Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended. Stephenie Meyer created it all.

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Chapter 17: Jacob- Vampires Complicate Everything, Damn It!

Just a few weeks ago I was sitting at the movies with Bella and that schmuck Mike Newton that she brought with her. Little did I know that that was probably the easier time of my existence. It was now officially complicated. I laid in my bed with my feet hanging over the edge and thought back to the day that complicated everything. It was the first patrol that I ever smelled a vampire and it was the day I would never ever forget.

The Cullens returned shortly after Bella disappeared so we drew back into our own boundary lines, but still we ventured out a little just to be safe. On that fateful day, we were patrolling within our lines when the wind changed and brought with it the scent of vampires. Through Sam's expertise he was able to tell me there were two. It took me a few seconds to realize that I didn't realize there were two because of my newness, but because the one scent didn't register as vampiric to me at all. It smelled like tobacco and juniper.

I didn't question it, I just followed Sam's lead and soon we were coming up on a male and a female. They were fast but soon were close enough to attack. The only think that stopped the inevitable was another leech yelling about a treaty. Cullen came and stood between us and the other two trespassers. Well, they weren't trespassing, but they were close enough.

We phased back so that we could speak with the bloodsucker. I was shocked to see the female was Bella, I couldn't believe my eyes so I took a step closer.

"Jacob, don't come any close, she's not stable," Cullen said. It pissed me off; first he stopped me from killing these vampires, then he was giving me orders.

Then Sam said the words that forever changed my world, "Look at their eyes."

I glanced away from Bella's eyes just to see what Sam was talking about. I don't know what I was looking for but I certainly didn't expect to find my soul mate. The moment my eyes made contact with the man's, every fiber of gravity that held me to this earth transferred to him. I couldn't take my eyes off him. I watched as Bella clung to his arm and jealousy and despair washed through me, he couldn't be with her, could he?

Bella was speaking to me, "Jacob, you're a werewolf and you couldn't even tell me?"

"I might have if you hadn't run off with that bl- with him, now look at you," I started to quiver in my anger, I couldn't believe that I almost used such a derogatory term on my reason for existence. Sam helped me calm down and soon my breathing returned to normal.

"Why did you go?" I asked. I was trying to look at Bella as I spoke to her, but my gaze always found its way back to him. It almost hurt to look away from him. She stopped looking at me and turned her attention to Cullen and I took the opportunity to allowed my attention to go back to... I still didn't know his name.

I got lost in his eyes when he would meet mine, but he was watching all of us; Bella and Edward as they danced figuratively around one another, me as I drank him in, and Sam as he presided over all of us.

"Laurent's right," Edward said. Who knows what else he said, all I could think was 'his name is Laurent'. Laurent, Laurent, Laurent. It was a soft-sounding name, but he looked so commanding. I wanted...

Sam slapped my arm as Bella and Laurent ran away. I shook my head to try to push Laurent out of my mind as I phased with Sam. I heard Sam thinking at me.

Okay, we need two more, we're meeting up with the Cullens to discuss the treaty in half an hour. I'm going to call for Paul and Jared. And then he howled.

I tried to concentrate but I couldn't stop thinking about him.

Did you just imprint? On a guy? On a vampire? Sam thought.

Dude, did you hear that? Jake just imprinted on a vampire! Jared thought to Paul.

They saw the image I couldn't get from my mind, the image of Laurent and Bella standing together. They assumed I imprinted on Bella. I tried to get my mind clear, I didn't need an audience. I ran ahead to the meeting place and phased back so that I could have my head to myself.

I sat down against a tree and tried to think about what this meant. How could that work? How could we ever... be close? Did I even really want that? Surely fate would not endear a mindless killer to me. Does that mean that I was gay? I didn't think I was.

I heard the unique rhythm of Sam's footfalls as he got closer. He phased and put a hand on my shoulder, "Come on, Jacob, there will be lots of time to think things through later."

I got up and phased and Paul and Jared joined us. We flanked Sam as he stayed human and we waited to the Cullens to arrive. We watched as they filed up to us and I searched for him. There was only Bella, her bloodsucker, the doctor and another one; no Laurent. My spirits plummeted, I kind of hoped to see him. What if he didn't want to see me?

Wait, you imprinted on the guy? Jared thought.

I didn't dignify him with a response, they may have a front row seat to my thoughts right now, but it didn't make it any of their business. At least, not until I wanted it to be, and I needed to figure things out first.

I tuned out the conversation until Laurent was mentioned. Apparently he was the one that bit Bella. Sam asked, no doubt for me, if Laurent would be staying in the area for a while. I was grateful for him asking. I knew that I wanted him, but I also knew that I wasn't ready for him, yet. I needed to come to terms with some things and Sam was only ensuring that Laurent would still be here when I was ready.

In a daze I watched as the Cullens walked away. Bella called out to me but I just couldn't focus. Edward pulled her along explaining that I needed time. I wondered how he knew. I heard legends about how some vampires had special powers, maybe he had one.

We didn't walk too far away before Sam ordered Paul and Jared to phase out and he phased to talk to me.

Tough hand, huh? He thought.

You have no idea, I lamented, he's not even human!

You're not worried about the fact that he's a guy?

Next to the human thing? That's nothing! I wouldn't have believed it before, but now that it's happened it feels okay. Right, you know?

He thought about how he felt about Emily and could only agree that imprinting was a magical and mysterious thing. He wouldn't change what he had with Emily for anything.

Go home and talk to your dad about it, take as much time as you need. Come back when you're ready. He thought and I took off running towards the comforts of home.

~o~x~o~x~o~

I laid in my bed for the first two days after I imprinted. Two thoughts warred. The first was that he was not human. His existence diverged from where my instincts told me was natural. He didn't have a heartbeat or body heat, I wondered if he even had a soul. It felt callous to think that, but I did. The second thought concerned my sexuality... and his for that matter. Never once had I had any inclination towards a man and I wondered about him, would he accept me?

Between my warring thoughts I couldn't get his scent out of my mind, juniper and tobacco. I left the house for the first time in two days and I went to the spot where I chased him down and almost killed him. I cringed hard at the thought. When I got there I sat in the spot where he stood and just breathed him in and let his scent clear my mind. The only downside was that Bella's scent was right there, too. She smelled like lavender scented bleach, but nonetheless bleach. I sat there all night and on the fourth day since I imprinted I came home again.

"Hey, Jake what's gotten into you?" My dad asked as I walked through the door. I took a long breath in and let it out in a huff as I flopped onto the old couch.

"Dad, I imprinted." There was nothing that I couldn't tell my dad but this made me slightly nervous, I mean, it's not exactly traditional.

"Tell me about her, where'd you meet her."

"He's a vampire and I met him when I hunted him down and almost killed him. He was covered under the Treaty." I didn't flinch quite so hard that time, but still I did. I held my breath and waited for his answer.

He looked thoughtful. Thankful? A single tear rolled down his cheek.

"Dad? Why on earth are you crying?" I couldn't help but ask.

"Son, there is a legend, passed down for generations that the wolves and the cold ones will unite in an unbreakable bond. I always thought that the treaty was the bond and that our tribe was stronger for it as we bestowed mercy on our enemies, but now I see that it was only a stepping stone for greater alliances. Jacob, you have been chosen to bridge this alliance with the cold ones. It is a great honor," he said in his most chiefly voice.

Part of me did feel the honor to be picked to the be the 'stuff of legends', but a large, and probably irrational part of me was irked. It felt like fate was using my own personal love life as a tool. On some level, I felt defensive on Laurent's behalf because of it. All in all, it was a strange way to feel, but that is how I felt. I stormed off to my room to let the information stew along with the rest as my renewed memory of his scent badgered me.

It was amazing the way my body responded to his scent. So, with curiosity, I let thoughts of him and his scent swirl in my head as I let my hands act of their own accord. On the fifth day I woke up to find my room noticeably warmer and I decided to get out and get some fresh air.

It wasn't long before I found a trail of his that paralleled another vampire scent. It ran along the border and I allowed myself to hope that just maybe he came to find me first.

I was afraid to move, what if he came again? He couldn't cross the line. So I stayed right there and waited for him. The sun had set and rose and set again. Soon my stomach was screaming at me and I ran home to get a bite to eat before I went to find him myself.

~o~x~o~x~o~

To be completely honest, I was terrified to approach the vampire lair. Yes, I was a werewolf, but there was only one of me and nine of them. It took some time to build the nerve, but eventually I got close enough that I could hear them all inside and saw that the police cruiser was in their driveway. I decided to wait until Charlie left. I stayed still and watched as Laurent walked Charlie out. If Charlie could come out unscathed then surely I could. I watched Laurent as he sat down on the steps and seemed to get lost in a thought. The pull I felt from him was so strong, I had to work to restrain myself. I watched him from a distance for a few minutes until it got to be too much and I began to walk towards him.

I was afraid to be so direct as to look him in the eye, but I couldn't look away. It was hard to believe that this was the only the second I ever saw him. He was smiling at me. He was smiling at me!

"I knew you'd come," he said in a voice that was so smooth yet rough at the same time. Like rubbing your hand against the grain of crushed velvet and pulling it back again. I was stunned into stupidity and suddenly I felt inadequate and insecure and juvenile... and completely in awe.

"I couldn't not." Did that even make sense? I'm not even sure that's what I said.

"Tu vois à mon âme." Look, I stunned him to stupidity, too. He wasn't even speaking English. "Sit with me."

I would have complied even if I didn't want to, oh, but I wanted to. I strode over to him with renewed confidence. Subtly, or so I thought, I breathed in his scent.

"You don't smell like a vampire to me," I said thickly.

"Well, you don't smell like food to me," he replied.

It's not that I didn't have a lot to say to him, a lot to ask him about himself, I just didn't want to complicate the silence with words in that moment. Anything I could have said sounded trivial in my mind. What do you say to the love of your life?

"I didn't think I was gay." Oh yeah, there was a good start. Would he look at me funny if I put my foot in my mouth right now? Or should I wait until later? Surely, it couldn't hurt. The thoughts jumbled into a new language of incoherency that was only untellable to the inhabitants of Smooshy-I'm-so-rediculously-in-love/awe-that-I-can't-think-straight land. I forgot to buy a roundtrip trip ticket, I was stuck there.

"My boy, you have a lot to learn about love," he said as he searched me. "You fall in love with people, not genders. It's not about being gay."

He was amazing, we'd only spoken a handful of words and he was already soothing to me. He took my hand and although it was cold, it was not uncomfortable. It was like walk walking into a well air-conditioned building on a hot summer day, his cold was refreshing next to my heat.

"Tell me how it is that you see right through to my soul," he asked. As I heard him speak of his soul, I wondered to myself how I could ever question that he had one. Of course he did, I was imprinted onto it and he was imprinted onto my own.

I told him everything about imprinting and about what the legends said.

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A/N: Did anyone see Jacob imprint on Laurent back in Chapter 13? It's there, I promise.

**Tu vois à mon âme (fr.)- You see to my soul.

If 'Jacob-imprinting-on-a-guy' is your thing, I suggest you check the works of Jack Stall (just stick his name in the site search engine) Start with Morning Light. It is an excellent story. Leave him a review and tell him clglover sent you.

Thanks for reading my story(plus the me-on-a-soapbox A/N)! Feel free to comment or PM.