Oh, Thomas dropped his slipper and Alice wasn't sure if we were going to find it. You know, the pair with the little bear face on them that Rose got him? She would get so mad if she thought we had lost them, huh?" I am trying to laugh, like "Oh, yeah. Ha, ha. Losing baby shoes is a real bitch, huh? Almost as bad as having a crazy vampire come after your baby. Not that that happened!"

Alice and Bella both look at me. Bella is totally on to me, I can tell. She pulls away again and nods her head slowly at me.

"So, the whole dreadlocked-guy-in-the-living-room, setting-stuff-on-fire-in-the-backyard thing is so you could find a missing baby shoe? And did I see a Trans-Am in the driveway a little while ago?" She smiles at me sweetly.

"Ok, so it was a little more complicated than that," I admit, and she nods at me.

"I know, Alice told me." Damn Alice and her whole 'honesty' thing. She's really making me look bad here.

"About James wanting to come after Thomas and his girlfriend still being out there and everything?" Bella nods. Again. "So, I pretty much look like a big liar right now, huh?" Again with the nod. The smug nod. There is no worse nod in the history of nods than the smug nod. It used to be that I was the one doing the "I just read your mind" smug nod and watching other people feel stupid. This is mind-reader karma right here. This is payback for a century of self-righteous smug nodding.

"I understand that you are trying to keep me from worrying. I appreciate that, Edward. I really do. But we had a deal about honesty, right?"

I nod. It's really a kind of hanging-my-head nod. I miss the smug nod days.

"And I would worry about Thomas and myself, but I know that you're going to protect us, and that woman is way outnumbered, right? Between you guys and the wolves, and now the dread pirate Laurent in there, I feel pretty safe."

I look at Alice, anxiously. She gives me a tentative smile. "I'm pretty sure it's going to be OK. Like I said, she's evasive, it's hard to pin her down. But if we keep Bella and Thomas close, I think they'll be fine."

"I'm sorry I lied," I say. "Are you going to stop making out with me now?" Yeah, less than smooth, I know. But if the lying thing isn't working for me, I figured I should try the whole honesty thing.

Bella winks at me. "Alice said you had to keep me close, right? You know, for safety and all."

I give her a serious look. "I'm pretty sure that the safest place in the house is my bedroom. We should probably get you right up there." She blushes at me.

"Alright, Romeo," Alice interjects. "Bella needs to eat, and we need to go talk to the sisters. They've got news for us."

I grab Bella's hand and we go into the house, where the sisters are sitting around talking excitedly. Laurent is nowhere to be seen. I'm concerned that they might have worn him down to a nub or drained the life out of him, but Irina notices my curious look.

"The dark handsome one went hunting with Jasper and Carlisle. He thinks maybe he try eating animal for a while." She smiles at her sisters. 'We give him encouragement."

"Yeah, I bet you girls did," I say, sitting down. "So, Alice says you have news for us?"

"We decide we like it here," Tanya says. "We stay close to little Thomas, live where there is more people."

"We have been wanting to start business but there are not so many people in Alaska. Business do better here, no?" Kate smiles at her sisters. "We think Port Angeles. Bigger town. Still close to little Thomas."

"What kind of business?" I ask. And then I see it. Awkward.

"We open sex shop," Tanya says. "You know, sell DVD, magazines, sex toy."

"Cool," Bella says. I look at her.

I try to figure out how I got here. A year ago I was this libido-less century-old virgin. Now I've got a human girlfriend who I pretty much want to grope all the time and who thinks sex shops are "cool." And I'm a century-old virgin.

The bedroom's looking safer and safer all the time. I should probably hide her under the covers. And maybe under me just to be safe.

a/n: "Chicago Overcoat" is gumshoe slang for a coffin. The lovely and talented Betham betas this, so she should have your sympathies. Sometime you should ask her how many different ways I have of spelling "OK."

This last week has been MADE of awesome. Grrlinterupted made me this adorable banner: http : / bit (dot) ly/jJSdKM. (Remove all the dots and spaces on my links, please) THEN I got a really sweet review from JB30 and Kassiah on The Fictionators: http : / bit (dot) ly/m6Lbc1 and THEN MeraNaamJoker rec'd it on TwiFicPimps: http : / bit (dot) ly/lwIqNN. Even though I've totally talked smack about wolves. Because she's kind and forgiving like that.

Thanks for all the recs, retweets, kind words and tolerance for my overall dorkiness and short updates! xoxo, JuJu