Cracked! chap 10: You're My Obsession
Title: Cracked
Fandom: Twilight
Genre: Humor/Satire/Drama
Rating: T
Main Pairing: Bella and Edward
LJ Chapter 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
Also on ff.net
Summary: Welcome to an experiment in dark humor, with alternating emphasis on the "dark" and the "humor." To tell you the truth, I'm not sure where exactly this story is taking me; unlike my other stories, the whole thing isn't prewritten. Hopefully it's still fun, though. My thanks to Ms. Meyer, for creating such memorable characters and for not minding that we all play with them.
Chapter 10: "You're My Obsession"
A/N: Sorry for the delay, folks. Let’s get cracking, shall we?
Previously: Edward walked past Bella in the school parking lot with a cup o’ blood and a bendy straw, like an idiot.
This is Forks, Bella thought.
Whenever Bella said something to the other kids about drive-by shootings, or crackheads, or gang wars, and asked them how they managed to avoid those problems here, she nearly always received an eye-roll or a bewildered stare, followed by the same refrain: This is Forks. Stuff like that doesn’t happen here.
And yet there was Edward, the source of every weird thing that had happened to her since coming to Forks. Sipping at something in that white cup.
All the way to the Thriftway (it being grocery day), Bella felt as if she were in a waking dream. This was not a particularly safe mental state in which to be driving a truck during school dismissal hours or pushing a metal basket when surrounded by young mothers and their runaway toddlers, but fortunately she didn’t run over any innocent children.
It can’t be.
But she couldn’t think of any possible, credible alternative.
Aliens.
By the time she got home, Bella had nearly convinced herself that it just wasn’t so, because This Was Forks, and Stuff Like That Didn’t Happen Here. There were people, people not in high school, who she could ask about this, but that didn’t mean asking was a good idea. Her dad would assume something was wrong with her, and modern scientists with even a halfway decent reputation didn’t believe in extraterrestrials. None of the classically recognized signs were there. But then again, didn’t those signs vary by sci-fi author anyway? And even if the broadly recognized traits were absent, there was still enough physical evidence to suggest that whatever Edward was, it wasn’t normal. Or even human.
The problem with that was that the only person aware of said physical evidence was Bella. And what she had was probably circumstantial at best, at least without any proof of what happened to Tyler’s van…
“The van.”
Three phone calls and forty-five minutes later, Bella learned that the van had not only been totaled, it had been sold to a scrap metal company down in Aberdeen, who weren’t in the habit of discussing their business with nosy teenage girls who should be doing their homework instead of pestering the receptionist about vehicles that had been crushed and recycled months ago.
So what did that leave, really? The Cullen family was relatively new in town, but two years was a long time for a family to still be shrouded in mystery. Surely the hospital director verified Dr. Cullen’s previous employment or did some kind of background check before hiring him, just to make sure he wasn’t some butcher. Only an idiot would hire a doctor off the street just because he walks in and says ‘Hi, I’m Bob the doctor.’ (She didn’t realize that the hospital director really was that big an idiot.) Background check or not, Doc Cullen had patched Bella up a couple of times since the accident, and the man obviously knew what he was doing. His credibility was covered, and the family’s along with it, especially with some of them being in the foster care system.
As for the Boy Wonder himself…Edward’s skin was paler than snow and abnormally hard-not proof of anything. He smelled funny-big deal. His eyes changed color-ooh, scary. He ran across the parking lot faster than a speeding van (or teleported, maybe?)-nobody saw it. Even Bella didn’t really see it so much as see him in one place one moment only to find him behind her the next, and she’d been covering for him ever since. (She knew she’d probably always do so, because she was alive when she should be rotting in the ground, and Edward was the only reason for that.)
But blood. For god’s sake, the boy was drinking blood. Who does that? Aside from that weird dude in the eighth grade who listened to too much Megadeth and liked wearing clothes with lots of unnecessary safety pins.
Then again, maybe Edward was just bleeding from somewhere. Bleeding, walking, and laughing. With a big Styrofoam cup in his hand. After getting nauseous in the middle of class for no apparent reason. And smelling like a lady.
Crap! What if he’s really a girl and he’s on his period! Why didn’t I think of it before? No boy is that good-looking.
Bella shook her head. Of all the ridiculous…Edward didn’t smell like a girl on her period-that was a completely different odor. He didn’t even smell like he’d been screwing a girl on her period. And he used the boys’ locker room every day; she’d seen him exiting from the boys’ side plenty of times. If there were any doubts about his gender or his species, somebody would have told Bella that kind of gossip when she first moved to Forks. Hating on the Cullen clan was Mike’s favorite lunchtime discussion topic. And Lauren’s. And Jessica’s, on occasion, though Bella suspected that had more to do with trying to fit in than any real dislike toward the Cullens. But Mike definitely would have said something if he thought Edward was really a cross-dressing girl.
Right, Bella thought with another shake of her head. Edward Cullen is a bionic transvestite with non-pliable skin who keeps his/her blood in a Big Gulp cup.
The whole alien thing was starting to look more and more attractive. It sounded preposterous, but it made more sense than gender bending or something silly like a…a vampire who spent his daylight hours at a high school. Not that a vampire was any more unlikely than an alien or a cross dresser; in point of fact there was much more historical documentation about vampires than men from other planets, and she went to school with cross dressers back in Phoenix. But this was Forks, for god’s sake. Crap like that didn’t happen here. A transvestite would get so much shit from these small town types, possibly even becoming the victim of a hate crime, and a vampire-no, scratch that, an entire family of them-would surely have something better to do than ace a bunch of eleventh-grade biology quizzes, if they were even able to be awake during the day. But then, what would be an alien’s excuse for leading such a mundane life?
Ludicrous. This entire line of reasoning was completely absurd. Clearly Bella had been in Forks too long, had read too many weird novels, and was overindulging her curiosity about the Cullen boy to compensate for the boredom. Rational people with a strong grounding in science did not add up a bunch of different smells and come up with an extraterrestrial vampire pre-op transsexual. If her mind was willing to go to such lengths just for some entertainment, maybe she really should go live in Florida with Renee. Or at the very least, stop reading Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and just read plain old Pride and Prejudice.
Bella made dinner for Charlie (meatless dinner, since she’d forgotten to stop at Don Carlos) and spent her evening finishing the homework she’d neglected while calling around looking for Tyler’s destroyed van. Her dad could see rough day written all over her face, so he used his talking-someone-off-a-ledge voice when he reminded her that it would be his turn to host Poker Night this week, and he understood if she didn’t want to hang around the house for it, but would she mind making those mini-kolaches out of Lil Smokies and crescent roll dough for the guys again?
“Yeah, sure,” she agreed, rubbing her face. Great. “Nothing fuels testosterone like pork products.”
Charlie gave her a contemplative look. “Is that what you had for lunch today right before you tore Mike Newton a new asshole?”
“Dad!” Bella yipped. “You know about that?”
“Everybody does,” Charlie said mildly. “No less than four people called the station to tell me all about it.” With the exception of Mrs. Newton, who didn’t understand the irony of complaining to Chief Swan that Bella had ‘emasculated my baby,’ the majority of the phone calls, e-mails, and drop-ins had been positive, even congratulatory. Even Jack, the town drunk, offered the chief a pat on the back before being escorted to his usual jail cell to sleep off his daily serving of Mad Dog 20/20.
“Am I in trouble?” Bella wanted to know. Because that would just be the perfect ending to her day.
“Hell no,” Charlie chuckled. “I’m just sorry nobody put it up on YouTube.”
Bella wandered away to the shower before anything more embarrassing could happen. Because now that Charlie had actually uttered the words YouTube, someone was bound to magically produce video footage of her making a spectacle of herself, even though nobody in the room had a video camera (that she knew of). Way to show your ass, Bella.
She decided to meditate before bed like the hippie everyone in this backwoods town accused her mother of being when they thought Bella couldn’t hear. Ironically, meditation was something Bella had learned to do on her own, just to realign herself in troubled times-Renee lacked the patience to sit still for so long. His Holiness the Dalai Lama had a verified Twitter account (no, seriously, look it up), and his Tweet for the day read: “Cultivating contentment is crucial to maintaining peaceful coexistence.” Bella wanted to live a peaceful existence if she possibly could, and this was the best she could do without the support system she once had in place back in Phoenix. All she needed to do was redirect her mind.
Of course, instead of focusing on the things she actually intended to think about, like her home in the desert, she spent a good twenty minutes trying unsuccessfully to stop thinking about Edward. Finally she gave up and went to bed, not the least bit surprised when she saw him in her dreams. Again.
“Edward, what was with you today?”
“I vanted to suck your blood.”
“No, really.”
“We do that on Planet Transylvania.”
“Just tell me: you’re a guy, right?”
“I have an Adam’s apple, don’t I?”
“Right! I forgot.”
“Quite all right. What shall we do tonight?”
“Can we fly?”
“You always want to fly.”
“Well, you’re an alien. Or a vampire, maybe. Aren’t you supposed to fly anyway?”
“Very well. Just let me put my cape on.”
“The Superman cape, or the Dracula cape?”
“Just as you please, Bella…”
“Edward, this is beautiful.”
“The Painted Desert was an excellent choice.”
“It’s my favorite part of Arizona. See how the rock contains its own rainbow? I missed all the reds and browns. Everything in Forks is too green.”
“You’re not looking hard enough. The seasons are changing now. Go hiking soon, and I’ll show you a different kind of rainbow.”
“Where are you going? Edward, please stay. It’s so lonely here. I just want to talk to you.”
“You want to do much more than that.”
“Maybe I do. Don’t you?”
“Hush, hush. Thought I heard you calling my name now.”
“Edward, wait.”
“You’re much too young to remember that song, Bella.”
“So are you.”
“Am I? Then why do I remember it?”
“Edward, I don’t understand…Consuela? What are you doing here?”
Abruptly, Bella sat up in bed. After rubbing the dried rheum from her eyes, she realized three things: 1) Edward knew exactly when “Hush” was recorded, even though he claimed not to like it (Bella didn’t even know how old that song was); 2) her room was colder than she liked-no doubt from Charlie trying to save on the heating bill; and 3) she could still smell Edward, as though he (or Consuela the heavily-perfumed Phoenix Transit Station prostitute) lingered from her dream.
The digital clock on her dresser cast a green glow across the room. Three in the freaking morning. Aggravated with herself, Bella flopped back on her bed and hummed to herself. Before long she was asleep again, this time dreaming of her mother’s voice singing a slow, soft version of “Crazy Train.” It was always Renee’s most soothing lullaby.
Approximately two hours later, a bewildered but ultimately love-struck Edward climbed out of Bella’s closet.
xXxXx
“Where have you been all night?” Rosalie demanded the moment Edward walked in to change for school.
Edward said nothing. He and Rosalie both knew whose smell was on Edward’s clothes. She just wanted to pick a fight, and he wasn’t in the mood to give her the satisfaction.
Alice, at the extreme opposite end of the spectrum, felt like celebrating. Not only had Edward taken an actual step forward, he’d managed to not kill her new best friend! And she could see that he planned to go back! Wonderful!
Jasper, as was so often the case, was the one who could sense how genuinely conflicted Edward was. He thought about offering Edward a listening ear, just because he knew this was difficult for the poor kid. But Jasper did not approve of Edward sneaking into the girl’s home-it was much too dangerous, too tempting and needlessly risky after all Edward’s claims of the unbearable thirst Bella generated-so Jasper chose to remain neutral rather than supportive.
Jasper wasn’t alone in feeling this way. Edward had told himself those very things all the way to Bella’s house the night before. But even so, his feet carried him over the river, through the woods, into the path of a deer that served as a snack, across the highway, through some more woods, and into Bella’s front yard.
“This is wrong,” he muttered to himself when he got there. “Disturbing, illegal, and wrong.” And yet he could not make himself look away. The fact that he resisted the urge to peek in the girl’s bedroom for a full hour before he scaled the exterior wall and did it anyway was of little consolation. “I’m sorry,” he whispered to the girl fast asleep on the other side of the glass. “I’m so sorry. I don’t want to ruin your life. I just want to see you one last time, and then I’ll go.”
That was the plan, actually: take his farewell of the girl, then leave town. As far as he was concerned, he had a damn good reason to do this. From the precise moment Bella had turned down the last of three guys for the Spring Formal, Alice’s visions had gone completely haywire. Not only was her favorite still-frame of Bella and Edward smiling at each other back in the picture, but so were at least half a dozen conflicting, often unrelated impressions of the widest, wildest variety, some lasting no more than a moment before they vanished from possibility. Bella talking excitedly on the phone to people unknown (actually, in that vision she was trying to get ahold of one of those crackpot “scientists” from the History Channel who say aliens visited Earth in prehistoric times, but thank god she dismissed that idea immediately, because those people have no respect for the scientific method). She saw Bella walking through the woods alone, carrying a brightly burning torch. Charlie taking Bella to see a psychologist. Mike Newton (what the hell?) making some excuse to check Edward out in the shower at school (again: what the hell?). Edward not just smiling down at Bella, but kissing her. Bella hopping on a plane to Florida, and Edward following her on the next plane after that. Edward standing around like a moron while Bella scowled up at him with her hands on her hips, obviously telling him off. Bella dead in his arms. And did she mention the kissing?
Within two hours Alice’s visions had settled down (not before giving Edward what he was certain a coronary infarction felt like), but that didn’t make them clear. She blamed it on some vague indecision Bella must have been feeling. Alice had to give Bella fair credit: she mucked up the future more thoroughly in two hours than Edward had in two months.
But Alice and Edward were different in one respect-she was about the big picture and sometimes overlooked small things she should have factored in, whereas he generally got bogged down by the details to the detriment of his primary goal. That was why things tended to work out more smoothly when they cooperated with each other instead of pitting themselves against each other. In this case, rather than ask himself why all these futures suddenly came into the realm of possibility or why they blinked back out, Edward chose to focus on the death part. Of course.
“Just tell me,” he begged his tiny sister. “Will she still be alive tomorrow?” To him, that was the biggest picture. The only one that mattered.
“Well you’re still standing right here, and nobody else is planning on killing her,” Alice replied, mentally adding dipshit.
That was enough for Edward. He’d been in Forks long enough now that no one would be suspicious if he left (or so he thought). Better to go far away and look back on his memories of Bella with sadness for what could never be than to stay and turn her life into a three-ring circus with a gruesome, bloody finale. (Something in him decided she would approve of that macabre description.) But he would not be the cause of all this turmoil for her-and he was certain he was the cause. Which was how he wound up in her front yard at midnight on a Wednesday night, promising the wind that he would leave in just a few more minutes.
He was almost done burning her sleeping face into his memory in typical angsty fashion when he heard her voice. “Please, not another casserole, Mom.”
She sounded so thoroughly repulsed and world-weary, Edward would have almost believed her to be awake had she not been talking about food in the middle of the night to a mother who lived across the country. But more interesting than that, more tempting than the lure of uncensored thoughts, was the way a single word from this girl’s mouth triggered a visceral reaction in Edward.
Casserole.
He was eleven years old, just coming in from a brief shooting excursion with his elder cousin-he had a cousin!-and his mother sat on her chaise stroking their pet cat and reading her brand new book, How to Cook Casserole Dishes. “Mother?” he asked from the doorway, forgetting to beg her pardon first but remembering not to step even one toe into the parlor-children were not allowed there. “I bagged seven birds today. Cook sent me to ask how you’d like them prepared.”
“That’s wonderful, darling,” Elizabeth praised him, though she did not look up from her book right away. “What sort of birds?”
“Pigeon,” he answered dutifully.
His mother’s bright green eyes lit up, and she gave him a beautiful smile. “I found a recipe for Pigeons en Casserole just today! Tell Cook I’ll be with her in just a moment.”
Eager for more, Edward pressed his face closer to the glass, hoping Bella would say something else. He didn’t remember having a cousin, or what that cousin’s name might be, and it was impossible to hope he’d recall it tonight, but maybe next time… But there wasn’t supposed to be a next time. There was only tonight, and then he was leaving Forks. Tonight was all he had.
Against his better judgment, Edward gulped down some fresh air, gently lifted the sash, and slid into the open window. He left the window open only an eighth of an inch, just in case.
The rocking chair in the corner of her room seemed almost an invitation for a voyeur-why did a teenage girl have a rocking chair in her room anyway, and why was it positioned just so? It didn’t face out the window, but rather inward, giving him a direct line of sight to Bella’s sleeping face as he sat down. She looked so…annoyed. But happy. Whatever was annoying her, she must have been fond of it. Probably not a casserole; her mother, perhaps? He waited, listening as she cycled through her nightly dreams. Some of them weren’t in English, and he couldn’t immediately identify the language until he remembered the pretty Star of David she’d worn to school. Hebrew. Or possibly Yiddish. Two of many languages he didn’t speak-with somewhere between six and seven thousand languages in the world, a little less than a century of vampirism hadn’t been enough time to master all of them. Still, this new discovery answered some of his long-held questions about Bella, even as it opened up new ones.
“…too green…” she muttered eventually, back to English again.
Very odd, Edward decided. In this day and age of tree-hugging, save-the-planet, corporate hippiedom, he didn’t think there was such a thing as “too green.” He was just about to make up a truly entertaining scenario in which Bella told an entire commune that bathing regularly wouldn’t kill off the sea turtles when she said something that caught him completely off guard.
“Edward, please stay.”
The effect of this small, innocent request was immediate.
In his legendary novel The Godfather, Mario Puzo described the way a Sicilian man falls in love as “being hit by the thunderbolt.” It’s not sweet, nor innocent, nor even intentional; it fills the body, casts it into overwhelming confusion, makes you alive. It’s primal, passionate, and possessive, and more than a little chauvinistic in this day and age, but it’s real, consuming, and above all, unbreakable. Rather like a vampire finding an irresistible flavor that sings to him, actually.
Edward wasn’t Sicilian. He had no blood of his own rushing through his veins. He was not technically alive, nor was he a chauvinist (that he knew of). But he was struck nonetheless. The crush he’d been hiding from was replaced with something else that made him more human than he’d ever been, even before his death. He didn’t know if he was in love with Bella or with the way she made him feel. All he knew was that his body was afire all over again, like being born, and that he wasn’t going anywhere, not to some faraway country or a neighboring state or even the next town over, unless this girl would be there, too.
“Edward, wait,” Bella called, stirring.
It was with all the superhuman control he could muster that he didn’t leap right out of his seat, take this girl into his arms exactly as he had in the school parking lot when he saved her life, and claim her for his own. Not as a vampire, but as a man dizzy with a love he’s never felt before and may never feel again for anyone else. He could only allow himself one luxury, which was actually a necessity if he wanted to build up a tolerance to Bella Swan’s presence without ravishing her in the worst of ways rather than the best. With his muscles locked in place, he let himself inhale.
Feel the burn.
Locking those muscles turned out to be a bad idea-he was scarcely prepared, only moments later, to make himself vanish into the closet when Bella said so clearly, “Consuela? What are you doing here?” and startled herself awake.
For the love of heaven, he thought, remembering the first time he ever smelled her and caught her doodling someone’s name in her biology notebook, who in God’s name is Consuela?
xXxXx
When Bella woke again in the morning, the first thing she did was yawn. The second thing she did was sniff the air. The third thing she did was follow her nose to the closet, which held only her clothes.
“You gotta be fucking kidding me.”
When she got downstairs a few minutes later, Bella asked Charlie if Mark the K-9 guy needed a dog sitter for Izzy for the weekend. Then she fished some unscented clothing out of the dryer to wear for the day.