Disclaimer: I didn't write 'Twilight', and the series doesn't have this exact scene in it.
Author's Note: just a bit of messing about. Nearly at the fight, I promise!
The moment had finally arrived: I was going to see Edward hunt. Granted, I was curled up next to him on a sofa watching him hunt on the big screen TV, but it was still a pretty exciting moment. Edward was rather uncomfortable. He hadn't wanted to sit next to me at all. He thought that the movie was going to scare me.
I was pretty sure that I wasn't going to be frightened. I already knew that Edward was a deadly vampire and I trusted him. I had seen truly scary vampires who really were out to get me. Edward was definitely not scary in comparison to James.
None of Edward's family seemed all that worried either. Carlisle was at work, Rosalie and Esme had gone out hunting. Emmett gleefully made popcorn. Alice and Jasper were snuggled up on a sofa in the corner of the room, barely paying any attention to Edward and me.
Edward was sat on the edge of his seat. He was still waiting for the running and screaming, I guess. That gave me an idea. It was a wicked idea, but it would also be pretty funny.
Just as I had the idea, Edward scowled at Alice.
"What?" she asked him, "it's stuck in my head."
I tugged on his arm and he returned his attention to the television.
A professional-looking series of credits began to scroll up the screen, telling us that Emmett had shot, edited, directed and publicised the film himself. Edward rolled his eyes.
The film began with a few scene-setting shots of some woods. I couldn't see any animals yet, I wondered what Edward was going to be hunting.
Finally I saw him. He was dressed perfectly normally, in jeans and a short-sleeved shirt, with polished brown shoes on his feet. Though it shouldn't have, this surprised me slightly. I wondered whether he would ruin his smart clothes; would they end up covered in grass stains, mud, blood? Ew! The image of Edward drenched in animal blood, his hair stuck to the side of his face with the sticky red substance, rose unbidden to my mind. I was glad that I hadn't eaten any popcorn yet, I thought that I was going to be sick.
Jasper looked at me and at the television in surprise. He must have sensed my feeling of disgust, and wondered why I was suddenly disgusted whilst looking at a picture of Edward. I blushed bright red.
"It was just something that I was thinking about," I told Jasper hurriedly.
He grinned, "Edward?" he asked me.
"Not only Edward . . . I mean, 'no'." I said, sighing.
Edward pulled me up against his side, "you don't have to explain anything, Bella," he said, "who cares what Jasper thinks you're thinking about? It's irrelevant."
"I care what you think I'm thinking about," I told him.
He smiled his crooked smile at me. "You could tell me what you're thinking," he said.
"I'd rather not. It was silly."
He frowned slightly, but then he decided that he was going to let it go and he shrugged the whole thing off with a smile.
After a stunning panoramic shot, showing off the lush vegetation, the camera focused back in on Edward. He turned to look directly at the camera, thoughtfully, as if he was listening to something. Since Emmett was behind the camera, I could only assume that he was listening to Emmett's thoughts.
"The movies that I've made for Rose are much more exciting than this," Emmett complained, "I did my best, but I might as well have been shooting a wall."
Edward didn't reply to Emmett, he just pinched the bridge of his nose.
At just the same moment, the Edward in the film looked slightly down and pinched the bridge of his nose.
I giggled at the double-shot of Edward disapproval.
"It gets a bit more interesting," Emmett promised me.
In fact, at that very moment, the Edward on the screen gave a quick grin to the camera and disappeared.
I stared at the screen. There was another pretty panoramic shot.
Emmett was looking at me expectantly. Edward was looking curious. Alice was giggling into Jasper's shoulder.
"Um . . . it's pretty Emmett, really beautiful scenery" I tried, since he seemed to expect some sort of reply. "But, where did Edward go?"
Emmett was momentarily baffled, then he shrugged, "you really can't see much, can you?" he said, "even for a human . . ."
"Emmett!" Edward interrupted his brother, but not in time to stop me blushing fire hydrant red. "Please just slow the footage down."
"Fine," Emmett pressed a few buttons and the film rewound.
The panoramic shot began again, but this time, instead of disappearing, Edward darted at incredible speed through the centre of the frame.
"Wow!" I said, "you really are fast."
Emmett and Jasper snorted, but Edward grinned widely.
"I can run that fast," Emmett told me.
"Which means that I can run faster," said Edward smugly.
I laughed.
The Edward on the screen was still running.
Emmett pressed a few more buttons and slowed the film down even further.
I wondered why he'd done that, then I saw Edward speed up. I gasped. He seemed to be barely a blur on the film and it was running at less than quarter speed.
Suddenly I saw Edward fly through the air. He jumped about a metre up and flew about three metres without loosing an inch of altitude. A deer seemed to materialise under Edward, then to crumble underneath him.
Edward stopped running. I knew that he must be feeding from the deer, but he and the deer were just tiny figures in the centre of the screen and it was hard to see exactly what was happening. The camera had stayed a long way away from Edward and I was leaning forward to see the action.
Emmett must have felt that he was too far away when he was filming, because the camera suddenly began to fly towards Edward. I was looking forward to getting a good view of Edward, though I was also a bit nervous. Would it be utterly disgusting? I had always known that Edward drank blood, but I didn't tend to think about it while I was kissing him. Would I still want to kiss Edward after actually seeing him sucking blood out of an animal?
I was getting quite agitated.
Emmett reached Edward and he was clearly framed in the centre of the screen.
Though we had approached Edward from behind, he span around to face the camera and looked straight at it. His eyes were dark and feral, he bared his teeth and hissed like an angry snake. I leaned back against the couch.
The Edward in the room slid his arm around my waist comfortingly.
The camera backed away at a walking pace.
The Edward on the film shook his head, waking himself up. He scowled at Emmett and muttered something. Then he turned his back and returned to the deer.
Now that the camera was a lot closer I could see that the deer was dead. There were no visible wounds, but the eyes were glassy and there was no movement, not even the heaving of a breathing chest. Edward was holding the deer to his lips, as if he were kissing the neck. After a few moments, he gently laid the deer's carcass back down.
He stood up and looked at the camera again. He shook his head to some question that Emmett asked, twice in succession.
Emmett grinned at me, and Edward looked at me hesitantly. It was time to put my plan into action. I slipped easily out of Edward's hold and got up. Edward didn't try to stop me. He sat very still, watching me with a look of resigned misery on his face. He thought that the moment he had been dreading ever since I first found out what he was had finally arrived.
"Help!" I shouted, "a vampire!" I ran to the living room door, passing Alice and Jasper on my way out. Seeing them, gave me another idea. "Help, Jasper!" I screamed, "Edward's a vampire! What if he tries to kill me?"
Jasper kept his face perfectly straight, "I'll protect you, Bella," he said calmly. "Don't worry."
Alice giggled, Emmett laughed.
Edward scowled at me, "that's not very funny, Bella," he said.
I grinned at him, "I think it's funny," I replied. "Honestly, Edward, after all this time, how can you still be waiting for me to run away from you?"
"I genuinely considered killing you and feeding on you at one point," he said, "I still have to monitor my every movement around you so that I don't accidentally crush you to death when we kiss. It is rather hard for me to understand how you can find this circumstance amusing. You ought to be afraid of me. But, if you were afraid of me I would lose you and that would mean the end of everything good about my life. I would very much like to be able to share in your entertainment, but I'm unable to find the possibility that you might be terrified of me at all funny."
After his long speech, I felt a bit guilty.
I was glad that Alice interrupted, "lighten up, Eddie," she said, "it really is about time that you realised that Bella – however foolishly – loves you and is never going to leave you."
Edward grabbed my hand and pulled me back onto the sofa next to him. He laced his arm around my waist and nuzzled into my hair.
"Mmm," he mumbled softly, happily. Then he muttered "don't call me Eddie."
"Seriously, Bella," he asked me, "are you alright? Are you upset, shocked, disgusted?"
I considered it. I had watched my boyfriend hunt a deer, kill it with his own bare hands and then drain it of blood. How did I feel?
Edward was right, I ought to have been upset, shocked and disgusted. But, I wasn't. I felt fine. It wasn't some scary psychopath on the film, it was Edward. It was my Edward who liked to lie with his head in my lap while I stroked his hair. My Edward, who sulked when I wouldn't give him permission to buy me expensive jewellery My Edward, who actually requested permission to buy me expensive jewellery He was a sweetheart. He was definitely not scary.
He was beautiful and sparkly; he was definitely not disgusting.
"How did you manage to stay so clean and neat? I get in more of a mess just walking down the road than you do running through fields and slaughtering wild animals."
"I've had a bit of practice. Are you really alright?"
I nodded, "it's not as though I'm surprised. I did already know that you hunted animals and drank their blood. I think that I made peace with that fact months ago."
"Months don't seem like very long to me," Edward said, "it seems like you've taken everything on board very fast and . . . I'm struggling to keep up with you."
"You think that we're moving too fast?" how could he say that? He was the one who wanted to rush into marriage. Was this another cryptic way of asking me to slow down our physical relationship?
"No!" Edward tugged me closer, as if he had heard the question in my head as well as the one on my lips. "I didn't mean to say that we were moving too fast. I meant to say that you accept me too easily."
"He's right," Alice chipped in, "you ought to demand more changes, Bella. Make him earn your love."
I laughed. Edward would never need to do anything to earn my love. I would always love him just because of who he was. In fact, even if he changed completely overnight, I would love him forever because he had once been the man that he was now. There was nothing in the world that would erase or diminish my love for him, and there didn't seem to be any point in trying to convince him otherwise.
"You're easy to love," I told him.
If I hadn't known better, I would have thought that Edward was embarrassed He held me closer than before and pressed his head into my shoulder. He stayed like that, snuggled against me, while his siblings giggled and I blushed bright red. I sometimes think that it would save time if my face just turned red the instant I entered the Cullens' house and didn't fade back until after I left. I spend almost all the time that I'm here with burning red cheeks.
"I did have one question about the film though: why did you turn around and hiss at the camera like that? Did Emmett say something?"
Emmett gasped in mock horror. "I resent that," he said, "I resent the implication that Edward's annoyance would be a response to something that I said. Edward's always irritated about something."
"That's not quite true," Jasper interjected, in his cool Southern drawl, "whenever you're around, Emmett, Edward is always irritated about something."
"No I'm not!"
Jasper shrugged, "I would know," he said.
"Anyway, to answer Bella's question, Emmett didn't say anything, on this occasion. Any one of us would react like that if someone got too close when we were feeding. That's what I meant when I told you that, while we're hunting our instincts take over. I'm more vampire than human when I'm hunting."
"Oh, I used to have a cat like that." I said, "she was the sweetest, friendliest, cuddliest cat, until someone came between her and a bird, then she would hiss, spit, bit and claw like a feral creature. It was amazing. It reminded you that underneath it all, a domesticated animal is still an animal, not a civilised person."
Ah, the emotional temperature dropped to freezing. All the vampires stared at me.
I winced. I'd just compared them to cats, and not in a flattering way.
"I'm sorry," I said, "that didn't really come out right. I don't mean to say that I think you're like a cat. I was just . . . you know . . . babbling."
"I like cats," Alice said, sweetly trying to rescue the conversation.
"I don't," Jasper replied, "they taste like guinea pigs . . . Ah," he grinned, "you didn't mean it like that. Um . . . I'm sure that cats are very pleasant pets."
"You don't have a pet now," Edward complained.
I stared at him, "why would I have a pet? You'd eat it."
"I wouldn't. Unless you had a pet lion, or something big and predatory like that."
"Jasper ate pets. He just said that cats tasted like guinea pigs. He must have eaten both of those if he can make that kind of comparison."
"Jasper is different," Edward said, laying a great stress on the word 'different' as if it meant 'deficient'.
"I haven't eaten a lot of cats," Jasper said, "and I've only eaten one guinea pig."
"So, it would be more accurate to say that 'cats taste like a guinea pig'," I suggested, making myself laugh. Unfortunately, it was one of my jokes that nobody else found funny. I was sat in the middle of a pronounced absence of laughter. There is no louder or more embarrassing sound than a roomful of people not laughing. The vampires all stared at me, as though I was crazy. I scowled back at them, "I'm the normal one," I said stubbornly, "I'm the human."
"The human who knowingly hangs out with vampires," Emmett reminded me, "are you sure that you're normal, Bella?"
"You're all posing as humans, right? Well, in that case you should all be trying to imitate me, not to mock me. You should laugh at my jokes. Real humans would laugh at my jokes."
Emmett crumpled to the floor, "oh, no," he said, in an absurdly high-pitched version of my voice, "I seem to have slipped on my shadow."
"They can be slippery things," Jasper consoled him, also talking in an insulting imitation of me "here, let me help you up, Emmett." He performed a rather admirable prat-fall of his own. "Oh, my," he said, "in trying to help you up, I seem to have fallen over myself, how foolish of me."
"Easily done, Jasper, very human of you," Emmett replied.
"But, so embarrassing," Jasper whined.
"Oh, Jasper," Alice called from her place on the sofa, "you're so caring and wonderful and graceful. I don't deserve you."
They obviously felt that their impressions were extremely funny. I looked to my darling secret fiancé, waiting for him to step in. Obligingly, he said, "Bella's nothing like that", though it might have been nice to have heard a little more sincerity in his voice.
"True," said Emmett, with a wicked gleam in his eye, "you shouldn't even be looking at Jasper, Alice, you should be completely dazzled by Edward's awesome beauty."
Edward sighed and grimaced, while his siblings gathered around to sit in a circle around his feet. "Oh, Edward," Alice began, "you're so gorgeous."
"Oh, Edward," Emmett added, "you're so smart."
"Oh, Edward," Jasper said, "you're so wonderful."
They continued to take in turns to gush over Edward, whilst they all stared up at him enraptured.
"You're better than perfect, Edward."
"You're so kind and generous, Edward."
"You're so thoughtful, Edward."
"We should just go upstairs," Edward said to me.
His siblings all cried out in protest, grabbing at his trouser cuffs and begging him not to leave them.
"It's not funny any more," Edward scolded, prising Alice's fingers from his leg and trying to drag his foot away from Jasper.
Though they were all being extra careful not to get carried away because of my presence, Edward couldn't fight off his two brothers and Alice at the same time. Edward was soon dragged on to the floor, where Emmett and Jasper promptly sat on him. I backed away. I didn't like to leave Edward unsupported, but I didn't want to get killed when he and his siblings were messing around.
"Now we can keep our Edward here with us," Jasper crowed.
Alice produced sparkly hair bands from nowhere and began to re-style Edward's hair while he couldn't move.
"How are we doing, Bella?" Jasper asked me, "are we believable humans yet?"
"No," I told him, "you're completely unbelievable, and Edward's right, you're not funny."
"Of course, Edward's right," Jasper responded, "Edward's always right."
"And he's always handsome, and always sexy," Emmett added.
"Such perfect, pretty hair," Alice cooed.
"What do you want?" Edward asked, ceasing for a moment to struggle against his brothers' hold "how can I get you to stop?"
"Stay here and play with us," Emmett said, "promise you and Bella won't run off upstairs to hide in your lair."
Edward fidgeted, trying to get his hair away from Alice; Jasper and Emmett held him more firmly in place. "Fine," he said, "I promise, now let me get up."
They backed off, laughing.
Edward pouted a bit, but he returned to the sofa, and I sat next to him. Edward moaned about his hair, so I laid his head in my lap and proceeded to undo Alice's work. Edward flicked the hair bands over to Alice, as I removed them, and she merrily dressed up Jasper's hair instead. He didn't protest, he relaxed and let Alice amuse herself. Jasper probably didn't have an opinion on his hairstyle, he had Alice instead. Emmett laid out on the floor and began tossing a baseball up and down.
"This is nice," Alice said, continuing to decorate Jasper, who leant serenely into her, "all of us together, relaxing."
Edward growled. "No, Emmett," he said.
"Bella," Emmett said loudly, making it clear that he had intended to speak to me and not to Edward anyway, "would you like to see another one of the films that I've made?"
"Emmett, your films are all of you and Rose. Bella doesn't want to see them" Edward said firmly. Then he changed the subject and reminded me that we ought to see about making me some lunch.
I let him lead me into the kitchen.
"Would you like to teach me to cook something, or will you make do with something Esme's left in the fridge?"
"Actually, I'm already hungry, so I'd prefer something that's ready-made, what's on offer?"
Edward opened the fridge and read out the neat labels. I chose a chicken salad, which Edward plated up for me, almost managing to conceal his disgust. He fetched me a can of coke as well and sat very politely, making small talk, while I ate my lunch.
"I'm sorry about my family," he said.
I laughed, "it's alright. I think that's what having a big family is meant to be like."
He shrugged, "if they make you feel uncomfortable . . ." he began.
"They'll all find it very funny indeed," I finished for him.
"Carlisle would make them stop."
"Edward, I'm planning on becoming a part of this family. I think that I can handle a little bit of teasing."
He nodded, unconvinced.
"Just wait until I'm a vampire too, then we'll take them all on at the same time!"
Then he chuckled, "you're a little firebrand," he said, "we'll have our hands full when you're a newborn."