The Definiton of Want - Chapter 1
Title: The Definition of Want
Author: audreyii_fic
Fandom: Twilight (Team Jacob)
Rating: M
Characters: Bella, Jacob, Edward, and others (J/B)
Genre: Romance/Humor/Angst -- you know, all the good ones.
Warnings: Bad language and eventual sex.
Summary: You know how Edward offered to let Bella and Jacob make puppies? And we all secretly wondered how that would go? Yeah. It's one of those. Set post-Eclipse.
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Chapter One:
A/N: Well, here we go. A post-Eclipse multi-chapter work-in-progress. Obviously nothing is sacred. The only place left to go after this is Jacob/Nessie lemons. If that happens, please take me out back and shoot me. And by the way, y'all are going to have to stay on my ass about this, because I have a... um... bad history with completing WIPs. I'm counting on you guys to keep me in line.
The Definition of Want
want /wɒnt, wɔnt/
Show Spelled[wont, wawnt]
-verb (used with object)
- to feel a need or a desire for; wish for
- to wish, need, crave, demand, or desire notified
- to be without or be deficient in
- to fall short by (a specified amount)
- to require or need
-verb (used without object)
- to feel inclined; wish; like
- to be deficient by the absence of some part of thing
- to have need (usually fol. by for)
- to be in a state of destitution, need, or poverty
- to be lacking or absent, as a part or thing necessary to completeness
“I don’t care about anything but keeping her alive,” [Edward] said, suddenly focused now. “If it’s a child she wants, she can have it. She can have half a dozen babies. Anything she wants.” He paused for one beat. “She can have puppies, if that’s what it takes.”
What was he saying? That Bella should, what? Have a baby? With me? What? How? Was he giving her up? Or did he think she wouldn’t mind being shared?
“Whichever. Whatever keeps her alive.”
I couldn’t think about what he was suggesting. It was too much. Impossible. Wrong. Sick. Borrowing Bella for the weekends and then returning her Monday morning like a rental movie? So messed up.
So tempting.
-Breaking Dawn, Chapter 9: "Sure as Hell Didn't See That One Coming"
i'm throwing oranges in an apple cart / the ties that bind are tearing me apart
Cowboy Mouth, "Jenny Says"
The phone rang at 8:17, just as I was sitting down at the kitchen table and starting a pepperoni-sausage-ham pizza. (Gotta have protein to keep the wolf running, right?) I swallowed my first bite and grabbed the receiver off the hook. "Hello?"
"Hello, Jacob. It's Edward."
I instantly slammed the phone back into its cradle.
Childish, maybe, but I didn't want to talk to them. To any of them. I'd said all the right things when she'd come to see me while I was injured -- even mostly meant them, under the nice numbing haze of an insane quantity of morphine -- but then the wedding invitation hit me like an anvil. Bella was gone, she wasn't coming back, she was going to be hard and cold and smell awful, and even after running for a week straight the pain hadn't subsided. It had only hardened into something solid and sick inside me.
So they could all go to hell, as far as I was concerned.
The phone started ringing again.
I picked up, going back for more, like the idiot that I was. "What do you want?"
"We need to speak," replied cultured tones.
"We really don't," I snapped, and slammed the phone down a second time.
Couldn't they just leave me alone to eat my pizza in peace? Couldn't I at least have that?
More ringing. I ignored it, ignored it, ignored it... picked up. Goddammit. "Can't you take a hint, bloodsucker?"
There was a sigh from the other end of the line, a condescending I can't believe I have to deal with this child sigh. Douchebag. Sparkly, smelly douchebag. "I would like to talk to you about Bella. In person."
One of these days my heart would stop leaping at her name. At least, I hoped so, or I couldn't see how I would make it through the rest of my life. I intended to say Well, that's your problem, but what came out of my mouth was, "Is she all right?"
"Yes and no. Will you come speak to me beyond the treaty line?" A pause, then, "Please."
Please. Part of me was thrilled that he'd had to ask nicely -- but the rest was disgusted that he could when I knew I couldn't. I'd cut out my own tongue before I said please to that bastard. Maybe that made him the bigger man. At least I was taller. "Fine." I smirked. "Why don't we meet at the diner in town?"
"...excuse me?"
"You're interrupting my dinner, so I'll need some food. And you're paying."
***
Almost no else was in the diner at nine o'clock on a Tuesday. I ordered the most expensive steak on the menu. (Two of them, as a matter of fact.) The leech sat across the table from me as I ate, his whole body unnaturally still, as I tried not to let his stink affect the taste of the ribeye and mostly failed. "So," I said, mouth full. I hoped he missed eating real food. I wondered if she would. "You want to tell me what the hell this is about?"
"It's about Bella," he replied.
"You said that on the phone. Can you give me a little more info than that? I don't read minds." You bloodsucking asshole, I thought for good measure.
Cullen didn't give me the satisfaction of so much as a twitch. "It's about what is best for her."
"I thought we'd all established that what's best for Bella doesn't matter very much." Since we all know that would be me, I thought in his direction again. Being as I wouldn't kill her.
I thought I saw a muscle in Cullen's jaw harden. Good. "That is relevant to what I want to talk about."
"Which is?" I prompted, cutting another piece of steak, wishing that the knife wouldn't simply snap off at the handle if I lunged across the table and stabbed him in the chest. "Can you just get to the fucking point?"
He sighed, even though he didn't have to, given that he didn't breathe. "We've discussed how Bella wants to... turn."
I gritted my teeth to hold back a growl from the wolf inside. "I seem to recall something like that, yeah." As though I hadn't been seeing her as a marble statue in my nightmares for weeks.
"The thing is..." Cullen pretend-sighed again. It was getting on my nerves. "It's becoming clearer and clearer to me that that isn't want she wants."
My stupid, traitorous, self-destructive heart skipped a beat. "Could've fooled me," I muttered, trying to force those little tendrils of hope back into some deep, dark corner of my mind. Bella'd been pretty damn clear the last time we'd talked. She loved me, but not enough. Not enough to leave Cullen. Not enough to stay alive. Not enough. Never enough. She had no choice.
Not that I was bitter.
"She thinks she does," Cullen admitted. "But we were with Alice yesterday, looking at wedding cakes--"
--I imagined her wiping a smudge of icing from her cheek while she wore a white dress, as white as her skin would be soon after, and my stomach lurched--
"--and a woman passed by, holding an infant. Bella became... distracted. Then Alice saw--" Cullen cut off abruptly and shook his head, like he was trying to get water out of his ears. "Bella has not thought through all the implications of the decision she is making."
I snorted. "Well, we agree on that." I took another bite of steak, trying for nonchalance. "So what does this have to do with me, exactly? If she wants to kill herself for you, that's her choice." Bella, my Bells, her heart stopped, faking her sighs...
"She is not yours," Cullen snapped, showing a trace of temper for the first time.
She would have been if you'd just stayed gone.
I didn't think that one on purpose. That thought was raw and mine. I focused, trying to reign myself in as I did with the pack, making an effort to quiet my mind. Maybe I needed to take up meditation or something. Goddamn, was there ever a moment that someone wasn't listening in? Could I not have thirty seconds of peace and quiet? Couldn't I have anything that belonged to me and no one else?
Cullen closed his eyes. "Believe it or not, I am aware..." Then he shook his head again. "I want Bella to be happy. I want her to have whatever will make her happy, do you understand? She wants to be like me, and perhaps that will bring her some fulfillment, but her soul... If nothing else, the less she has to sacrifice, the better..."
"You mean like breathing?" I bit out, feeling a shudder run through my body. "And eating? And sleeping? And sunlight?" I remembered the times she would turn her face to the sky as we walked along First Beach, closing her eyes... "Have you ever seen her in the sun, Cullen? Do you know how much she'll miss it?"
Calm. I needed to be calm. The diner was quiet at this hour, but still, the few people here would probably notice if a gigantic wolf appeared by a back table and sank its teeth into one of the patrons.
"I know." Cullen's melodic voice was sad. "I do know. I want Bella to have the sun. If I had my way, she wouldn't change. She doesn't believe I could love her if she grows old, but none of that matters to me. I would love her for her entire life, until the day she died and beyond. If she could be convinced to stay human--"
"You think I haven't tried?" I snapped. I'd done nothing but try. I'd tried everything.
"Not everything," Cullen responded to my unspoken words.
Get out of my head, I thought sharply.
"I am making an effort to do so," he replied, the corner of his mouth turning up, "but you're very noisy, Jacob."
"Fuck you." No, really, fuck you. You and your sparkliness and your goddamn mind-reading. One day someone will figure out what you are, and there will be a mob with pitchforks and torches tearing you apart and I hope to God I'm there to see it -- the shivers ran up and down my spine again, the animal in my chest longing to rip and tear -- you ruined my life, you bastard! I wouldn't be a wolf if it wasn't for you! Bella would be happy if it wasn't for you! I hate you! You ruined everything!
He remained perfectly calm. "Are you finished?"
I took a deep breath. "For now," I said, stabbing viciously at the ribeye.
"Good." Cullen would always be cold, and I would always be hot. That was the way our tempers worked... along with everything else. "I have a proposition," he said, like we were talking about a business deal.
"Do you."
"Yes," he said. "I think Bella should have a child."
I promptly choked on a piece of steak.
Faster than he had any right to move (and faster than he ought to be moving in public), Cullen was behind me, whacking that marble-hard fist between my shoulder blades. "Cough, Jacob," he said, the faintest tint of amusement in his voice. I hacked obligingly until my throat unstuck, then spat the meat onto the table.
Cullen patted my back. "Better?" Eyes watering, I nodded. In an instant he was back in his seat, pushing his untouched soda across the table. "Drink," he ordered.
I did. Asshole.
"Now," he continued, taking shameless advantage of my temporary silence, "as I was saying, I've given this a great deal of thought, and I believe a child would solve the problem. Bella would be hurt if she lost her chance to become a mother; I could tell from the way she looked at that infant in the bakery. It would no longer be possible if she turned. If she were to have a baby first, however, it would give me time -- a few years at least -- to convince her that immortality isn't what she truly wants, and that I will love her regardless. She will change her mind, I'm certain. But even if she doesn't, she will at least get to experience motherhood, unlike many of our kind."
My mouth opened, but no sound came out.
"The difficulty," he went on, "is that it would be unwise for me to provide for Bella in this regard. In all likelihood the biological incompatibility would be disastrous. It's not worth the risk. The alternative, then, is for you to be the father." His mouth turned down slightly at this. "At least, according to Alice. She has seen it. Personally I think a sperm donor makes more sense, but she says she's quite certain if Bella were to have biological children, it would be with you. And I must admit," he actively frowned now, "Bella is more likely to agree to this if you're involved. So I am willing to set aside my... reservations. I'll allow anything that makes her happy, even if that's having puppies with you."
He folded his hands, waiting for my reaction.
Silence.
More silence.
The final piece of the puzzle fell into place. "You," I said, stunned, "are insane."
"I assure you I am not."
My brain tried to wrap around this new information. "No, really, you are. Here I've been thinking you're a run-of-the-mill bloodsucking douchebag, but it's not just that. You are one hundred percent batshit crazy." I couldn't believe I'd never seen it before. I was genuinely awed. "Jesus, do they have therapists for you leeches? Anti-psychotics? Because you need help."
"Believe whatever you want," Cullen said evenly. "It doesn't have an effect on my offer."
"Your offer?!" I felt laughter, dark humorless laughter, bubbling up from somewhere in my chest. "Your offer is the stupidest thing I've ever heard of. Not to mention the sickest." My head was shaking back and forth. "What the fuck is wrong with you?!"
"I want Bella to be happy," he said. "I want her alive. She doesn't know what immortality is really like, the boredom, the bloodlust held constantly at bay. I don't want that for her. Anything that could prevent it, or even delay--"
"Have you considered," I interrupted, "just, you know, not turning her? Instead of talking her into having a kid?"
Cullen's smile didn't reach his eyes. "I have. But Bella is... very determined. Very set. Sooner or later, she'll convince Carlisle to do it, or throw herself down the stairs, or push me hard enough that I'll bite her without meaning to... given enough time, she'll come up with some way to become what she wants to be. Unless she changes her mind."
"Then just... leave," I said. God, that would solve everything. "You did it once. Just pick up and get out of town. I'll keep Bella here, I'll keep her safe from those Italians or whatever--"
"Absolutely not." His expression instantly darkened, and he all but bared his teeth. "Your wolfpack is as dangerous as anything else out there. No, dog. Bella's safety is my responsibility. She is mine to protect. Mine."
We glared at each other across the table. A part of me -- the wolf part -- was screaming The hell with the diner, the hell with the treaty, just phase and rip him to pieces and set the building on fire, while the saner, more rational part said No, lure him outside first, away from everyone else, then drag him into the woods where no one will find you, both voices fueled by a thrumming mantra of kill him kill him kill him kill him...
I didn't need to read minds to know that Cullen wanted to do the same to me.
He regained his temper first. "Hostility isn't necessary, Jacob. Try to look at this from a rational point of view."
You condescending... I gritted my teeth. Calm, calm, calm. "Fine. From a rational point of view, you're a lunatic."
Cullen closed his eyes and appeared to count to ten. "What," he said, "is it that you object to, exactly?"
"I-- I just--" I sputtered. Holy shit, this was the most surreal conversation I'd ever had, and this had been one fucking surreal year. "All of it! I object to all of it! A baby as a bargaining chip? Impregnating Bella like she's livestock? What happens to the kid afterward? And what about age? Cullen, you might be a hundred-and-fucking-eight, but I'm sixteen and Bella's eighteen, did that ever occur to you?"
"Bella is an adult," he said calmly. "And of course you wouldn't be expected to leave school or provide support. You would have no obligations beyond the basic procreative aspects."
Unbidden, my brain supplied an image of a dark-haired baby being wrapped in blankets and carried into the woods by Cullen and the rest of his 'family', never to be seen again.
I gripped the edge of the table so hard that the wood cracked in my hands.
Cullen raised an eyebrow and added, "Though I suppose that part could be negotiated."
Negotiated... Realization dawned on me. "You're doing all the negotiating here, Cullen. What does Bella think of this?"
He didn't respond, but he pressed his lips together for a moment. Was that a touch of guilt?
Fucking hell. "You haven't even told her, have you? She has no idea you're here." The wood kept splintering as my fists tightened further. "Bella's got no clue that you're out offering her uterus to me. You're a goddamn pimp, you know that?"
Cullen's yellow eyes flashed. "I wanted to see if you were amenable before I brought the subject up with her. I just want Bella to live her life, Jacob. I thought you, of all people, would understand that."
The disturbing thing was, I did.
The possibilities started racing through my brain, totally uncontrolled. It was deranged, and twisted, and seriously fucked up on a nearly infinite number of levels. But if it kept Bella alive... if it kept her breathing and warm... if it bought time... I didn't guard my mind fast enough, and Cullen saw it all. "You're right, Jacob," he said soothingly, honey dripping from his venomous mouth. "There would be a number of opportunities to convince her to leave me and be with you instead. You would have time."
Rage ripped through my body as that manipulative fucker pulled the darkest wish out of my head and stabbed me with it. "You... are..." I couldn't think of a bad enough word, so I just let the wolf howl at him through my thoughts.
He smiled. "Yes, I am. For Bella, I am."
Red haze clouded my vision. I was going to phase, I had to phase, or I would explode. "Don't you ever pull this shit again," I ground out between clenched teeth, standing. "If Bella wants to talk about it, she knows where to find me. But you stay the fuck out."
"Of course." The bloodsucker nodded at me, as though we'd just had a quiet discussion about current events over a pot of tea. "Thank you, Jacob."
God.
I rushed out the door, dashed across the street, barely made it to the woods before exploding into the wolf, loam flying under my claws as I ran, fury and sickness and hatred burning through every cell of my being. Trying to escape the voice in my head before anyone else could hear.
If it bought time if it bought time if it bought time...
***
Chapter Two: Wherein Bella apologizes a lot and Jacob doesn't think before he speaks.