And so, yes, apparently, vampire can get drunk ... but while our favourite double-act of Jazz and Em are painting the town red, the Cullen family is having problems, and feeling very confused ...

~Interlude~

~Edward~

He could do this. He could totally do this.

He would not kill Bella Swan. No pitiful human girl was worth inferring his family's wrath (read: Rose's wrath) … especially recently.

Edward Cullen seized two handfuls of his bronze hair, and held his head tightly in his hands, crouching on the sofa in his room, rocking slightly with each spiral of dementia. He was going crazy.

His whole world was going crazy.

Bella's scent. Roses, blood, fair and florid sweet-scented … stale beer, and the intoxicating aroma of vodka that seemed to cling to Emmett these days, potent and strong, with the blood … blood … blood of the Swan girl, dripping and flowing into the Eye of the Tiger and the moshing … oh, the moshing … and the krumping of Debbie Harry feeding … biting … ripping and tearing through translucent skin, with the sweet nectar of her blood pooling all around, and those soulful brown eyes glassy, unseeing … Bella …

'I wanna dance with Harry Dean …'

'SHUT THAT CRAP OFF, JASPER!! JESUS CHRIST, CAN'T A GUY HAVE A MOMENT OF INSANITY TO HIMSELF IN THIS HOUSE???'

Silence. As blissful and deep as the warm, chocolate, bloody glare of –

'I've … become so numb … I can't feel you –'

'AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!'

~Carlisle~

His office is ordered, neat. Quiet. It's like being the father of a grown-up family, intent on peaceful pursuits, with families of their own, and responsibilities, and ties. He is proud of them. His family have come along nicely. Holidaying together, for a little while, and Jasper so much better. A new life gleaming in his eyes, with him and Rose close as true brother and sister.

But Edward … Edward alone, as ever, with his music, thoughts and torments. Would God not smile on this, most painfully beloved of all his sons, and give him one to share his great love with? To give his life meaning again?

But they're so close now. His great, grown-up Cullen clan. The family he spent so long bringing, and binding and nurturing, but for such a reward. Peace, bliss, with love and culture, and refinement, and –

'Yo, Doc! You got any of those crazy books about shit?'

He knows Emmett well. He remembers the day be was reborn a vampire. Huge. Muscled. Ecstatic at being the strongest thing on the planet. Terrified of what he was.

He stands before the doctor, shirtless, wearing chains and a baseball cap, when there is quite obviously no occasion for a game, and from behind him, the doctor can hear seventies hits being played so loudly, he feels as if he should turn 'mortal father' and tell those damned kids to turn their modern music down.

'Do you mean encyclopedias, Emmett?' he asks, and his voice sounds weary.

'YEAH! That's it!' he yells, as he jumps off the walls in the doctor's office.

He hastens to hand him an index, and the bear-like vampire yells,

'GRACIAS, HERR CULLEN!'

before back-flipping from the office. The doctor stands, shaken for a moment, before shutting his door, and wondering what on God's great green earth has gotten into his paragon children.

He locks his door.

Then, just to be sure, he locks it again.

~Esme~

Scrub scrub scrub. Scrub scrub. Scrub. Always work to be done when you're a mother. That's how it goes, even when you're the mother to a family of vampires. It doesn't make a difference to her; she loves them as if she's raised them all from infants. Sometimes it seems like that to her.

Rose might be standoffish and picky, but Esme know her heart. She remembers well to days she held her hand, when she told her how she longed for a child of her own. Esme remember her heartache, and pain, and felt it like her own.

She remembers Jasper, when he came to them, with his dark eyes and darker mind. She remembers how foreign a concept love seemed to him, but she know that he rediscovered it in her home, with her family, as he is now.

Esme thinks of Edward, and her heart aches for him, her beautiful first son. If her own sweet baby boy had grown up, she prays he would have had such a beautiful soul as Edward. She prays he would have known happier thoughts.

Carlisle is in the kitchen, where she's rubbing the table down. Esme doesn't think she's ever used it, but oh well, dust collects.

'Hello, my darling,' she greets him. He's been in his office all day, and dusk is falling outside. It's a pretty view from the windows.

Carlisle sits down beside her, before he looks up at her, his gold eyes blazing. Esme tries not to notice, and continue scrubbing.

'Esme … would you run away with me?'

'You know I would. Why?'

He's nervous. And acting strangely. Run away? Run away from what? What horror has befallen them?

'It's not … Jasper didn't … oh, God, not Edward …'

'No, no. But … if I asked you … let's run now, Esme. Let's just start running, and not stop until the end of the world is in sight. Let's just … keep going.'

Oh, dear God, he's serious.

'Carlisle. What's wrong?'

His shoulders slump, defeated.

'It's the kids, Esme. I think …' He trails off. If her heart was still functioning, it would be hammering. Her children … what of them?

'I think …' His golden eyes are anguished, and she's holding his face in her hands, holding him together.

'I think they're drinking,' he whispers, tortured.

You can hardly forgive her hysterical laugher.

xXx

Signing in as : Wraithlike

Bhuel, bhuel, bheul. He he he, to give you all a 'lil break from Jasper and his suicide (but NO LONGER!!) and Em and his blondeness, I give you ... THE FIRST INTERLUDE!! ... to be followed directly by chapter 11, so some of you aren't like, -in complaining tone- 'It's supposed to be about vampires getting drunk, nyah, nyah, nyah ...'

Yeah, well. Here's the interlude, and up next is Jazz and Em off on another whirl-wind big-city adventure ... to FORKS HIGH!! HAIL THE SPARTANS!! WOOT!!