Pairing: Embry/Bella/Jacob (not a poly!)

Rating: M, for language

Genre: friendship/hurt/comfort/romance

Word Count: 1166, I already did a drabble this week, so I'm just indulging in a prompt triple-dip with a flashfic. ;)

Prompt: Available on Tricky Raven in the Weekly Drabble Challenge Forum's 2014 Index. (In case it wasn't obvious, I really love this week's prompts.)

Right Here

Embry, clearly relieved that the cavalry had arrived at last, swung his apartment door open wide with a look of wild desperation for an annoyed Jacob.

"Where is she?" he asked with a sigh of resignation, pinching the bridge of his nose and wincing against the thumping bass and usual weekend cacophony of Embry and Bella's co-ed dorm.

They'd been roommates for two semesters already, but this was the first time Embry had felt out of his element with her and unsure of how to help.

He said the dickhead she'd been dating on and off for the last six months hadn't just dumped her. He'd done it publicly and blamed it on everything but his own glaring infidelity. Embry had smelled the scent of the other women on him then, when he wasn't trying to hide it anymore. Bella had been too blind to see and terrified to really look too closely for the obvious signs before it all came to a head earlier that day.

So Embry had called Bella's own Mr. Fix-It.

"She's still sitting on the floor in the dining room. I didn't even give her the key to the liquor cabinet. I left her sitting there for ten minutes while I made her some hot cocoa and by the time I came back, she'd already unscrewed and removed the hinges. Even popped the pins out to really show it who was boss. She also downed the best part of a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label that we were saving for a special occasion."

"Fuck, not this again… She's a mess, right?" Jake shook his head. He wanted to blame her taste in men, but he had ultimately left her, too, though it had been kicking and screaming all the way. His poor Bells just couldn't catch a break.

"She needs a real man," Jacob reminded Embry pointedly.

"I'm not what she wants…" he began.

"Fuck what she wants! She has shit taste in men, which is obvious to everyone but you. Man the fuck up. I'm not doing this again, not when you can be everything she needs, you chicken-shit asshole!" Brushing him off, Jacob turned his back before he said something he'd regret, murmuring to the floor, "She needs you. The sooner you realize that, the sooner you'll both stop hurting."

He didn't see the look on Embry's face, but he heard the sharp intake of breath, felt his wounded heart split and bleed through their connection to one anothers' wolves.

Taking in the sad state of his best friend on the floor of the dining room beside the abused liquor cabinet, Jacob hurried down the hallway. Lowering himself quietly beside her, he rubbed a hand over her back. It was small consolation, but he knew she just needed a little touch and love. She was Pack and every bit as connected to the wolves as each of the boys were. Touch was everything to an injured packmate.

She hiccuped when Jacob pulled her into his arms, settling her on his lap. He wheezed at the whiskey on her breath, but somehow managed not to choke when she exhaled deeply—right in his face.

"You know it's not you," he reminded her, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear.

"Emb told you what happened?" her lip trembled and she blinked wearily, her puffy, red eyes almost swollen shut from the depth and breadth of her grief.

Jacob nodded, clamping his arms around her in a fierce, friendly hug. "It's not you. It's us. We don't know how to love you the way you deserve and we fuck it all up. It's how we're made. Having dicks makes us stupid. Two heads, but hardly enough brains to fill one, ya know?"

She snorted a reluctant laugh at that, then turned to look into his eyes.

Cupping his cheeks, she smooshed them together, still a little drunk. "You always loved me the right way, but then you got an imprint and she loves you bestest. Don't talk like you're one of them. You never were," she swore, planting a sloppy kiss on his lips.

An artless kiss that reeked of booze and salty tears and too much cherry chapstick.

It didn't quite live up to his memories.

"I love you, Bells. I always will, but not the way you need," he emphasized 'need' for Embry's sake, knowing he was listening in on their little chat.

"Maybe I need to get away, go someplace where there are fruity drinks and everyone wears a bathing suit and all they're looking for is a hookup," she slurred.

Jacob heard Embry's heart rate pick up—a galloping pace—at the mention of her leaving, then a thump before the floor vibrated. He could well imagine poor Embry, slumped against the wall of the kitchen behind him, praying she wouldn't leave. His heart broke for his brother. He couldn't imagine if the girl he loved left. It would break him.

Bella would break Embry.

Drawing her back down to rest her head on his shoulder, he rubbed his chin over her silky hair and whispered, "You don't really want that, though. You want to be loved."

"Why can't anyone love me enough to want to keep me, Jake?" she sniffled, barely holding back the sobs that wanted out, squeezed her throat, and made her cough. "Why am I never enough?"

"Oh, honey," and then Jacob was sniffling, too, fighting his own sympathetic tear ducts in the face of her despair, "You are enough. You just were meant for greater things than the leech and this new dickhead … and even me. I still love you. I'm just not meant for you. I have a feeling, though, that if you look closer to home, you might find what you need—right here." He tapped a blunt finger over her heart.

She rubbed the spot, massaging the ache as she puzzled over his words. Finally, she asked, "Here, as in my heart? Or in a zen-like way like 'look within and learn to love yourself, grasshopper'?"

Jacob chuckled at her horrible Master Po impression, shaking his head, "No, I meant here in Washington, at home. Right here." He tapped the floor beside him as he heard Embry come to stand in the doorway.

"He's right, Bells," Embry's voice interrupted the humming silence.

She blinked at him owlishly, unconsciously tidying her hair with a self-conscious flick of fingers.

"About what?" she whispered, afraid to look at him after the way she'd behaved. The hair fell in her eyes again.

Dropping quietly to his knees before her, he reached out with trembling fingertips, brushing the errant lock away from her eyes with a tremulous smile.

He took a deep breath and Jacob could see him bowing up inside like the man he wanted to be for her. Finally ready to take the next step and tell her the truth, he grabbed her hand and confessed, "About finding the love you need right here."

- - o - - o - - o - -

Thoughts? Can you guess Embry's secret?