[Edited: 6 Sept 2021]
TW: Body horror
"Wiggle your fingers for me. Good. Now your toes. Brilliant." Carlisle steps away from me. "You're improving," I'd say. He's more than a pale blob now, more than a hazy shape whose blank spaces are filled up by borrowed memories. "Let's see if you can sit up. Here, let me help."
He places two steady hands on my waist and does more work than my pathetic shuffling and uncoordinated flailing ever could. Carlisle sets me up against a mound of pillows, allowing me to sink back into them before rearranging the thin sheet over my legs.
"We just need to check a few more things and then we will be done for the day."
I give a jerk of my head, the closest to a nod as I'll get. Not dignified and nothing verging on a smidge of grace, but much better than no movement at all.
The doctor putters about, going through the motions that take up much of my daily life. Pulse, deep breath, pulse. A cone and light in my ears. The blinding sway of the penlight in front of my eyes. Increasingly mind-numbing questions about pain levels, can you feel this, how does this feel.
And, yeah, I can choke out a word or two now, too. Carlisle doesn't comment on the scratch of my voice, just holds out a glass of water with a bendy straw, commenting something about sub vocal tracts and the mix up of wolf-human organs. By now I'm not surprised.
"Things are looking up." He squeezes my shoulder, the cold of his hand seeping through the shirt Seth has blushingly helped me wiggle into.
"Morph'n,"
Carlisle makes that telltale exasperated doctor sound and shakes his head. "You know I cannot. I had to lower your dosage, we're already running the risk of an addiction."
"Pl's," The pain had spiked the last two days, making sleep, when and if it came, fitful and useless. The drugs were burning away in my system too fast to last me more than an hour or two, and I felt its ineffectiveness in every joint and muscle. I thought the doctor might have cut back the medication, because while the morphine didn't do much to begin with, previously it at least dragged me under the spell of sleep.
My thoughts must somehow translate visually because he sighs. "I cannot. Leah, you need to face a certain extent of the pain. If you are constantly alleviated from the symptoms your body will not learn to deal with its new state accordingly. When I stop giving you the medication completely the pain might cripple you otherwise."
I look away. The fact that it makes sense doesn't make it any easier to hear. Reason does not cure pain and pain does not a rational person make. I curl my fingers into my palms. Claws press against soft human flesh and I wince. There's a morbid humour in this, I'm sure, I just can't imagine what it is. I'll have to ask Jacob, he'll see it.
"'ead,"
"Your head?" I jerk another nod and Carlisle's cool fingers are suddenly prodding at my temples. "A headache?"
I shrug, sight becoming blurred as I stare morosely at the light spilling through the window.
The doctor sighs and pats at my hair – fur? I haven't actually gotten the courage to ask anyone the state of my body. I know I've got my claws, I know my teeth are a little too sharp and don't sit right in my mouth. My knees bend backward instead of forward. There's a hard lump at the base of my spine – the not-quite fully formed tail.
Try not to imagine how I must look to the vampire, to Sam and Seth and Jacob and Renesme. But I'm aware I probably look like the creature that crawls out from under children's beds. A monster.
"I don't know what to tell you, Leah. I can't give you any more medication than you're already taking."
I close my eyes, breathing in a burning, thick breath. Fleetingly I wish he'd just put me out of this all together, but I trample the thought down, trying futilely to replace it rather with the wish for a few hours' sleep instead. Just a respite from the darkness as bright as day, and the room too hot although I can hear snow is falling.
"Date?" I garble at the vampire, forcing my eyes open to examine the pale sunlight.
He hums, already stuffing his instruments back into his back. "Rest for now, I'll have Renesme bring a newspaper with her tomorrow. She needs to practice her reading and you'll be able to catch up on the time."
I half-grunt in acceptance.
I hear rather than see him cocking his head. "Not going to fight me today?"
I don't bother replying.
"Do you want me to help you lie down again?" he laughs when I snap my head in his direction, using my teeth to convey my feelings. "No need to glare, at least you're regaining your personality. I have to go, I'll see you tomorrow."
"Ness?"
"Of course, she's always delighted to visit you. She's been pestering Jacob nonstop,"
"Doctor?" The voice floats from the doorway and draws my gaze.
"Sam, how is Emily doing? I trust the ointment helped?"
"Yes," Sam looks from the doctor to me, I turn my head and close my eyes. If I can't see him, he can't see me. "She's feeling better, thank you for your help."
"No, it is my pleasure, I'm glad. Rest up, Leah, Renesme will demand your full attention tomorrow. Sam, may I speak with you privately?"
"Of course,"
The door clicks closed and I sink further into my mound - allowing my teeth to grind around the stupid whimper drawn from my throat.
I should be used to this by now. All of it, Emily and Sam, the pain, the desperate pull of fear that constricts and chokes.
Emily's come to visit me regularly – washing my face and sponging cream into my skin. Chatting calm and careful, the kind of soothing meant for children or hurt animals. She means well, she's always meant well. But even so I can't look at her, or rather I can't force myself to look at the vague shape of her. She's beautiful, perfect still even with the claw marks marring her skin. The scar on her face stands out like the scab of lava in a dense forest.
It's Sam's mark.
And his wife is wiping my body clean with a damp cloth, ignoring my shame at wetting the bed, placing pads beneath me and smiling like this is normal.
I want to ignore it, but I've always been more masochistic than normal self-preservation can handle. The agony of her visits are only soothed by Seth's clockwork 'good night's, the heart of it much sweeter than Seth will ever admit.
But it all ends the same. Alone. Alone and waiting. Waiting, waiting, for morning to come and the Cullen's to stop by. Endure the probing and testing like a lab rat and then alone again until someone decides to check that I'm still breathing.
"They'll be sad," Renesme had said the last time she visited, she'd drawn a picture – a horrible scribble really – of a wolf and a little girl that was somehow supposed to be us – her and me, vampire-halfling and wolf-monster. Perhaps her rendering was accurate after all. "If you go away,"
Would they, really?
"I'll be sad," she had patted my cheek, "I want to look just like you."
I'd made a sound of protest, unable to form words just yet. Her declaration didn't make sense. Perhaps she's not yet learnt to fear monsters.
"They all think you're pretty, I want to be pretty too. I want to be a wolf," She gnashed her teeth, making a high pitched mewling sound that was probably supposed to pass as a howl.
The child is delusional. I blame Jacob entirely. He's probably been feeding her lies about how 'awesome' being a wolf-shifter is. Lies that she'll believe because she doesn't have to suffer through others' thoughts in her head and her thoughts in theirs. She doesn't understand the breach in privacy, the clamour and disassociation of having a dozen working noses and eyes and ears. Where reality becomes a little warped and it's difficult to find where you take up space in the world.
My claws push into my palms, drawing blood and bringing me back to the room, to reality.
She shouldn't come visit me tomorrow, not ever really. There's no telling my pessimism won't rub off on her malleable young mind.
Yet I want to hear her voice again. I want her projections and her uncanny ability to insult Jacob unknowingly. I'm selfish.
My eyes snapped open and I squinted at the wall.
"In," I grumble.
He doesn't have to knock, I can smell him, I can hear the rustle of his clothes and a part of my mind, the part that is now permanently wolf, can sense alpha. Leader. Pack.
The door creaks open and his scent floods the room, I hold my breath.
"Carlisle says you're improving,"
I grit my teeth and scowl at my surroundings. Grey. Warped and grey and smelling too much like Sam.
"We need to talk,"
For the sake of all that is good in this world, I turn my head and level him with every ounce of frustration built up over the last few weeks – months? Could he stop beating around the bush and say it already?
"I'm sorry,"
That…that I was not expecting. My jaw may go a little slack even as my chest bubbles with something ugly and twisted. He's apologizing. I think somewhere in the recesses of my beta brain I assumed he would scorch my ass with a line of 'Are you stupid'. Because that is what I ultimately deserved.
He looks away, "I'm sorry," steps closer, "You and Seth are going to stay at the Ristfot Reservation until things are cleaned up."
Oh.
Oh, okay. That. Well. I guess that makes sense. More in character and all.
Why would Sam ever apologise for dropping me so out of the blue to marry my cousin? Why would Sam think to offer compassion for my pain? No, no, he's apologising for sending me away. Throwing out the trash. It makes sense. Perfect sense.
Throw out the trash, save yourself from dealing with its stink.
My lips thin and I'm vaguely aware that my claws are buried in my palms. The world is swimming a little. My chest is burning up with fire. The momentary hope singes and goes up in spectacular flame.
At that moment I want to kill him.
Anger is a stupid word. Anger does not describe the boiling pit of Hades suddenly rising from my chest.
"With the threat of vampires here and having to care for you, the pack is too distracted. We cannot take-"
"Die," I mutter, eyes glued to his sculptured face. "Die," I repeat quietly, not sure if I'm commanding the last of hope, trust, and faith in him as my alpha, or the lingering inflammation of loving him or if it's just him.
"It can't be helped-"
I snarl, struggling up away from the pillows and making them tumble from the bed. "Die," I cry, my throat throbbing and tearing at the decibel change.
"Leah-"
"You!" I grimace, clenching my eyes closed. "Your…fault."
His clothes rustle closer and I force my gaze to fall on him. His lips are curled in warning, shoulders thrown back. "Listen,"
There isn't even a single cell in my body that in that moment thinks this man, this alpha, deserves my submission. I bare my teeth, sharp and clear. The grey of my gaze spirals, unfocused and dizzying. "Hate…you."
There's a rush of sound and suddenly we're not alone, the pack is a mess of twitching muscles, standing half in the room, backing their alpha. They stare between Sam and me, making no move to intercept.
"Sam, I think-" Seth begins, but stops when Sam looks at him, cowering under his gaze.
If anything their presence makes the demonic depths of hell burn brighter in me until tears are gushing down my cheeks and air builds like a balloon in my chest. "Hate…you. Hate-" I reach a clawed and bloody fist to my head, the headache piercing, and throat constricting around breathless whines. "Out!" My voice catches and breaks on the word, mangled by a lamenting howl.
"Leah, you will listen to me." Sam roars.
I whimper, shrinking back and then jerking forward to curl bloody talons in the measly blanket. I glower at him through tears, wet gasps for breath interrupting the gallop of my heart. "I hate-hate y-ou..." The words tumble over themselves, barely human.
The pack is staring at the ground, tense, smelling like sour obedience. Seth has tears streaking from his eyes.
"I don't care. You'll do what I say, do you understand?"
What is left of my breath rips from my lungs in a yowl that makes the pack flinch. The sound tears at my throat and explodes in my head.
My body arches and my toes curl, legs bending backward and then forward as the snap of bones joins my scream.
The bitter tinge of fear spikes. "Leah..." Seth whimpers and shuffles, unable to move toward me.
My stomach clenches and the little Carlisle had given me to eat rises up my throat. The acid hits my tongue and I curl over, falling from the bed, and throwing up.
The muscles along my spine contract. Arms and legs jerking out wildly to find their form.
It's happening again. Somewhere deep down I know Jane isn't in this room, but the pain is equivalent and that seems enough to trigger unintelligible begging.
My vision flickers, claws sharpening and dulling, nose and ears seemingly trading jobs as I seize across the floor. Cheek smearing through vomit and urine and something else, something chemical.
"No," I manage to whimper.
It must be hours later when something cool wraps around me, liberating me from the fire. Cradling my broken body.
I pray it makes this end.
"Rosalie, don't-"
But the stench of blood drowns me and I lose even that.