Your Biggest Fan - 22/?
Title: Your Biggest Fan
Chapter: 22/?
Fandom: Twilight
By: bythedamned
Rating: NC-17 overall
Chapter Wordcount: 7,905
Genre: AU, Slash
Pairing: Edward/Jasper
Summary: Throughout high school, the shy and over-burdened Edward Masen threw himself into work and raising his baby sister. He's always felt lucky just to be friends with track star Jasper Cullen. Now, he doesn't know if just friends is enough. AH AU Slash.
Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns, I just play
A/N: Thanks to my awesome beta, elveys_stuff
The word of the day was normal, because normal people wanted to have sex. And especially with sex talk number two coming, that was something that had been on my mind a lot. I mean, the one with Carlisle was bad enough, but it had become pretty obvious that I was going to have another with Jasper. Not that it would be another red-faced safety lecture - I was pretty damn sure it would focus on the when of it all instead.
When I thought about making love - because with Jasper, I was sure that’s what it would be - of course I wanted it. I wanted to love Jasper any way I could, passionately, intimately, so that he always felt it. And hell, if sex was half as good as people made it out to be, just show me the dotted line.
I had my doubts about it though. We had been working up to things, sure. Jas had slipped a finger down there, and then two. And that was all fine and dandy but…
Glancing over to make sure Jasper was still asleep, I held up two fingers. Then I pressed the tips of my thumb and forefinger together to make a nice round circle to compare, and it just…Did. Not. Compute. I mean, ow, right? Fucking ow! Not to mention the gross factor, but I could overlook that. Apparently it was supposed to feel awesome, eventually, but it was the part before the awesome I was worried about.
Not that I could ask anyone but my good friend the internet, who had actually been a little too forthcoming on the subject. As long as I didn’t wander onto bible-thumping websites condemning my very existence, the internet as a whole seemed to be all for it. There were still a lot of warnings though. Lists of precautions and Q&A sites full of young boys, like me, asking when it would stop hurting. Not to mention the more colorful sites with phrases like “getting to know your sphincter” that had me clicking the X.
But there was another thing. Why? Why did it have to be me? Who said it had to be my ass getting all spelunked? Not that we’d talked about it or anything, and we were both dudes for god’s sake. Plus, I’d never thought there was anything about me that said I’d like you to bend me over, please.
Not that there was about Jasper either.
I fidgeted with the covers, pulling them up to my nose.
I was just nervous. Nervous about the pain, nervous about what it said, about me, that when the idea of sex popped into my head, Jasper was always above me.
When the hell did I become the bottom? I’d always imagined myself as an independent, responsible guy. I took care of myself and Alice back before we moved out, handling the money, checking homework and even making lunches. And now, well, I couldn’t really make those claims anymore, but I was still me. And an athlete, to boot. That had to count for something, right? So if I thought about it in terms of who had to spread their knees, I just didn’t see why that person was me.
Except, if I thought about it in other ways, like in terms of who was driving… yeah.
Yeah, someone was gonna have to take the reins, and I’d rather it be Jasper. I just trusted him, I guessed. Assuming there would be pain involved, and I doubted the internet was lying about that, I trusted Jasper to get us through it a lot better than I would. The risk of hurting him, like that, was one responsibility I did not want.
Jasper would make it good. And he wanted to.
Soon.
I couldn’t avoid the topic forever. Not only because yes, obviously, I did want to lose my virginity eventually, but because I didn’t want there to be another miscommunication meltdown, and the only way to avoid that was to actually communicate. Even if that was harder than it looked.
Actively trying to be a better boyfriend had, well, it had worked out so far. Not that anything had changed. I mean, it’s not like we held hands when we’d met the guys for pizza over break, but I’d been attempting to be more aware of Jasper. Christmas was my dry run, and maybe that just made my success rate one for one, but so what? I had tried to make Jas happy - not just happy, but secure, really - and it worked. Jas had said the patches made him feel better, which of course made me feel better, and that was one big feedback loop I was happy to be stuck in. Especially after realizing that Jas would have just let it slide if I really had gotten him a shitty-ass present.
So yeah, communication. The big buzz word. It was definitely Jas’s cure-all, and in my more optimistic moments I could see how it would go. I would tell him my concerns and he would just talk them away, telling me I was all man, maybe even a studly one at that, and had nothing to worry about. Except he’d do it in some deep and meaningful way that I could never think up on my own, and then it would be better.
Hell, it had even worked with Rosalie. Okay, she still avoided me like I was Typhoid Mary, but she had quite distinctly managed to not be a pain in my ass this past week. And, again, it seemed to make Jas happy, and that was a change I could get behind.
I was startled from my musings by a knock on the door, the rattling and banging shaking it in its frame, and I felt the uncomfortable spike of panic that was so out of place in our cozy fortress of blankets.
I really hated that loud sort of knocking, especially when I was in Jasper’s bed instead of my own.
Oops?
Yeah… no. Not really.
I kind of hated whoever was doing the pounding too, just a little, but I also suspected it was Esme and that we would be in trouble if she found us in bed together again.
In the week since we’d gotten home from New York, it had been a mad rush to finish my college apps. It was hard to concentrate when I could be out running, or with the guys, or hanging with Jasper, or more than hanging with Jasper. Still, though, Esme had insisted my education was important and had helped me edit and re-edit my essays until they were the best I could make them. Truthfully, I knew she was right, and in my calmer moments I appreciated the help, but I still had a newfound and very personal grudge against commas. And Jasper has used that time to wander toward Rosalie’s end of the hallway, so it’s not like I was missing out on anything.
They were all in now- the applications - and I thought that should warrant me some peace. Apparently not, though.
It has been a memorable night, even if it had come with the urgency of sex on the horizon, and we had exhausted ourselves for sure. So with Jasper’s steady, heavy breath and skewed limbs, I knew it was up to me to deal with the knocking.
The door shook again, insistent as ever, and I launched myself out of his bed to find some pants. Mine were in a pile in his bathroom, but his were closer, so I pulled them on and hoped Esme didn’t notice that they were a little baggy.
As I reached the door, though, it wasn’t Esme’s voice I heard.
“Guys, I know you’re in there.”
I had already started to pull the door open when I stalled, mentally, and then stuck just my head out to find Rosalie. “What?”
“Oh, god. Tell me you guys weren’t-”
I pushed the door open farther, showing her my obviously buttoned, if rumpled, pants. “We were sleeping.”
“Oh.” She pushed a strand of straw-blonde hair out of her eyes with one finger, her eyes darting to the bed. “Mom said you guys have an open door policy, just like me and Emmett.”
“Are you gonna tell her?”
“No, I-” She stopped with a huff and crossed her arms roughly. “I was just gonna tell you that Mom called and she’ll be home in a few, but never mind.”
I narrowed my eyes skeptically. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why are you warning us?”
Cue Rosalie’s patented eye-roll.
“I’m warning Jasper. But I guess you’re part of the package, so you’re welcome, jerk.” And then she stomped back towards her own room.
I sighed and spooled up the energy to follow after her, mostly because when the ‘Edward was an asshole’ story was relayed to Jasper, I wanted to make sure I didn’t actually come off as one. I did take the time to get comfortably dressed in my own pants, though.
When I approached Rosalie’s door, I heard the steady sound of the shower from further down the hall and instead found Emmett sitting alone in her room with the door conscientiously open.
He nodded from the edge of her bed when he spotted me. “Hey man, what’s up?”
“Hey. I, uh, just wanted to tell Rosalie something,” I said somewhat awkwardly.
“She’s showering right now,” he said, all casual and easy like Rosalie and I always stopped by each other’s door for a bit of gossip. “But I’ll tell her to knock on our way out?”
“Umm.” Like that would happen. “No, that’s ok. Will you just tell her I said thanks?”
“Oh yeah, no prob. No one wants to get caught by the parentals.”
He still grinned as he said it, like it was no big deal, and I think that’s why that sentence was okay with me for about half a second. I even turned to leave before there was a long beat where I realized what he’d really said. Before I realized Rosalie had lied.
My words came out way more indignant than I meant them, blanketing the fact that all I really felt was dread. “You know.”
“Know? Oh, yeah man.” He waved a hand through the air. “But it’s cool.”
Were we even having the same conversation? Maybe not, if… no. If he knew Rosalie had come to warn us about Esme, he knew why.
“She promised.” I pointed one accusing finger towards the bathroom. “Jasper said she promised, and instead she opened her fat mouth-”
“Hey!” he cut me off, dropping the grin and finally standing up. “Don’t just come in here and start saying shit about my girlfriend.”
Somehow, he was a whole lot bigger when he wasn’t smiling. And surprisingly protective of Rosalie, considering he wasn’t actually whipped.
Still, though. “Your girlfriend who couldn’t keep a damn secret.”
“Hey,” he said again, suddenly whispering but loudly, like Rosalie could magically hear us through two walls and the rush of water. “No one told your damn secret. Rosie’s kept up her end of the deal, and she’s not the one shooting her mouth off right now.”
Maybe he’d just been pummeled by one too many linebackers to think clearly?
“She did,” I answered slowly, but through my teeth, “since we’re having this conversation.”
“Dude.” He took in a breath that puffed up his chest and shook a flat hand in the air like it could erase everything I’d said. “I don’t count.”
“Oh, well, if people just don’t count.”
“Jesus, man. Would you, like, turn it down a notch? What do you think’s gonna happen? That we’ll blab to the whole football team?”
I didn’t think he meant it, but it didn’t stop that thought from blooming with full force. Emmett kept talking, but it was hard to hear him above the oh shit oh shit oh shit rushing through my ears. I imagined walking into a school full of people who… knew. The football team would tell the cheer squad, and Cheer would tell, well, everyone. And then Jasper and I would never be alone again.
Just thinking about it made me anxious - the kind of anxiety I hadn’t truly felt in a while, that rushed up from my toes and deflated my lungs and made my skin all hot and tingly in the bad way. People would stare and the girls would laugh and the guys would probably throw a punch or two. I could see the disgusted look on Yorkie’s face, hear the words coming out of Tyler’s mouth.
I knew what they’d all do. Once they found out, it wouldn’t just be me and Jas anymore, it’d be the voices of everyone we knew having their say. Questioning us, judging us, trying to edit what we did and felt and convince us of how wrong it was. And above all, trying to change us.
I put a hand over my eyes to block out the thoughts, but instead it just left me alone with them. I tried to go through the routine of calming myself down, but lately that had always involved Jasper. What did Jasper do?
Breathe. He’d always tell me to breathe, so I did.
A bright one, that boyfriend of mine.
“Hey man, you gonna pass out or something?”
I looked up to see Emmett had taken a couple steps back, and while he wasn’t back to his old casual routine, he looked a lot less aggressive. More… wary.
I shook my head and let my hand drop to the side.
“No joke, we’re not gonna tell anyone. I swear.”
Damn straight it was no fucking joke.
He ran a hand through his buzz cut on a long pause and then said, “Rosie’s like… well. Look, if I’d known you were gonna flip out I wouldn’t’ve said anything. But Rosie, she’s like my Jasper. Or I’m hers or whatever, but me and her keep each other’s secrets, okay? I’m not tryin’ to mess you up here.”
He stopped, looking at me expectantly, and while I didn’t exactly feel better, I did feel less shitty. Plus, the breathing was slowly curbing the adrenaline rush I’d given myself, which made it easier to focus.
“Yeah, okay.”
He nodded with a rhythm that moved his whole body and finally smiled again. He was back to the Emmett I typically saw around school, and he dropped himself back down to the bed.
“You’re kinda one intense dude, you know that?”
So they kept telling me.
“So, we good? Rose’ll be pissed if I gotta tell her I broke the peace.”
I brought up a quick smile - for him, not her. I wouldn’t want to condemn anyone to her wrath, and the longer it sank in the more it seemed like things might be okay. I mean, I trusted Jas with everything. And if, for whatever reason, Emmett was just as loyal to Rosalie then okay.
“Yeah,” I finally said. “We’re good. So, I guess, thanks.”
He laughed at whatever it was he found funny and waved me off, and I shuffled my way toward the door.
“Oh, hey, Edward?”
I looked back over my shoulder.
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for letting Rose and Jasper do their thing.”
“Oh, uh…” Yeah, what was I supposed to say to that?
Emmett grinned, but instead of his typical life’s-a-party smile, he had one that seemed a lot more self-conscious, but also a lot more genuine.
“I dunno ‘bout yours,” he said with an easy half-shrug, “but my Cullen’s been a lot happier lately.”
Huh.
I gave the old standard sure, man nod and got myself back to my own room.
I actually liked Emmett, I decided. He was pretty alright. I mean, I still got the ‘I could pummel you into next Sunday’ vibe from him sometimes in passing, but I might have just been confusing that with muscle mass.
And like he’d said, we both had a Cullen. I had never really thought about it like that before, but we were kind of in the same boat. Okay, no, my boat was so weird it was like being the captain of a ghost ship - I was never going to see anybody else in it - but the two of us were the Cullens’ boyfriends.
And if Emmett was cool with that, well, I guessed I was cool with him.
It was odd, too, to think of them like that. As a pair. Jasper and Rosalie Cullen. The Cullens we were in love with, like they both had this indescribable but genetic charm that drew us in. Not that I saw the appeal of his Cullen, at all, but to each his own or whatever.
Jasper found me just as I got back to my room, leaning against the door jamb with his hip and wearing the jeans I’d been in half an hour earlier. His curls were a mess, and I could tell he’d tried to tuck them behind his ears, but it still looked like bedhead to me. Sexy bedhead.
“Ready for the Swans’?”
“Breakfast first?” I asked hopefully, and he just smiled his easy morning smile.
“Lunch, but yeah.”
Lunch would have to do, and I untucked his curls the way I liked them before I turned down the hallway. Esme found us there, meeting fully dressed between our rooms, and seemed pleased that we were adhering to the separate beds policy so well. So of course we grinned innocently down at her and followed her to the kitchen for sandwiches.
The plan for Bella’s was mostly a gift exchange, though I had a more covert mission of discussing Alice’s court date with Charlie too. Not covert in the secret way, so actually not really covert at all, but the topic made Ali antsy and I was hoping to get a few more of the details without bothering her. Because, just like most things that had to do with Alice and the fallout from, well, that, Charlie’s guardianship was something that made me tight in the stomach, and I wanted as many details to hang onto as possible.
Stealth, that was the word I was looking for.
When we finally made it to Bella’s there was already an extra car in the driveway, but I didn’t see why that needed to change our plans so I just parked on the street.
Alice opened the door wearing Christmas wreath earrings, even though it was January, and led us to the living room while Bella quizzed Jas about New York. We found Seth waiting for us there, which was both weird and a bit of a surprise, but after we all said our hellos he kissed Alice on the cheek and said he’d be in the kitchen.
Both girls were excited to hear details of the trip, even though Alice had already heard some of them, and it wasn’t long before they were both begging to see the penguin walk.
Not that I had quietly tipped Alice off to its existence, or anything.
Jas gave me the really? look, with one eyebrow up and his mouth tight but amused, and Bella had a way of doing this quiet, hopeful look that won him over in no time. So Jas was wrigglin’ like a fish on the end of a line and studiously ignoring the way both girls were snorting silently into their hands when Charlie came into the room, followed by-
“Mrs. Clearwater?”
Jasper lurched, clamping his hands to the side and for once seeming unable to prevent the pink tinge on his cheeks.
The girls snorted harder. So dainty, they were.
Mrs. Clearwater, though, just charged forward with a full plate of cookies, and Seth was close enough on her heels to snag one before it even made it to the coffee table. The sniff test confirmed that, yes, she had just baked them here.
“Hi, boys” she said brightly, wiping her hands off on her long, brick-red skirt. “And call me Sue.”
“You boys had lunch yet?” Charlie asked, settling himself into the overstuffed chair by the fireplace. “Sue makes a mean fish fry.”
He grinned and we grinned back, but for entirely different reasons. One look at Bella’s politely blank face confirmed that it was getting ever closer to the day where she finally told her father how much she hated steelhead and trout and, yes, even salmon. A few subtle glances between us confirmed that everyone under forty was in on the joke, even Seth.
So we avoided the topic by stuffing our mouths with snickerdoodles instead, and waving our shiny wrapped presents in the air. The girls instantly perked up, and Seth settled for leaning against the wall to leave the couch to us.
Bella gushed over the shirt Jas had gotten her, and hugged me too when he said it was from both of us, just like he’d promised. While she ran upstairs to put it on, I handed Alice her jewelry box.
I should have remembered how animated girls got over presents. Alice squealed just like Bella had, and quickly swapped out her seasonal earrings for the feathered ones I’d gotten her. After checking them in the reflection of a picture frame, and then a real mirror in the hallway, she planted herself in front of Seth and asked, “What do you think?”
I was gonna be pissed if his was the make-or-break opinion, but he caught my eye before watching her shake her head to show them off and said, “They’re really great.”
Behind him, his mom laughed. “I taught him well,” she said, with just a touch of pride. Then she lifted one finger to wag good-naturedly towards me and Jas. “You boys too. The first trick to dating, always tell a girl she looks great.”
There was the briefest pause where he looked at Ali and her eyes shot to us, and I had just started gearing myself up to change the topic when Mrs. Clearwater tried to ruffle Seth’s hair.
“Mo-om.”
With an inconvenienced grunt, Seth played the good-natured part of the burdened son and spent more time than necessary patting his hair back into disarray with his palms.
Moments later, Bella came quietly back down the stairs in her tourist-chic t-shirt and asked, “What’d I miss?”
And so went the afternoon. It wasn’t quite the family time I’d been expecting, but apparently Seth and his mom had called when they were in town for an errand and Charlie had invited them over. I guessed it was still loosely kind of family time, in a makeshift kind of way, even if most of us weren’t actually related to each other.
And speaking of family, I slipped over to Charlie after a while to ask if he could go over the details with me again. And Charlie…
Well, a kinder person would make sure to include a ‘bless his soul’ so… Charlie was about as subtle as a bullhorn in a library, bless his soul.
“Sure thing, son. We’re all set to go for Wednesday-”
Alice’s head whipped around, eyes narrow and startled, and I sighed. So much for stealth. Jasper’s eyes snapped to mine too, but they offered solidarity. Commiserating in a ‘yeah, so that sucked’ way that made it at least slightly better.
It was Mrs. Clearwater that spoke up first, gently suggesting in a voice she probably usually reserved for her accident-prone students, “Maybe Edward wants to talk in private?”
“Well,” Charlie said, taking in that idea with a slow nod in my direction, “Sue and Seth know what’s goin’ on, but we can talk in the kitchen if you want.”
Just… damn. Because Mrs. Clearwater was nice and all, and obviously Seth was in Alice’s corner, but wasn’t that still our personal family business?
Except, there was family again, blurring into love like two words from a felt-tipped pen on wet paper.
Jas pushed himself to the edge of the couch, poised to stand, and his eyes were studying me for any ‘Edward’ kind of reaction. The silent kind that drew up anxieties and stomach aches and required a reminder to breathe, and I was grateful to him in that moment for just knowing.
But him just knowing helped, and this was also part of me trying to be better. To not be the boyfriend he had to rescue from awkward situations, and to stay calm like a normal person. Besides, as much as I disliked this topic, it was always Alice that was the most torn over it.
And judging from the way she was picking fiercely at her cuticles and tucking her head into Seth’s side, I had to get this conversation elsewhere, stat.
I wondered, briefly, if Alice saw things like Emmett did; if she saw Seth as her Jasper, as the one who would just know when she was having a hard moment. How could he, though, when they’d just met each other?
But maybe he was her Jasper so far and, really, maybe that’s as good a start as any.
After the deep breath I knew I should take, I tried to calmly and straightforwardly divert the conversation. I couldn’t think of anything casual enough to say, though, and ended up darting for the kitchen instead.
So, calm and straightforward was a work in progress - that was Jasper’s skill set, not mine.
Charlie came into the kitchen a few moments later, blinking and rubbing his mustache, and pulled out a wooden chair to sit himself down in.
“Alright,” he started, thankfully too much of a no-nonsense guy to comment on the mood, or anything. “Details.”
Most of it I’d heard before, but it helped to hear it again. In three day’s time, Ali and I wouldn’t be the only Masens in Forks anymore. Not that I thought she was actually changing her name - though I mentally noted to double check that - but she’d belong to someone else’s family more. I was handing my sister’s wellbeing over to someone else, without doing a thing at all.
Charlie, I reminded myself. Not just someone, but Charlie.
Just like we’d been over before, it was a good thing. It was.
And so having the details of the day, the hearing, the schedule, made it easier to wrap my head around it all. Easier to prepare, to have a mental checklist in my head so that at least as things progressed I could still tell myself it was all going according to plan.
Charlie really spared no detail, talking through finances and power of attorney and if, god forbid, there were any medical emergencies, how that would all play out. I cringed at that, already feeling like my stomach was digesting itself, and promised him I understood. He told me who would be in the courtroom with us, and why, and taught me a lot more about the judicial system in ten minutes than I’d learned in my life, but it was all good information to have.
Comforting, if absolutely useless.
He did remind me that I didn’t have to be there, if I didn’t want to or had to be in class or something, but I waved it off.
Esme would have known not to ask.
He seemed surprised when I said Jasper would be coming too, since it was just a matter of telling things like they were and signing some papers, really, but that was a done deal too.
Our conversation had gone like this:
Are you coming? Yes. The end.
Charlie prepped me like he would a deputy, and then some, and over half an hour had passed before he gave me a stiff nod and said that about covered it.
Then he cleared his throat and I nodded back.
“Thanks, Charlie.”
“Yup. Sure.”
With nothing left to say, we both stood and I led the way through the swing-door back to the living room to see if Jas was ready to go. I wasn’t really in the mood to make small talk anymore, and would be perfectly fine with initiating the goodbye process so long as Ali was doing alright.
I shouldn’t have worried though, leaving her in a room full of people who loved her. As soon as I had my head through the door, Jasper caught my eye with a smirk I rarely saw in public, one that was fun and lighthearted and teasing. His playful look.
“Your sister,” he announced in a dramatic tone, “is hogging all the cookies.”
Sure enough, Alice and Bella were huddled at one edge of the couch with the plate circled protectively in their arms.
“The boys kept eating them,” Ali protested, exasperated but grinning, and Bella managed to swallow down her giggles long enough to back her up.
“Really, Edward. Sue and I made like three batches, and now they’re almost gone.”
My eyes panned to Seth, who had hands held up in defeat, and then to Jasper who was making a show of brushing the crumbs off his lap.
I decided that, maybe, it’d be alright to stick around for a bit longer.
We did make it home before dinner, though, even if we were too stuffed with sugar to eat. Esme tsked disapprovingly, but Carlisle had a very ‘boys will be boys’ attitude and told us it was polite to sit with the family anyway. Which was fine by us, really. Trying to wriggle our cold feet up the bottom of each other’s jeans passed the time well enough.
Of course, that meant I was slipping into Jasper’s room practically the moment we heard Esme’s footsteps on the stairs. We were making out within a minute, tops, and huddled on our sides under his covers not long after that. Still, though, I waited for him to push it that one step farther.
Because I had the notion that if I held off, waited just long enough, he would have to take control. In fact, I knew he would. Impatient Jasper was a sexy Jasper, dragging his blunt fingernails down my back, undulating his hips against mine unconsciously, and finally…
Yes.
Shifting himself up onto his elbow, pushing my shoulder down to the mattress, and flattening himself over me until I felt a thrill ripple through my chest. The moment where he gave in and took charge, where I knew the best part was about to come - there was sheer pleasure in the anticipation.
I gripped his ass, slipping my hands under his boxers to press and knead his skin and pull him down onto me.
“Jesus Christ, Edward”
I grinned into the darkness. He liked it too.
Technically we were celebrating the end of my college apps, the beginning of the home stretch, but it’s not like we really needed a reason. Ever. So for no particular reason, Jas started angling his knee back and forth, wedging it between mine, until we both had each other’s thighs to drag our bulges shamelessly against. It was full-on sensation, more bang for our buck.
Not that there were bucks involved. Or banging.
But I could feel how Jasper was enjoying himself, just as much as I was, and soon his boxers weren’t enough to contain him so I pushed them down to his thighs.
“Edward,” he whispered against my ear, before he started sucking on that soft spot just behind it that made me writhe.
“Yeah?” I encouraged, hoping for a bit of that mumbly sexy talk that always made me hot.
In his pause I felt him grin against my neck and I suspected he was just torturing me, making me wait for it.
“Edward,” he said again. “You know what I’ve been thinking about?”
“Hmm?” I hummed, more than willing to play the innocent.
He tilted his hips in a way that offered the most encouraging pressure and whispered, “Yet.”
Yet.
I stilled, despite the sensations, and my hands froze against his hips. My voice was cracked and dry, doing nothing to hide how nervous the thought made me. “Now?”
I felt him smile again as he left a trail of wet but soft kisses along my neck. “No, not doing it now.” He contradicted himself by dragging his knee a little higher, sending a pleasurable pulse through my groin that was completely at odds with the way my head was buzzing. “But I’m really looking forward to it.”
I tried to pick up where I’d stopped, roaming my hands in jerky movements along his back to mimic the enthusiasm he felt, but I swear he had an all-access pass to my thoughts because within moments he had pushed himself up and back, leaving a buffer of dry air between our chests. I guessed it was obvious, because the correct response was probably oh yeah baby, me too, stick it in me or something and I had completely botched that response.
“Edward?”
I was itching to just wrap my feet back over his calves and say after, we’ll talk about it after, but he was already starting to shift himself off me.
“No,” I said, wanting to keep his weight against me, and catching his ribs between my hands. “Stay.”
I really didn’t want to talk about this now, especially since I was enjoying myself, damnit, but there was no evading Jasper this time. Besides, this was the plan, to man up and talk about it. Right? To make sure Jas didn’t think I was keeping anything else hidden. Because I wasn’t, and that was the whole point.
I think I’d been hoping to feel a little… manlier when we had this conversation though. More validated in my concerns and less like the insecure, girly buzzkill, but so much for that. And on top of that my own wavering annoyed me, because who couldn’t have a simple conversation with their boyfriend about sex?
“I’m just nervous, alright?” I said, feeling much smaller than usual and really not liking it.
“I didn’t mean now, Edward,” he said softly, with a tone of apology in his voice. “It was just a nice thought.”
I took the moment to rein in my own annoyance. “It just… the whole thing just makes me nervous.”
He pushed himself up again, locking his elbows, and said, “Close your eyes a sec.”
I did, and felt the light flood behind my eyelids. His bedside lamp was a dimmer so we weren’t blinded, but I still blinked several times before I could focus on him against the shadowy walls.
Then he settled back over me, still on his elbows, but twisting the tips of his fingers into my hair. “Nervous?”
I huffed, mostly at myself ‘cause it sounded even lamer with the light on, but nodded. “Yeah.”
“That it’ll hurt?”
Well. It looked like we were on the same page about who went where, at least. Joy.
“We’ll be careful,” he said, whispering across the brief space between our mouths. “I’ll go slow.”
“I know,” I whispered back, because of course I wasn’t worried Jas would just roughly have his way with me. “I just feel weird.”
“Weird how?”
He was watching me intently, from only inches away, and I really just wanted to abandon the conversation and feel big again, but I kept telling myself to just do it Jasper’s way. Tell him, and then it will be better.
“Weird like… why me?”
He paused and I could practically see him tasting his next words, choosing them carefully, until he eventually settled on, “Which ‘why you’?”
I nodded, slanting my eyes to the side with a tiny nod that conceded he had a point there. And he gave me the lip service of a half-smile, but quickly went back to watching and waiting. He pressed his lips together, thinking, and then I felt him pull up his boxers between us, reminding me that where we had been headed had become merely an afterthought to our conversation. Carefully, he slid himself to the side, propping his head up on a fist with his elbow digging into the edge of my pillow, but he still left half his body covering mine.
It was easier when we stayed close, somehow.
“Sorry I made this into a thing,” I said quietly.
“I’m still not exactly sure what this thing is.”
“It’s just making me, I guess, evaluate stuff, you know? About you and me.”
With his entire body curled around mine, it was impossible to miss the way he tensed. It was so immediate, so all-consuming. His chest sucked in and his hand was suddenly pressing too hard against my chest. His whole head had snapped so he could meet my eyes directly, and there was nothing but panic. Silent, contained panic.
“No,” I said, too loudly, and it was good that he was so close, because I tightened my arms around his back and pressed us even closer. “God, no. Not that, Jas.” I scrambled to touch as much of him as I could, to be as together and intertwined as possible, because I hadn’t for a moment wanted to insinuate anything else. My palms roamed all over as he inhaled deeply and I quickly took hold of his face so I could kiss him.
He kissed back with his whole breath, sucking air from my mouth and giving it back, before he buried his head into the pillow at the crook of my neck.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, still rubbing his back because that always made me feel better, and holy crap I was even worse at this than I thought. Epically bad. Talking was just not my strong suit - especially today. “I’m sorry.”
“Jesus Christ, Edward,” he groaned into the pillow, but the arm not pinned beneath him came up to my collar bone, holding on tightly. “Just tell me what’s going on.”
So I did. I gave up any pretense, just to get as far away from this misunderstanding as possible, and blurted, “Why do I have to be on bottom?”
The word felt oddly foreign as I said it aloud, bottom, so commonplace but so suddenly full of connotation and implication. I almost thought I heard him laugh, muffled against the pillow, but when he looked up his face was soft again, relieved. “You scared the crap out of me there.”
“I’m sorry,” I repeated.
And then he settled back against my shoulder, not nearly as relaxed as we had been before, but at least comfortable. “Alright,” he prompted me. “So.”
Oh, embarrassment, that old black magic. It didn’t hit nearly as hard as it had before, though, so I just let my thoughts bubble up to the surface. “Just… what I said.”
“Do you not want to?”
“No, I do,” I promised. “I want to do it too.”
“No,” he smiled, playing with the ends of my hair again, catching his fingers in the tangles and loosening them out. “I mean, would you rather be on top?”
He made it sound so easy. Like we could just switch it around if we wanted to. “Don’t you?”
“Uh. Well, I guess, yeah. That’s how I always pictured it.”
I cringed. “Always?”
He tilted his head up to look at me again, and pursing his lips and thinking again. “Actually, no. I was kind of hoping we could try it both ways, eventually. We can do it the other way first, if you want.”
And honestly, I believed him. I had no doubt that if I asked to be on top, he’d let me. Which is part of why I loved him so goddamn much. But the problem wasn’t that he wanted me on bottom, it was that I did too.
“No, not really.”
He settled back against me, and I could feel his toes flexing into the mattress to balance himself. “Then we’ll start off with what we both want, right?”
“Yeah,” I said, with a sigh. “I just don’t understand what it is about me, then. Why am I the girl?”
“Edward,” he said slowly, “The bottom, not the girl.”
“Same difference though, right?”
And again he was staring, watching me in a way that was only not gaping because he managed to keep his mouth shut, and then his eyes flitted all around in a moment of confusion and I was starting to regret being so glib. “No, Edward. Not to me, it isn’t. That’s the whole point, that there’s no girl.”
“No, I know,” I said, backpedalling hastily. “Obviously.” But he still rolled himself backwards, pulling his leg away from me. I elbowed myself up too, so I could look him in the eye, and tried to explain. “But with normal couples there’s a guy and a girl, and with us-”
I stopped because he angled his head just slightly to the side and winced, holding the expression like the pain just wouldn’t stop and it was suddenly obvious that I had said the wrong thing. Again.
He wet his lips and took a breath, and his voice surprised me when he spoke. It was cold, suddenly distant and automated. “We are normal.”
“Okay, but I’m just saying-”
“No, Edward. There’s no girl here, and there doesn’t have to be one.”
Well, except… didn’t that all depend on your definition of normal?
“Jas,” I said, hushed, “I didn’t say that.”
But he raised an eyebrow that said, didn’t you? and I though, fine, if he wanted to take it literally.
“I didn’t say that on purpose,” I amended.
Instead of making things better, though, that just made him twist up his mouth in a pucker like some lemon had done him wrong. His forehead was scrunched up too, still pained, and he swallowed hard before looking away.
“I know,” he said, with one big breath that seemed to drag all the air out of him. “You’re usually more careful than that.”
And suddenly I felt like I’d been caught in a lie. A lie of omission, maybe, and not even really because it wasn’t like I spent my time trying to deceive him. We were getting by just fine the way we were, so why bring up uncomfortable truths?
“You know, there’s nothing wrong with being different,” he said, collapsing onto his back with a soft whump.
“I never said that.”
“I know, but you believe it. Sometimes…” He trailed off, and I craned my neck until I could see his face, or the side of it not turned away, at least. “Sometimes it seems like you think we’re getting away with doing something wrong.”
His words echoed into the open room, aimed away from me like somehow they could do less damage that way. And maybe it did lessen the sting, to not have to look him in the eyes, because I didn’t exactly have a comeback for that.
Sure, I’d argue with his word choice, but the weight of the conversation had just gotten so heavy, left the air in my lungs so thin that I just didn’t have the energy to argue semantics. Because, yes, I did think we were getting off easy as long as we flew under the radar.
He didn’t look at me again until he levered himself up to sitting, and when he did his eyebrows were still steep over tight, guarded eyes.
“Do I make you feel weird, Edward?”
I craned forward in an attempt to get closer, to study his face more clearly to figure out what answer he wanted to hear. Because I couldn’t just say no. No, Jasper, me and apple pie are about as normal as you get. That lie was bordering on blatant, and we both knew it.
So, instead, I just went with the truth. “I always feel weird, Jas.”
Since before I’d moved to Forks, even, that was just the name of the game. And now weird had become not knowing whether you ever wanted to see your father again, and worrying about who had custody of your little sister, and turning your best friend into your home and lover all in one.
Jas nodded slowly, rocking his whole upper body in a slow, pendulum motion. Then he pushed his hair back with a sloppy hand and said, “I guess I knew that.”
And that’s all he said, because that’s who he was. No accusations or trying to correct me. No yelling, no getting mad. Just disappointment, thick and heavy.
We both sat in the darkness, less than a foot away but silenced by the thick, swirling clouds of our own thoughts. I could practically feel them, dampening the air, matting our hair to our foreheads and choking the words back down our throats, and all because I’d opened my damn mouth in the first place. I’d made him think no when I meant yes, pushed him away when I’d tried to let him in, and thought we were just talking about sex when, really, it was never that simple.
We were so well matched most of the time - how we made each other laugh, how we liked geeking out, the way we felt about each other and how easy it was to just be us. Unfortunately, it was the rest of the world we couldn’t agree on. When it came down to it, Jas and I just had different standards for what was publically acceptable. Some people were as normal as the sun rising or the grass growing. For me, it was just a setting on the dryer.
After a time he said, with no warning, “I wish you didn’t want us to hide.”
I wondered for a moment if he was going to bring up New York, and the millions of people who didn’t give a good god damn what we did with or our own time, but he didn’t.
I hadn’t ever told him about Chelsea. Because the truth was, all those proud couples in Chelsea didn’t make me feel any safer in Forks. And if that wasn’t clear the moment we landed, five minutes alone with Emmett and the truth had made it painfully obvious this morning.
“How-” I started, and then had to clear my throat because we had both been sitting, contemplating, in silence for a little too long. “How are you so okay with everything?”
He looked at me then, still and alert. He studied my face and blinked slowly until he said, “Fuck ‘em.”
I blinked back.
“All those people that make you feel like there’s something wrong with us, just fuck ‘em.”
“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with you,” I mentioned quietly, but it just made his head sink lower between his hunched shoulders. So much for my success record.
I wanted to rub the tense spot across his neck until it loosened up, to promise that none of this mattered and mean it, because I was trying to be better. Damnit, I really was. I wanted to do and say the right thing, but my traitorous mouth had already dug a deep enough hole for one night, so instead I whispered the one thing I knew was safe.
“I love you.”
He tipped his head to the side and laid it on the arm he had draped across his knees.
“I love you too.”
And for once, it didn’t fix anything.
Chapter 23
Chapter: 22/?
Fandom: Twilight
By: bythedamned
Rating: NC-17 overall
Chapter Wordcount: 7,905
Genre: AU, Slash
Pairing: Edward/Jasper
Summary: Throughout high school, the shy and over-burdened Edward Masen threw himself into work and raising his baby sister. He's always felt lucky just to be friends with track star Jasper Cullen. Now, he doesn't know if just friends is enough. AH AU Slash.
Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns, I just play
A/N: Thanks to my awesome beta, elveys_stuff
The word of the day was normal, because normal people wanted to have sex. And especially with sex talk number two coming, that was something that had been on my mind a lot. I mean, the one with Carlisle was bad enough, but it had become pretty obvious that I was going to have another with Jasper. Not that it would be another red-faced safety lecture - I was pretty damn sure it would focus on the when of it all instead.
When I thought about making love - because with Jasper, I was sure that’s what it would be - of course I wanted it. I wanted to love Jasper any way I could, passionately, intimately, so that he always felt it. And hell, if sex was half as good as people made it out to be, just show me the dotted line.
I had my doubts about it though. We had been working up to things, sure. Jas had slipped a finger down there, and then two. And that was all fine and dandy but…
Glancing over to make sure Jasper was still asleep, I held up two fingers. Then I pressed the tips of my thumb and forefinger together to make a nice round circle to compare, and it just…Did. Not. Compute. I mean, ow, right? Fucking ow! Not to mention the gross factor, but I could overlook that. Apparently it was supposed to feel awesome, eventually, but it was the part before the awesome I was worried about.
Not that I could ask anyone but my good friend the internet, who had actually been a little too forthcoming on the subject. As long as I didn’t wander onto bible-thumping websites condemning my very existence, the internet as a whole seemed to be all for it. There were still a lot of warnings though. Lists of precautions and Q&A sites full of young boys, like me, asking when it would stop hurting. Not to mention the more colorful sites with phrases like “getting to know your sphincter” that had me clicking the X.
But there was another thing. Why? Why did it have to be me? Who said it had to be my ass getting all spelunked? Not that we’d talked about it or anything, and we were both dudes for god’s sake. Plus, I’d never thought there was anything about me that said I’d like you to bend me over, please.
Not that there was about Jasper either.
I fidgeted with the covers, pulling them up to my nose.
I was just nervous. Nervous about the pain, nervous about what it said, about me, that when the idea of sex popped into my head, Jasper was always above me.
When the hell did I become the bottom? I’d always imagined myself as an independent, responsible guy. I took care of myself and Alice back before we moved out, handling the money, checking homework and even making lunches. And now, well, I couldn’t really make those claims anymore, but I was still me. And an athlete, to boot. That had to count for something, right? So if I thought about it in terms of who had to spread their knees, I just didn’t see why that person was me.
Except, if I thought about it in other ways, like in terms of who was driving… yeah.
Yeah, someone was gonna have to take the reins, and I’d rather it be Jasper. I just trusted him, I guessed. Assuming there would be pain involved, and I doubted the internet was lying about that, I trusted Jasper to get us through it a lot better than I would. The risk of hurting him, like that, was one responsibility I did not want.
Jasper would make it good. And he wanted to.
Soon.
I couldn’t avoid the topic forever. Not only because yes, obviously, I did want to lose my virginity eventually, but because I didn’t want there to be another miscommunication meltdown, and the only way to avoid that was to actually communicate. Even if that was harder than it looked.
Actively trying to be a better boyfriend had, well, it had worked out so far. Not that anything had changed. I mean, it’s not like we held hands when we’d met the guys for pizza over break, but I’d been attempting to be more aware of Jasper. Christmas was my dry run, and maybe that just made my success rate one for one, but so what? I had tried to make Jas happy - not just happy, but secure, really - and it worked. Jas had said the patches made him feel better, which of course made me feel better, and that was one big feedback loop I was happy to be stuck in. Especially after realizing that Jas would have just let it slide if I really had gotten him a shitty-ass present.
So yeah, communication. The big buzz word. It was definitely Jas’s cure-all, and in my more optimistic moments I could see how it would go. I would tell him my concerns and he would just talk them away, telling me I was all man, maybe even a studly one at that, and had nothing to worry about. Except he’d do it in some deep and meaningful way that I could never think up on my own, and then it would be better.
Hell, it had even worked with Rosalie. Okay, she still avoided me like I was Typhoid Mary, but she had quite distinctly managed to not be a pain in my ass this past week. And, again, it seemed to make Jas happy, and that was a change I could get behind.
I was startled from my musings by a knock on the door, the rattling and banging shaking it in its frame, and I felt the uncomfortable spike of panic that was so out of place in our cozy fortress of blankets.
I really hated that loud sort of knocking, especially when I was in Jasper’s bed instead of my own.
Oops?
Yeah… no. Not really.
I kind of hated whoever was doing the pounding too, just a little, but I also suspected it was Esme and that we would be in trouble if she found us in bed together again.
In the week since we’d gotten home from New York, it had been a mad rush to finish my college apps. It was hard to concentrate when I could be out running, or with the guys, or hanging with Jasper, or more than hanging with Jasper. Still, though, Esme had insisted my education was important and had helped me edit and re-edit my essays until they were the best I could make them. Truthfully, I knew she was right, and in my calmer moments I appreciated the help, but I still had a newfound and very personal grudge against commas. And Jasper has used that time to wander toward Rosalie’s end of the hallway, so it’s not like I was missing out on anything.
They were all in now- the applications - and I thought that should warrant me some peace. Apparently not, though.
It has been a memorable night, even if it had come with the urgency of sex on the horizon, and we had exhausted ourselves for sure. So with Jasper’s steady, heavy breath and skewed limbs, I knew it was up to me to deal with the knocking.
The door shook again, insistent as ever, and I launched myself out of his bed to find some pants. Mine were in a pile in his bathroom, but his were closer, so I pulled them on and hoped Esme didn’t notice that they were a little baggy.
As I reached the door, though, it wasn’t Esme’s voice I heard.
“Guys, I know you’re in there.”
I had already started to pull the door open when I stalled, mentally, and then stuck just my head out to find Rosalie. “What?”
“Oh, god. Tell me you guys weren’t-”
I pushed the door open farther, showing her my obviously buttoned, if rumpled, pants. “We were sleeping.”
“Oh.” She pushed a strand of straw-blonde hair out of her eyes with one finger, her eyes darting to the bed. “Mom said you guys have an open door policy, just like me and Emmett.”
“Are you gonna tell her?”
“No, I-” She stopped with a huff and crossed her arms roughly. “I was just gonna tell you that Mom called and she’ll be home in a few, but never mind.”
I narrowed my eyes skeptically. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why are you warning us?”
Cue Rosalie’s patented eye-roll.
“I’m warning Jasper. But I guess you’re part of the package, so you’re welcome, jerk.” And then she stomped back towards her own room.
I sighed and spooled up the energy to follow after her, mostly because when the ‘Edward was an asshole’ story was relayed to Jasper, I wanted to make sure I didn’t actually come off as one. I did take the time to get comfortably dressed in my own pants, though.
When I approached Rosalie’s door, I heard the steady sound of the shower from further down the hall and instead found Emmett sitting alone in her room with the door conscientiously open.
He nodded from the edge of her bed when he spotted me. “Hey man, what’s up?”
“Hey. I, uh, just wanted to tell Rosalie something,” I said somewhat awkwardly.
“She’s showering right now,” he said, all casual and easy like Rosalie and I always stopped by each other’s door for a bit of gossip. “But I’ll tell her to knock on our way out?”
“Umm.” Like that would happen. “No, that’s ok. Will you just tell her I said thanks?”
“Oh yeah, no prob. No one wants to get caught by the parentals.”
He still grinned as he said it, like it was no big deal, and I think that’s why that sentence was okay with me for about half a second. I even turned to leave before there was a long beat where I realized what he’d really said. Before I realized Rosalie had lied.
My words came out way more indignant than I meant them, blanketing the fact that all I really felt was dread. “You know.”
“Know? Oh, yeah man.” He waved a hand through the air. “But it’s cool.”
Were we even having the same conversation? Maybe not, if… no. If he knew Rosalie had come to warn us about Esme, he knew why.
“She promised.” I pointed one accusing finger towards the bathroom. “Jasper said she promised, and instead she opened her fat mouth-”
“Hey!” he cut me off, dropping the grin and finally standing up. “Don’t just come in here and start saying shit about my girlfriend.”
Somehow, he was a whole lot bigger when he wasn’t smiling. And surprisingly protective of Rosalie, considering he wasn’t actually whipped.
Still, though. “Your girlfriend who couldn’t keep a damn secret.”
“Hey,” he said again, suddenly whispering but loudly, like Rosalie could magically hear us through two walls and the rush of water. “No one told your damn secret. Rosie’s kept up her end of the deal, and she’s not the one shooting her mouth off right now.”
Maybe he’d just been pummeled by one too many linebackers to think clearly?
“She did,” I answered slowly, but through my teeth, “since we’re having this conversation.”
“Dude.” He took in a breath that puffed up his chest and shook a flat hand in the air like it could erase everything I’d said. “I don’t count.”
“Oh, well, if people just don’t count.”
“Jesus, man. Would you, like, turn it down a notch? What do you think’s gonna happen? That we’ll blab to the whole football team?”
I didn’t think he meant it, but it didn’t stop that thought from blooming with full force. Emmett kept talking, but it was hard to hear him above the oh shit oh shit oh shit rushing through my ears. I imagined walking into a school full of people who… knew. The football team would tell the cheer squad, and Cheer would tell, well, everyone. And then Jasper and I would never be alone again.
Just thinking about it made me anxious - the kind of anxiety I hadn’t truly felt in a while, that rushed up from my toes and deflated my lungs and made my skin all hot and tingly in the bad way. People would stare and the girls would laugh and the guys would probably throw a punch or two. I could see the disgusted look on Yorkie’s face, hear the words coming out of Tyler’s mouth.
I knew what they’d all do. Once they found out, it wouldn’t just be me and Jas anymore, it’d be the voices of everyone we knew having their say. Questioning us, judging us, trying to edit what we did and felt and convince us of how wrong it was. And above all, trying to change us.
I put a hand over my eyes to block out the thoughts, but instead it just left me alone with them. I tried to go through the routine of calming myself down, but lately that had always involved Jasper. What did Jasper do?
Breathe. He’d always tell me to breathe, so I did.
A bright one, that boyfriend of mine.
“Hey man, you gonna pass out or something?”
I looked up to see Emmett had taken a couple steps back, and while he wasn’t back to his old casual routine, he looked a lot less aggressive. More… wary.
I shook my head and let my hand drop to the side.
“No joke, we’re not gonna tell anyone. I swear.”
Damn straight it was no fucking joke.
He ran a hand through his buzz cut on a long pause and then said, “Rosie’s like… well. Look, if I’d known you were gonna flip out I wouldn’t’ve said anything. But Rosie, she’s like my Jasper. Or I’m hers or whatever, but me and her keep each other’s secrets, okay? I’m not tryin’ to mess you up here.”
He stopped, looking at me expectantly, and while I didn’t exactly feel better, I did feel less shitty. Plus, the breathing was slowly curbing the adrenaline rush I’d given myself, which made it easier to focus.
“Yeah, okay.”
He nodded with a rhythm that moved his whole body and finally smiled again. He was back to the Emmett I typically saw around school, and he dropped himself back down to the bed.
“You’re kinda one intense dude, you know that?”
So they kept telling me.
“So, we good? Rose’ll be pissed if I gotta tell her I broke the peace.”
I brought up a quick smile - for him, not her. I wouldn’t want to condemn anyone to her wrath, and the longer it sank in the more it seemed like things might be okay. I mean, I trusted Jas with everything. And if, for whatever reason, Emmett was just as loyal to Rosalie then okay.
“Yeah,” I finally said. “We’re good. So, I guess, thanks.”
He laughed at whatever it was he found funny and waved me off, and I shuffled my way toward the door.
“Oh, hey, Edward?”
I looked back over my shoulder.
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for letting Rose and Jasper do their thing.”
“Oh, uh…” Yeah, what was I supposed to say to that?
Emmett grinned, but instead of his typical life’s-a-party smile, he had one that seemed a lot more self-conscious, but also a lot more genuine.
“I dunno ‘bout yours,” he said with an easy half-shrug, “but my Cullen’s been a lot happier lately.”
Huh.
I gave the old standard sure, man nod and got myself back to my own room.
I actually liked Emmett, I decided. He was pretty alright. I mean, I still got the ‘I could pummel you into next Sunday’ vibe from him sometimes in passing, but I might have just been confusing that with muscle mass.
And like he’d said, we both had a Cullen. I had never really thought about it like that before, but we were kind of in the same boat. Okay, no, my boat was so weird it was like being the captain of a ghost ship - I was never going to see anybody else in it - but the two of us were the Cullens’ boyfriends.
And if Emmett was cool with that, well, I guessed I was cool with him.
It was odd, too, to think of them like that. As a pair. Jasper and Rosalie Cullen. The Cullens we were in love with, like they both had this indescribable but genetic charm that drew us in. Not that I saw the appeal of his Cullen, at all, but to each his own or whatever.
Jasper found me just as I got back to my room, leaning against the door jamb with his hip and wearing the jeans I’d been in half an hour earlier. His curls were a mess, and I could tell he’d tried to tuck them behind his ears, but it still looked like bedhead to me. Sexy bedhead.
“Ready for the Swans’?”
“Breakfast first?” I asked hopefully, and he just smiled his easy morning smile.
“Lunch, but yeah.”
Lunch would have to do, and I untucked his curls the way I liked them before I turned down the hallway. Esme found us there, meeting fully dressed between our rooms, and seemed pleased that we were adhering to the separate beds policy so well. So of course we grinned innocently down at her and followed her to the kitchen for sandwiches.
The plan for Bella’s was mostly a gift exchange, though I had a more covert mission of discussing Alice’s court date with Charlie too. Not covert in the secret way, so actually not really covert at all, but the topic made Ali antsy and I was hoping to get a few more of the details without bothering her. Because, just like most things that had to do with Alice and the fallout from, well, that, Charlie’s guardianship was something that made me tight in the stomach, and I wanted as many details to hang onto as possible.
Stealth, that was the word I was looking for.
When we finally made it to Bella’s there was already an extra car in the driveway, but I didn’t see why that needed to change our plans so I just parked on the street.
Alice opened the door wearing Christmas wreath earrings, even though it was January, and led us to the living room while Bella quizzed Jas about New York. We found Seth waiting for us there, which was both weird and a bit of a surprise, but after we all said our hellos he kissed Alice on the cheek and said he’d be in the kitchen.
Both girls were excited to hear details of the trip, even though Alice had already heard some of them, and it wasn’t long before they were both begging to see the penguin walk.
Not that I had quietly tipped Alice off to its existence, or anything.
Jas gave me the really? look, with one eyebrow up and his mouth tight but amused, and Bella had a way of doing this quiet, hopeful look that won him over in no time. So Jas was wrigglin’ like a fish on the end of a line and studiously ignoring the way both girls were snorting silently into their hands when Charlie came into the room, followed by-
“Mrs. Clearwater?”
Jasper lurched, clamping his hands to the side and for once seeming unable to prevent the pink tinge on his cheeks.
The girls snorted harder. So dainty, they were.
Mrs. Clearwater, though, just charged forward with a full plate of cookies, and Seth was close enough on her heels to snag one before it even made it to the coffee table. The sniff test confirmed that, yes, she had just baked them here.
“Hi, boys” she said brightly, wiping her hands off on her long, brick-red skirt. “And call me Sue.”
“You boys had lunch yet?” Charlie asked, settling himself into the overstuffed chair by the fireplace. “Sue makes a mean fish fry.”
He grinned and we grinned back, but for entirely different reasons. One look at Bella’s politely blank face confirmed that it was getting ever closer to the day where she finally told her father how much she hated steelhead and trout and, yes, even salmon. A few subtle glances between us confirmed that everyone under forty was in on the joke, even Seth.
So we avoided the topic by stuffing our mouths with snickerdoodles instead, and waving our shiny wrapped presents in the air. The girls instantly perked up, and Seth settled for leaning against the wall to leave the couch to us.
Bella gushed over the shirt Jas had gotten her, and hugged me too when he said it was from both of us, just like he’d promised. While she ran upstairs to put it on, I handed Alice her jewelry box.
I should have remembered how animated girls got over presents. Alice squealed just like Bella had, and quickly swapped out her seasonal earrings for the feathered ones I’d gotten her. After checking them in the reflection of a picture frame, and then a real mirror in the hallway, she planted herself in front of Seth and asked, “What do you think?”
I was gonna be pissed if his was the make-or-break opinion, but he caught my eye before watching her shake her head to show them off and said, “They’re really great.”
Behind him, his mom laughed. “I taught him well,” she said, with just a touch of pride. Then she lifted one finger to wag good-naturedly towards me and Jas. “You boys too. The first trick to dating, always tell a girl she looks great.”
There was the briefest pause where he looked at Ali and her eyes shot to us, and I had just started gearing myself up to change the topic when Mrs. Clearwater tried to ruffle Seth’s hair.
“Mo-om.”
With an inconvenienced grunt, Seth played the good-natured part of the burdened son and spent more time than necessary patting his hair back into disarray with his palms.
Moments later, Bella came quietly back down the stairs in her tourist-chic t-shirt and asked, “What’d I miss?”
And so went the afternoon. It wasn’t quite the family time I’d been expecting, but apparently Seth and his mom had called when they were in town for an errand and Charlie had invited them over. I guessed it was still loosely kind of family time, in a makeshift kind of way, even if most of us weren’t actually related to each other.
And speaking of family, I slipped over to Charlie after a while to ask if he could go over the details with me again. And Charlie…
Well, a kinder person would make sure to include a ‘bless his soul’ so… Charlie was about as subtle as a bullhorn in a library, bless his soul.
“Sure thing, son. We’re all set to go for Wednesday-”
Alice’s head whipped around, eyes narrow and startled, and I sighed. So much for stealth. Jasper’s eyes snapped to mine too, but they offered solidarity. Commiserating in a ‘yeah, so that sucked’ way that made it at least slightly better.
It was Mrs. Clearwater that spoke up first, gently suggesting in a voice she probably usually reserved for her accident-prone students, “Maybe Edward wants to talk in private?”
“Well,” Charlie said, taking in that idea with a slow nod in my direction, “Sue and Seth know what’s goin’ on, but we can talk in the kitchen if you want.”
Just… damn. Because Mrs. Clearwater was nice and all, and obviously Seth was in Alice’s corner, but wasn’t that still our personal family business?
Except, there was family again, blurring into love like two words from a felt-tipped pen on wet paper.
Jas pushed himself to the edge of the couch, poised to stand, and his eyes were studying me for any ‘Edward’ kind of reaction. The silent kind that drew up anxieties and stomach aches and required a reminder to breathe, and I was grateful to him in that moment for just knowing.
But him just knowing helped, and this was also part of me trying to be better. To not be the boyfriend he had to rescue from awkward situations, and to stay calm like a normal person. Besides, as much as I disliked this topic, it was always Alice that was the most torn over it.
And judging from the way she was picking fiercely at her cuticles and tucking her head into Seth’s side, I had to get this conversation elsewhere, stat.
I wondered, briefly, if Alice saw things like Emmett did; if she saw Seth as her Jasper, as the one who would just know when she was having a hard moment. How could he, though, when they’d just met each other?
But maybe he was her Jasper so far and, really, maybe that’s as good a start as any.
After the deep breath I knew I should take, I tried to calmly and straightforwardly divert the conversation. I couldn’t think of anything casual enough to say, though, and ended up darting for the kitchen instead.
So, calm and straightforward was a work in progress - that was Jasper’s skill set, not mine.
Charlie came into the kitchen a few moments later, blinking and rubbing his mustache, and pulled out a wooden chair to sit himself down in.
“Alright,” he started, thankfully too much of a no-nonsense guy to comment on the mood, or anything. “Details.”
Most of it I’d heard before, but it helped to hear it again. In three day’s time, Ali and I wouldn’t be the only Masens in Forks anymore. Not that I thought she was actually changing her name - though I mentally noted to double check that - but she’d belong to someone else’s family more. I was handing my sister’s wellbeing over to someone else, without doing a thing at all.
Charlie, I reminded myself. Not just someone, but Charlie.
Just like we’d been over before, it was a good thing. It was.
And so having the details of the day, the hearing, the schedule, made it easier to wrap my head around it all. Easier to prepare, to have a mental checklist in my head so that at least as things progressed I could still tell myself it was all going according to plan.
Charlie really spared no detail, talking through finances and power of attorney and if, god forbid, there were any medical emergencies, how that would all play out. I cringed at that, already feeling like my stomach was digesting itself, and promised him I understood. He told me who would be in the courtroom with us, and why, and taught me a lot more about the judicial system in ten minutes than I’d learned in my life, but it was all good information to have.
Comforting, if absolutely useless.
He did remind me that I didn’t have to be there, if I didn’t want to or had to be in class or something, but I waved it off.
Esme would have known not to ask.
He seemed surprised when I said Jasper would be coming too, since it was just a matter of telling things like they were and signing some papers, really, but that was a done deal too.
Our conversation had gone like this:
Are you coming? Yes. The end.
Charlie prepped me like he would a deputy, and then some, and over half an hour had passed before he gave me a stiff nod and said that about covered it.
Then he cleared his throat and I nodded back.
“Thanks, Charlie.”
“Yup. Sure.”
With nothing left to say, we both stood and I led the way through the swing-door back to the living room to see if Jas was ready to go. I wasn’t really in the mood to make small talk anymore, and would be perfectly fine with initiating the goodbye process so long as Ali was doing alright.
I shouldn’t have worried though, leaving her in a room full of people who loved her. As soon as I had my head through the door, Jasper caught my eye with a smirk I rarely saw in public, one that was fun and lighthearted and teasing. His playful look.
“Your sister,” he announced in a dramatic tone, “is hogging all the cookies.”
Sure enough, Alice and Bella were huddled at one edge of the couch with the plate circled protectively in their arms.
“The boys kept eating them,” Ali protested, exasperated but grinning, and Bella managed to swallow down her giggles long enough to back her up.
“Really, Edward. Sue and I made like three batches, and now they’re almost gone.”
My eyes panned to Seth, who had hands held up in defeat, and then to Jasper who was making a show of brushing the crumbs off his lap.
I decided that, maybe, it’d be alright to stick around for a bit longer.
We did make it home before dinner, though, even if we were too stuffed with sugar to eat. Esme tsked disapprovingly, but Carlisle had a very ‘boys will be boys’ attitude and told us it was polite to sit with the family anyway. Which was fine by us, really. Trying to wriggle our cold feet up the bottom of each other’s jeans passed the time well enough.
Of course, that meant I was slipping into Jasper’s room practically the moment we heard Esme’s footsteps on the stairs. We were making out within a minute, tops, and huddled on our sides under his covers not long after that. Still, though, I waited for him to push it that one step farther.
Because I had the notion that if I held off, waited just long enough, he would have to take control. In fact, I knew he would. Impatient Jasper was a sexy Jasper, dragging his blunt fingernails down my back, undulating his hips against mine unconsciously, and finally…
Yes.
Shifting himself up onto his elbow, pushing my shoulder down to the mattress, and flattening himself over me until I felt a thrill ripple through my chest. The moment where he gave in and took charge, where I knew the best part was about to come - there was sheer pleasure in the anticipation.
I gripped his ass, slipping my hands under his boxers to press and knead his skin and pull him down onto me.
“Jesus Christ, Edward”
I grinned into the darkness. He liked it too.
Technically we were celebrating the end of my college apps, the beginning of the home stretch, but it’s not like we really needed a reason. Ever. So for no particular reason, Jas started angling his knee back and forth, wedging it between mine, until we both had each other’s thighs to drag our bulges shamelessly against. It was full-on sensation, more bang for our buck.
Not that there were bucks involved. Or banging.
But I could feel how Jasper was enjoying himself, just as much as I was, and soon his boxers weren’t enough to contain him so I pushed them down to his thighs.
“Edward,” he whispered against my ear, before he started sucking on that soft spot just behind it that made me writhe.
“Yeah?” I encouraged, hoping for a bit of that mumbly sexy talk that always made me hot.
In his pause I felt him grin against my neck and I suspected he was just torturing me, making me wait for it.
“Edward,” he said again. “You know what I’ve been thinking about?”
“Hmm?” I hummed, more than willing to play the innocent.
He tilted his hips in a way that offered the most encouraging pressure and whispered, “Yet.”
Yet.
I stilled, despite the sensations, and my hands froze against his hips. My voice was cracked and dry, doing nothing to hide how nervous the thought made me. “Now?”
I felt him smile again as he left a trail of wet but soft kisses along my neck. “No, not doing it now.” He contradicted himself by dragging his knee a little higher, sending a pleasurable pulse through my groin that was completely at odds with the way my head was buzzing. “But I’m really looking forward to it.”
I tried to pick up where I’d stopped, roaming my hands in jerky movements along his back to mimic the enthusiasm he felt, but I swear he had an all-access pass to my thoughts because within moments he had pushed himself up and back, leaving a buffer of dry air between our chests. I guessed it was obvious, because the correct response was probably oh yeah baby, me too, stick it in me or something and I had completely botched that response.
“Edward?”
I was itching to just wrap my feet back over his calves and say after, we’ll talk about it after, but he was already starting to shift himself off me.
“No,” I said, wanting to keep his weight against me, and catching his ribs between my hands. “Stay.”
I really didn’t want to talk about this now, especially since I was enjoying myself, damnit, but there was no evading Jasper this time. Besides, this was the plan, to man up and talk about it. Right? To make sure Jas didn’t think I was keeping anything else hidden. Because I wasn’t, and that was the whole point.
I think I’d been hoping to feel a little… manlier when we had this conversation though. More validated in my concerns and less like the insecure, girly buzzkill, but so much for that. And on top of that my own wavering annoyed me, because who couldn’t have a simple conversation with their boyfriend about sex?
“I’m just nervous, alright?” I said, feeling much smaller than usual and really not liking it.
“I didn’t mean now, Edward,” he said softly, with a tone of apology in his voice. “It was just a nice thought.”
I took the moment to rein in my own annoyance. “It just… the whole thing just makes me nervous.”
He pushed himself up again, locking his elbows, and said, “Close your eyes a sec.”
I did, and felt the light flood behind my eyelids. His bedside lamp was a dimmer so we weren’t blinded, but I still blinked several times before I could focus on him against the shadowy walls.
Then he settled back over me, still on his elbows, but twisting the tips of his fingers into my hair. “Nervous?”
I huffed, mostly at myself ‘cause it sounded even lamer with the light on, but nodded. “Yeah.”
“That it’ll hurt?”
Well. It looked like we were on the same page about who went where, at least. Joy.
“We’ll be careful,” he said, whispering across the brief space between our mouths. “I’ll go slow.”
“I know,” I whispered back, because of course I wasn’t worried Jas would just roughly have his way with me. “I just feel weird.”
“Weird how?”
He was watching me intently, from only inches away, and I really just wanted to abandon the conversation and feel big again, but I kept telling myself to just do it Jasper’s way. Tell him, and then it will be better.
“Weird like… why me?”
He paused and I could practically see him tasting his next words, choosing them carefully, until he eventually settled on, “Which ‘why you’?”
I nodded, slanting my eyes to the side with a tiny nod that conceded he had a point there. And he gave me the lip service of a half-smile, but quickly went back to watching and waiting. He pressed his lips together, thinking, and then I felt him pull up his boxers between us, reminding me that where we had been headed had become merely an afterthought to our conversation. Carefully, he slid himself to the side, propping his head up on a fist with his elbow digging into the edge of my pillow, but he still left half his body covering mine.
It was easier when we stayed close, somehow.
“Sorry I made this into a thing,” I said quietly.
“I’m still not exactly sure what this thing is.”
“It’s just making me, I guess, evaluate stuff, you know? About you and me.”
With his entire body curled around mine, it was impossible to miss the way he tensed. It was so immediate, so all-consuming. His chest sucked in and his hand was suddenly pressing too hard against my chest. His whole head had snapped so he could meet my eyes directly, and there was nothing but panic. Silent, contained panic.
“No,” I said, too loudly, and it was good that he was so close, because I tightened my arms around his back and pressed us even closer. “God, no. Not that, Jas.” I scrambled to touch as much of him as I could, to be as together and intertwined as possible, because I hadn’t for a moment wanted to insinuate anything else. My palms roamed all over as he inhaled deeply and I quickly took hold of his face so I could kiss him.
He kissed back with his whole breath, sucking air from my mouth and giving it back, before he buried his head into the pillow at the crook of my neck.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, still rubbing his back because that always made me feel better, and holy crap I was even worse at this than I thought. Epically bad. Talking was just not my strong suit - especially today. “I’m sorry.”
“Jesus Christ, Edward,” he groaned into the pillow, but the arm not pinned beneath him came up to my collar bone, holding on tightly. “Just tell me what’s going on.”
So I did. I gave up any pretense, just to get as far away from this misunderstanding as possible, and blurted, “Why do I have to be on bottom?”
The word felt oddly foreign as I said it aloud, bottom, so commonplace but so suddenly full of connotation and implication. I almost thought I heard him laugh, muffled against the pillow, but when he looked up his face was soft again, relieved. “You scared the crap out of me there.”
“I’m sorry,” I repeated.
And then he settled back against my shoulder, not nearly as relaxed as we had been before, but at least comfortable. “Alright,” he prompted me. “So.”
Oh, embarrassment, that old black magic. It didn’t hit nearly as hard as it had before, though, so I just let my thoughts bubble up to the surface. “Just… what I said.”
“Do you not want to?”
“No, I do,” I promised. “I want to do it too.”
“No,” he smiled, playing with the ends of my hair again, catching his fingers in the tangles and loosening them out. “I mean, would you rather be on top?”
He made it sound so easy. Like we could just switch it around if we wanted to. “Don’t you?”
“Uh. Well, I guess, yeah. That’s how I always pictured it.”
I cringed. “Always?”
He tilted his head up to look at me again, and pursing his lips and thinking again. “Actually, no. I was kind of hoping we could try it both ways, eventually. We can do it the other way first, if you want.”
And honestly, I believed him. I had no doubt that if I asked to be on top, he’d let me. Which is part of why I loved him so goddamn much. But the problem wasn’t that he wanted me on bottom, it was that I did too.
“No, not really.”
He settled back against me, and I could feel his toes flexing into the mattress to balance himself. “Then we’ll start off with what we both want, right?”
“Yeah,” I said, with a sigh. “I just don’t understand what it is about me, then. Why am I the girl?”
“Edward,” he said slowly, “The bottom, not the girl.”
“Same difference though, right?”
And again he was staring, watching me in a way that was only not gaping because he managed to keep his mouth shut, and then his eyes flitted all around in a moment of confusion and I was starting to regret being so glib. “No, Edward. Not to me, it isn’t. That’s the whole point, that there’s no girl.”
“No, I know,” I said, backpedalling hastily. “Obviously.” But he still rolled himself backwards, pulling his leg away from me. I elbowed myself up too, so I could look him in the eye, and tried to explain. “But with normal couples there’s a guy and a girl, and with us-”
I stopped because he angled his head just slightly to the side and winced, holding the expression like the pain just wouldn’t stop and it was suddenly obvious that I had said the wrong thing. Again.
He wet his lips and took a breath, and his voice surprised me when he spoke. It was cold, suddenly distant and automated. “We are normal.”
“Okay, but I’m just saying-”
“No, Edward. There’s no girl here, and there doesn’t have to be one.”
Well, except… didn’t that all depend on your definition of normal?
“Jas,” I said, hushed, “I didn’t say that.”
But he raised an eyebrow that said, didn’t you? and I though, fine, if he wanted to take it literally.
“I didn’t say that on purpose,” I amended.
Instead of making things better, though, that just made him twist up his mouth in a pucker like some lemon had done him wrong. His forehead was scrunched up too, still pained, and he swallowed hard before looking away.
“I know,” he said, with one big breath that seemed to drag all the air out of him. “You’re usually more careful than that.”
And suddenly I felt like I’d been caught in a lie. A lie of omission, maybe, and not even really because it wasn’t like I spent my time trying to deceive him. We were getting by just fine the way we were, so why bring up uncomfortable truths?
“You know, there’s nothing wrong with being different,” he said, collapsing onto his back with a soft whump.
“I never said that.”
“I know, but you believe it. Sometimes…” He trailed off, and I craned my neck until I could see his face, or the side of it not turned away, at least. “Sometimes it seems like you think we’re getting away with doing something wrong.”
His words echoed into the open room, aimed away from me like somehow they could do less damage that way. And maybe it did lessen the sting, to not have to look him in the eyes, because I didn’t exactly have a comeback for that.
Sure, I’d argue with his word choice, but the weight of the conversation had just gotten so heavy, left the air in my lungs so thin that I just didn’t have the energy to argue semantics. Because, yes, I did think we were getting off easy as long as we flew under the radar.
He didn’t look at me again until he levered himself up to sitting, and when he did his eyebrows were still steep over tight, guarded eyes.
“Do I make you feel weird, Edward?”
I craned forward in an attempt to get closer, to study his face more clearly to figure out what answer he wanted to hear. Because I couldn’t just say no. No, Jasper, me and apple pie are about as normal as you get. That lie was bordering on blatant, and we both knew it.
So, instead, I just went with the truth. “I always feel weird, Jas.”
Since before I’d moved to Forks, even, that was just the name of the game. And now weird had become not knowing whether you ever wanted to see your father again, and worrying about who had custody of your little sister, and turning your best friend into your home and lover all in one.
Jas nodded slowly, rocking his whole upper body in a slow, pendulum motion. Then he pushed his hair back with a sloppy hand and said, “I guess I knew that.”
And that’s all he said, because that’s who he was. No accusations or trying to correct me. No yelling, no getting mad. Just disappointment, thick and heavy.
We both sat in the darkness, less than a foot away but silenced by the thick, swirling clouds of our own thoughts. I could practically feel them, dampening the air, matting our hair to our foreheads and choking the words back down our throats, and all because I’d opened my damn mouth in the first place. I’d made him think no when I meant yes, pushed him away when I’d tried to let him in, and thought we were just talking about sex when, really, it was never that simple.
We were so well matched most of the time - how we made each other laugh, how we liked geeking out, the way we felt about each other and how easy it was to just be us. Unfortunately, it was the rest of the world we couldn’t agree on. When it came down to it, Jas and I just had different standards for what was publically acceptable. Some people were as normal as the sun rising or the grass growing. For me, it was just a setting on the dryer.
After a time he said, with no warning, “I wish you didn’t want us to hide.”
I wondered for a moment if he was going to bring up New York, and the millions of people who didn’t give a good god damn what we did with or our own time, but he didn’t.
I hadn’t ever told him about Chelsea. Because the truth was, all those proud couples in Chelsea didn’t make me feel any safer in Forks. And if that wasn’t clear the moment we landed, five minutes alone with Emmett and the truth had made it painfully obvious this morning.
“How-” I started, and then had to clear my throat because we had both been sitting, contemplating, in silence for a little too long. “How are you so okay with everything?”
He looked at me then, still and alert. He studied my face and blinked slowly until he said, “Fuck ‘em.”
I blinked back.
“All those people that make you feel like there’s something wrong with us, just fuck ‘em.”
“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with you,” I mentioned quietly, but it just made his head sink lower between his hunched shoulders. So much for my success record.
I wanted to rub the tense spot across his neck until it loosened up, to promise that none of this mattered and mean it, because I was trying to be better. Damnit, I really was. I wanted to do and say the right thing, but my traitorous mouth had already dug a deep enough hole for one night, so instead I whispered the one thing I knew was safe.
“I love you.”
He tipped his head to the side and laid it on the arm he had draped across his knees.
“I love you too.”
And for once, it didn’t fix anything.
Chapter 23