Stool pigeon
Bella and I returned from Portland to discover that Emmett had been experimenting with Laurent's look. We walked into the house to see Laurent looking not so much like the Three Musketeers had instituted affirmative action but more like…a Rastafarian?
His dreads had been stuffed into one of those enormous red, yellow and green knit hats and he was wearing a shirt with a glow-in-the-dark pot leaf on it.
"What's with the new look, Laurent?" Bella asked him, the corner of her mouth turning up slightly.
"Emmett said that I am too 'conspicuous' in my old clothes. He says I need to fit in better if I am going to live among humans." Laurent looked down at his new clothes with a look of concern. He's apparently also wearing hemp sandals.
"I'm not sure that this look is going to be…uh…less noticeable in Forks," Bella says, trying to be polite. "I mean, it's Forks, not someplace with a lot of…" She looks at me. "What's a place with a lot of stoners?"
"How am I supposed to know?" I ask her. "Like I've ever smoked pot?"
"How about Denver?" Carlisle says, looking up from his book.
"My first thought was Berkeley, " Esme says, without looking up from her magazine. Carlisle looks at her and nods. "Good call," he says.
Emmett comes in just then with a hacky sack in his hand.
"Emmett, I'm not sure that this look is the best for Laurent in terms of staying 'low profile,' you know what I mean?" I look at him skeptically.
"Dude, this look is perfect!" Emmett tosses the hacky sack to Laurent who catches it with his hands and then tentatively tosses it back to him. "No, man. You have to hit it back with your feet. Like this." Emmett kicks the tiny beanbag back to Laurent. Who kicks it back to Emmett so hard that it hits him in the side and disintegrates in an explosion of thread and beans.
"I am so sorry, Esme," Laurent rushes over to pick up the debris. Emmett just shakes his head. "We gonna have to work on that part."
"I just think my dad's going to pull him over and search his car, like, once a week," Bella says, laughing. "Which is cool, except that sometimes you guys have some weird stuff in your cars."
"Like what?" Emmett asks. "I mean, besides last week when we had Laurent's buddy in there."
"Well, I found some of my old clothes in the back of the Jeep when I was looking for Thomas's bunny hat."
"That's totally Edward's fault," Emmett says. "He's the one who was huffing your sweaters."
"Yeah, that was my fault," I say, shrugging my shoulders. Bella smiles at me sweetly.
"Yeah, but I know that wasn't your six pints of blood and gallon of corn syrup in the back of the Mercedes last week."
Carlisle looks sheepish. "Yeah, those were mine. I was doing some experiments."
"That's totally fine, Carlisle, but the hand cuffs and the three bags of cement might have tipped my dad off that there's something funny about you guys." Bella smiles at my family gently. Emmett and Esme raise their hands.
"Well, he's not going to be in Forks, right? I'm pretty sure they're going to be setting up shop in Port Angeles." I say this with less certainty than I feel, but if the girls are going to be encouraging any kind of sexual exploration I want it to be out of mind-reading range for me. The thought of some of the residents of Forks getting their freak on in new and more creative ways gives me the shivers, frankly.
"Yeah, that's the plan," Carlisle says. "Speaking of big travels, how was your trip?"
Bella blushes. Which makes me kind of giggly. "It was good. Who knew that many people liked jazz, huh?" She grabs Thomas' enormous bag of baby tools and gives us a little wave. "I'm going to go give him a bath and maybe take a nap."
I make a move to go with her but she waves me back. "You get caught up with your family. You probably need to hunt soon, too, right?" I shake my head reluctantly. She walks out of the room and I stare at the door.
"You know, Edward, even people who love each other need time apart," Esme's voice is gentle. I shake my head at her.
'You guys never even think about 'needing space' or whatever." I start to get paranoid. Has Bella said something to Esme about getting sick of me? That would be awful. And embarrassing.
"The couples in this house are mated pairs." Carlisle's voice is just as gentle. "It's different for us."
"I'm pretty sure she's my mate," I say to Carlisle. "I mean, what would be the point of her mind being silent to me? And her being the only one I…respond to." I really hope Carlisle gets what I am saying here because talking about this stuff in front of my mom is pretty much my idea of Hell.
"She might be, but I've never heard of a vampire mating with a human. It's possible she won't feel the strength of the mate bond unless she's changed." Carlisle looks at me earnestly. "Have you two talked about that yet?"
I nod. "Yeah, we did. But it's complicated. She says she needs to think about it." I suddenly get an idea. 'Do you think there's any way we can ask if your freaky Italian buddies have ever heard of this happening? I mean, in an 'a friend of mine has a friend who this happened to' way?"
Carlisle looks at Esme nervously and then turns back to me to speak. But before he can get a word out, Laurent pokes his enormous Rastafarian head back into the living room.
"Edward, I forgot to tell you, while you were in Portland a man called for you. I took the message." Laurent looks really proud of himself, like taking this phone message might have cured cancer or something. I nod to him to continue.
"He asked for you and I said that you were in Portland with your human girlfriend and son. He said that he would call back and that he hoped to see you soon."
"Who was it?" I ask, a little unnerved by the 'human girlfriend' part.
"He said his name was Aro. He is a friend of your father's," Laurent smiled at Carlisle proudly. Like a naïve, dreadlocked child. Who I'm apparently going to have to kill. After I deal with the entire Volturi guard. Fuck.
"Did you know about this?" I ask Carlisle, my voice a little high-pitched for someone who went through puberty back when you had to crank start your car. He nods.
"We were just about to tell you," Carlisle reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out a piece of paper. He hands it to me.
I kid you not, it's one of those emails you can have airlines send your loved ones with flight details. This one's for Aro Volturi and a bunch of his goons taking a flight out of Italy tonight. Those assholes have even pre-ordered the vegetarian meal. Very funny, you dicks.
"What are we going to do?" I drop my voice down to a hiss. The last thing I want to do is let Bella know about this.
"There's not much we can do but hope he'll see reason," Carlisle says with a sigh. "I mean, he's only bringing his brothers and three members of the guard, so he probably hasn't made a clear decision to destroy us."
I nod, "Yeah, but you know he's not going to give us any choice about Bella. And what about Thomas? I can't imagine Aro being cool with us having two humans know about us!"
"Well, don't forget that we weren't the ones to tell her," Emmett sits down on the couch next to me. "I mean, we could just claim to be keeping her close to make sure she doesn't tell, right?"
"Aro reads minds, right?" I ask Carlisle. He nods. I look at Emmett, waiting for him to notice that his idea is dumb. He just stares back at me.
"What?" he finally says.
"Actually, Emmett might have an idea there," Carlisle says thoughtfully.
"What, are we working on Emmett's self-esteem again? Because I am not doing affirmations with him again."
"You're just pissed because you had to say 'I love my hair and don't mind looking like this for eternity,'" Emmett laughs. I flip him off.
"No, I was just thinking about your inability to read Bella's mind. If it works the same for Aro, we could use that to our advantage. We could make sure that she's the only one he touches, and try to make Emmett's idea work."
"I don't want Bella or Thomas within one hundred miles of this place when they get here!" Yes, I know how ridiculous this sounds. No, I don't think that Aro's going to show up and go, "Oh, she's not here? My bad, sorry I missed her, ta ta!"
"Yeah, uh, Edward, I don't think not having them here is going to be an option," Carlisle looks at me with pity. Because I am pitiful. Ergo the looks of pity.
"Ok, but I don't want her to know." I get up from the couch and get ready to go out hunting. "There's no point in scaring her when there's nothing she can do."
"Yeah, that's a good plan. Because chicks dig surprises." Emmett follows me out the door. I can't actually feel pain unless someone pulls of a limb or something, but realizing that Emmett is right is painful to me. I'd rather have something pulled off, truthfully.
Well, not that. I might have plans for that.
Emmett and I chow down on some deer and make our way back to the house.
"Cheer up, Eddie, I'm sure we'll figure something out," Emmett pats my back. "Aro will probably just make us change Bella. That's what you want, right?"
"Well, yeah, but I don't think that's what she wants and it doesn't resolve the whole 'Thomas' issue, either." Emmett looks at me curiously, like he just noticed I have facial features or something.
"What?" I ask. "Do I have like deer boogers or something?" And, no, I didn't coin the expression. That would be Rosalie. While we lack the nasal discharge to get real boogers, sometimes you get fur or tissue or whatever in your nose. Voila! "Deer boogers." Just in case you thought Rosalie and Emmett weren't made for each other.
"Naw, man." Emmett just shakes his head. "You just were so busy thinking about what someone else wanted that you didn't remind me not to call you 'Eddie.' It's nice to see you be the other half of a couple instead of an isolated, neurotic dick."
"Thanks, Em. I'm all warm and fuzzy now." I give him a dry smile. "You think there's a Hallmark card that says that?"
"You shoulda looked when you were getting Bella that 'I like making out with you more than I want to drink your blood' card." Emmett shoves me into a tree and takes off back to the house. He also locks me out so I have to climb in the upstairs window. Which surprises Bella. But not as much as the news that she's about to make some new friends is going to, I'm guessing.
"Hey, sweetie, what's wrong?" She looks at me with concern and pats the bed next to her. She and Thomas have already gotten their pjs on and they're just adorable. It makes me really scared about what might happen.
"Well, we're going to have some visitors tomorrow," I say, sitting down next to her and picking at the bedspread like the woebegone undead creature I am.
"Honey, talk to me," she says, clearly concerned, pulling me towards her. I rest my head against her stomach with her hands in my hair. This is the nice part about being upset. I'm pretty pissed about all those years that my only option was being brooding and miserable rather than having Bella comfort me.
"The Volturi are coming. They know about you and Thomas and I don't know what they're going to do." She rubs my head and makes soothing noises.
"Well, what do you think might happen?" she asks, gently. She doesn't even sound that upset. Clearly she's smoking the weed that Laurent isn't.
"Well, they could kill you guys." I just thought I'd lead with something like that. "Or they could make us change you."
"Well, obviously I'd prefer the second option," she says. Yep, she's smoking pot. I'm wondering if I should get her some Doritos or something.
"How are you so calm about this?" I raise my head to look at her. Her eyes are suspiciously clear and she doesn't smell like pot.
"I trust that we're going to do whatever we can to keep Thomas safe. It's not like we had no idea this could happen, right?" She shrugs and pulls me back down to her. It is pretty nice there. I'll have to do whatever I can to make sure I can continue to have her to comfort me.
I'm so anxious that even if I could sleep I wouldn't be able to sleep. Plus Laurent is playing Bob Marley. I hate Bob Marley.
a/n: The patient and tolerant Betham betas this so if you see her give her a pat on the back and an "awww" of sympathy. Thank you for all your reviews and fond wishes for my Memorial Day Jazzapolooza.
Again, I have stolen from the sublime and beautiful WriteOnTime who coined the phrase "sweater-huffing" in a review. But rather than theft, I like to think of it as a sort of post-modern "borrowing." It takes a village to write something this ridiculous.
There are only two "normal" chapters of this left. Then there is a two-part thing about Thomas that will serve as an epilogue of sorts and then a couple of outtakes, like the "Great Carport Debate of 1967" and some Bella POV. I'll probably post it all under this story, though.
Thanks! xoxo JuJu