Postcards -- Post C
Title: Postcards
Author: audreyii_fic
Fandom: Twilight (Team Jacob)
Rating: M for Mature
Characters: Jacob/Bella, Charlie
Genre: Romance, Angst, Hurt/Comfort
Summary: She wonders how she forgot that he's just sixteen. Sixteen and somehow overnight the whole weight of the world dropped on his broad shoulders, and it's not fair and she has to get him out of here. So she will. Yet another mid-New Moon Jacob/Bella roadtrip fic. I make absolutely no claims to originality.
banner courtesy of silverstcloud
banner courtesy of merefish
Dad--
It's true. 90 and humid is worse
than 110 and dry.
Love, Bella
***
It takes them three days. It's their first time through Florida; she's quietly steered clear of everything except the westernmost tip of the panhandle. The guilt gnaws a hole in her stomach as they pass by Jacksonville, and she is silently appreciative when he drives fifteen miles over the speed limit to get them away as fast as possible.
They arrive in Miami after dark; he skirts around downtown and heads for the beach, driving until they reach a stretch of sand they can have to themselves. Wordlessly they take off their shoes and walk down to the noisy crashing waves. The salt in the air tickles her nose.
She waits.
"This is about as far away as we can get, isn't it?" She can't see his face; the hotels behind them backlight his body.
"Unless you can turn the truck into a submarine."
He shakes his head. "Don't have the parts." Then he is silent again.
Finally, she takes his hand. "Come on, we can go a little bit farther," she says, and pulls him forward gently, walking a few steps into the surf. The water is delightfully warm and the waves suck the sand out from under her toes. She stares out into the ocean, thinking about how the southern Atlantic is nothing like the northern Pacific, hot instead of cold, soft instead of hard, then his lips are on hers and the difference is the same as the seas.
"Werewolf," he murmurs against her mouth.
***
She doesn't speak as they find a cheap motel on the outskirts of the city. He glances over at her a few times, clearly becoming more and more anxious, but she doesn't say anything to reassure him. Her mind is too jumbled.
Once they are in their room, she sits on the edge of the bed and stares at the floor. He paces nervously for a minute, then drops to his knees in front of her, trying to meet her eyes. "Bells? Please, Bells, please, please say something--"
"You were going to leave the other night," she states flatly.
He sucks in a breath.
"You were." She doesn't even recognize her own voice. "Don't lie."
"Yes," he says thickly. "I was."
It's like a magic eye poster, a slightly different focus and now she can see what was there the whole time; the Cold Ones and the wolves. "Because you're a--" strange how it doesn't even surprise her "--werewolf."
"Yes."
Then she hits him. She doubts it hurts much, but he still flinches back, eyes wide.
"You were going to leave." She hits him again and he takes it. "You were going to leave without telling me why." Again. "Because of some stupid werewolf thing." Again. "Why? To protect me?" Again. "Because you don't trust me?"
"Bella," he whispers.
"Don't!" Something old and black bubbles up inside her, and she's standing over him, screaming, "You didn't trust me!" It's awful in her throat but she can't stop. "You didn't trust me you were just going to leave and I would never have known why and you didn't tell me you don't want me he left and I don't know why--" she can't breathe it hurts too much "--why don't I mean anything why am I so wrong why am I so easy to leave?"
"But I didn't leave," he says. His hands come up to rest at her waist. "I'm here, aren't I?"
She collapses in front of him and cries. She cries because Edward left her alone in the woods. She cries because Charlie didn't fight to see her more than once a year. She cries because Renee loves Phil more. She cries because she's sure that if she was better, no one would give her up.
She cries until the black thing in her chest has drained from her body.
She tells him about how she'd forgotten who she'd been without Edward, and how the pain had made it impossible to breathe. (He shakes a little at this.) She tells him about Edward's taste and smell, and how she kept getting pushed away for her own good, how ashamed she'd felt of her desires. (He grumbles under his breath about "bloodsucking douchebags.") She tells him about hearing Edward's voice whenever she did something dangerous, and how that had been her original motivation to fix up the motorcycles. (He starts to say something then chokes it back.) She tells him how for months all she'd wanted was to die. (His arms tighten so much she swears her ribs will break.) She tells him how she's severely messed up in the head, and that he deserves someone sweet and undamaged. (He calls her an idiot.)
He tells her how ripping Laurent's arms off with his teeth had been exhilarating as a wolf, but how when he'd shifted back into human form he'd thrown up for hours. (She strokes his hair and feels a little sick herself.) He tells her about hearing other people in his head, and how he couldn't keep a single thought for himself, how everyone had known everything about him no matter how much he didn't want them to. (She thinks she could kill Sam.) He tells her how the rules of Alpha work, and how he trusts her more than anyone but had been literally incapable of telling her his secret until they were far enough away. (She knows she could kill Sam.) He tells her about how he feels like the worst traitor for running, how hard it had been to disobey, how it had been like a wound in his chest. (She says no one should dictate his life but him.)
Then she is silent for a long time, and he says, fidgeting, "What are you thinking about?"
Someone else asked her that question long ago, but she brushes the memory away with stunning ease. "Nothing."
"Liar."
She leans in conspiratorially. "Do you really want to know?"
A smile plays at the edge of his lips. "Definitely."
"I'm thinking," she pauses dramatically, "that I really should have just dated Mike Newton."
***
When they are in bed -- the same bed, of course, there is no longer any question of sharing -- she says, her face pressed against his spine, "Jake?"
"Mm-hmm?"
"If it was so hard to run, how did you manage it?"
Long moments pass, and she thinks maybe he didn't hear her, until he says, "You told me to stay."
She kisses the back of his neck and he shivers in response. It's all different now, and finally, she's ready for it.
***
Dad--
I'm doing great.
Love, Bella
***
The first time they make love, it's awkward -- neither of them know quite what to do beyond the basic mechanics, he's as gentle as he can be but it's still painful, and just as she's starting to enjoy herself he can't hold out anymore. But he's a teenage boy and a wolf besides, so he's ready to go again within half an hour; they spend the entire night experimenting with each other and with themselves. She's most comfortable on top, where she can control the speed while he circles his thumb over the place he has found between her thighs, and he is adorably proud of himself when he makes her climax with a shuddering moan. He begs, actually begs when she teases him with her mouth and swallows around him, making her feel like the most powerful being in the world, though she's the one begging a few minutes later when he flips her over and enthusiastically returns the favor. As the sun starts to rise his scorching weight is pressing her into the mattress, his chest against her back, his hands sliding under her body to grip her shoulders, his voice murmuring a mantra of love you love you love you into her hair. She comes so hard that she's surprised she doesn't have a stroke.
When she wakes up around noon she feels like a human wishbone. He's gone, but there's a note on the nightstand promising he'll be back in an hour. He returns with a bag of fast food, a huge coffee, a bottle of aspirin, and the largest box of condoms she's ever seen; he's bouncing on the balls of his feet, grinning, looking like an overgrown puppy. She groans and pulls a pillow over her head. It takes a long bath and three aspirin before she'll admit that she's feeling awfully... relaxed.
After all that they've been through and told and felt and done, it's when he hands her the coffee that she finally says she loves him. And she means it.
***
They keep traveling, but not quite so far each day. Somehow, they're always at a motel by four in the afternoon, and they don't check out until eleven in the morning. And the box of condoms runs out a lot faster than she expected. She stops in a clinic and picks up a free sample of birth control pills; it's even better with no barriers, though it takes him a few tries to grow accustomed to the added sensation and regain his self-control. She kisses away his embarrassment and says they'll just have to do it again, won't they?
***
Slowly, they get more creative. She splurges on a lacy piece of underwear, and realizes her mistake when he tears it in his impatience to get it off. Her curiosity is finally satisfied when she climbs into the shower with him and asks him to demonstrate his masturbatory technique (he does use soap). He talks her into some light bondage, using the bedsheets as makeshift ties; to their mutual shock, he is the one who likes being tied up, while she is the one who has the most fun raking her nails down her chest and tormenting him by hovering just out of reach.
On a particularly boring stretch of highway, she unbuttons his shorts and drops her head into his lap -- he nearly drives off the road, and then a passing trucker sees what's happening and gives them a thumbs-up. She leaps back in mortification, but he just honks to the trucker and waves cheekily, not in the least bit chagrined. For the rest of the day she grumbles and swears she'll never have sex with him again, but after an hour in bed of teasing caresses, she's forced to admit that she may have been a little hasty in her original judgment.
***
There is an evening that she is shirtless in bed, being driven mad by his hot mouth on her breast, when he skims his hands down her sides and she giggles.
He stops what he's doing, the jerk, and looks up at her. "Are you laughing at me, Bells?"
"Of course not. Keep going."
Watching her face closely, he brushes his hands down her side again, barely touching her ribcage. She bites her lip and tries not to twist away. He smiles a slow, wicked grin, one that shows all his teeth. "You're ticklish."
"Am not," she says, aware that she's a terrible liar, especially when she's half naked.
"Yes, you are. You're ticklish." His index finger digs into her ribs lightly and another giggle escapes from her throat. "How did I not know this?"
"You're usually thinking about other things when I'm naked," she points out. "Things that you should be doing now, by the way." She arches her back a little, hoping to get him back on track.
But it's too late, and then she's gasping for breath and squirming as he tickles her relentlessly, both of them laughing uproariously like the teenagers that they are.
***
One day, after a shower, she looks in the mirror and realizes she's gotten the tiniest wrinkle next to her left eye -- a laugh line. It doesn't bother her.
Maybe she's not growing old, she thinks. Maybe she's just growing up.
***
Post D: The letter is waiting for the when they return to Topeka.