Boys With Girlfriends -- Chapter Five
Title: Boys With Girlfriends
Author: audreyii_fic
Fandom: Twilight (Team Jacob)
Rating: NC-17
Characters: Jacob, Bella, Edward (genderswap)
Genre: Romance/Humor/Angst
Warnings: Bad language and explicit sexuality.
banner courtesy of FatedFeathers
banner courtesy of blink_1nce
Summary: A boy gets dumped by a vampire and a wolfgirl tries to cheer him up. A genderswap rewrite of New Moon and Eclipse. ( Click here to start from the beginning.)
New Moon Scene Five:
what's the point of being patient for a broken heart?
Arcade Fire, "You Tried To Turn Away My Fears"
"Listen," Lucas says. His hand is freezing in Mary's grip, but there's no way in hell he's pulling it free. "I think it'll be better to wait until after graduation. That way it won't seem so strange when I... you know... disappear."
Jesus. He's really going to do this. Fuck.
Mary looks away from the road and gives him one of her dazzling smiles, and he feels the sickness around his heart lift just a little. Okay, yeah, he's nervous. But there's no choice. There never was, really. And if he didn't, he'd basically be saying he wants to kill the girl who loves him rather than accept immortality. Yeah. That made sense.
Besides, it was all his idea anyhow.
Yep, it's good to keep it in those terms. Lucas is doing his best to think in a logical sort of way, given the givens of the fucking illogical situation he's found himself in, and becoming a vampire is the clearest solution to the variety of problems that have plagued him since the moment he stepped foot in Forks.
Then the Volvo skids to a halt. Mary throws her arm in front of Lucas to stop him from hitting the dashboard, and they both stare out the window at the person blocking their path.
Ruth's eyes meet his. She gives him a look that a week ago Lucas would've sworn she wasn't capable of. She turns and jogs into the woods.
"She wants to talk to me," Mary says quietly.
Like Lucas hadn't guessed that.
***
His favorite fantasy -- and correspondingly the most guilt-inducing -- was the one where Ruth went down on him in the garage.
Most of Lucas' thoughts about Ruth involved the garage anyway, because that was just where his mind automatically placed her. Ruth meant the smell of engine grease and the sound of rain beating on an aluminum roof. It took effort to picture them in a bed or a shower or on a couch -- not that he was putting in any effort, because for the love of God he wasn't -- but the garage? Way too easy. Way the fuck too easy to be watching her sit cross-legged on the floor as she tinkered with some mechanical thing or another, then catching one of her sunny grins... and starting to think about her edging closer to the lawnchair he'd basically claimed as his own, and how she would just lean forward, nip at the inside of his thigh through his jeans, unbuckle his belt...
That was usually the point at which Lucas would need to run inside to grab a soda from the fridge. And hold it against his crotch. While he banged his head on the wall.
It didn't matter that Ruth never wore a bra anymore. Or that her legs were fucking amazing and he wasn't even a leg man. Or how in his mind she always looked like she was enjoying herself while they did whatever he imagined they were doing. She was his best friend, and he was a loser, and he would be using her crush on him to get his rocks off. If there was a Hell that would be an express ticket to the lowest circle, the one with the pointy rocks in your ears and demons holding red-hot pokers against your 'nads.
Not that he'd have that problem, because the Pack would get there first. Just so you know, Jared had said good-naturedly one day at Emily's, hurt our sister and we'll cut your balls off. Then he'd laughed, and then Lucas had laughed, and then Jared had said, No, seriously, Paul's got pruning shears in the back of his truck with your name on 'em. So eyes forward and hands to yourself, leechlover.
It would be all right. After all, he had been in a relationship with Mary for six months and he'd never even gotten to second base. He wasn't going to explode. Of course it had been kind of different then, because he'd never been able to imagine Mary doing anything like that; when he tried -- and he had -- it was like looking at some really bad mental Photoshop with ragged edges and conflicted lighting. But he had no trouble picturing Ruth in her soaked tank top with that beaming smile, swirling her tongue around the tip of his cock before leaning forward and sucking with little wet sounds and sliding her own fingers into her shorts and getting herself off at the same time, moaning and swallowing as--
Jesus. No. Maybe Lucas was a depressive asshole who relied on sweet kids to keep him from crashing motorbikes or staring at walls, but he wasn't going to let his dick make his decisions. He hadn't turned into one of those guys. It was practically the only thing he still had going for him.
Ruth. Was. Off. Limits.
He knew he shouldn't've gone cliff-diving. But he'd been in a shitty mood, one of the really bad ones, where he just seemed to be walking around in this dark fog where his entire life sucked and a vampire wanted to kill him and his ex-girlfriend had told him he was her whole life and he was picturing his best friend naked and he couldn't figure out how to get a handle on any of it and it was always cloudy, every single fucking minute of every single fucking day and if things didn't change he was going to find Charlie's shotgun and--
So he jumped off the cliff. All the other guys did it, why couldn't he? He had to prove... something, he wasn't sure what exactly, but something. And Mary would have died. He didn't mean to hit his head on the rocks, but when he swallowed the first lungful of water he wasn't all that sorry about it.
Even he understood that was bad.
But Ruth had saved him, because she was freakishly good at that. He'd woken up at her house to find her asleep on the floor next to him, stretched out on her side with her lashes brushing her cheeks. Feeling a lot calmer in general, Lucas looked at her for a long time -- longer than it was appropriate to look at a sleeping girl, really -- and started to think that maybe, if he tried... maybe it could work. Maybe the best friend-to-girlfriend transition could turn out okay. Maybe once it actually happened he wouldn't feel like such a tool. And, uh, he'd start carrying pepper spray or something to protect himself from the Pack.
Then Alice came back, and everything went straight to hell.
***
Ruth raises her chin. "Guess you're not dead," she says flatly.
"Guess I'm not," Lucas answers. His voice sounds normal, which is kind of weird considering he feels like he's off the cliff and sucking down gallons of seawater again. He'd known she was mad, but she's never looked at him like this before, like there's something hard inside her. There's never been anything hard inside Ruth before now.
It hurts like hell.
Mary releases his hand and steps forward. Even now at this incredibly bad time Lucas can't help but be amazed by how beautiful she is. It's unreal. "Before you say anything, I would like to thank you. Thank you for everything you've done. Thank you for being here for Lucas when I... I wasn't." The misery in her face is obvious, but Mary's never made much of an effort to hide when she's in pain. "I can't ever express the depth of my gratitude."
There's a long pause -- then Ruth spits on the ground. "Fuck you, you cold-cunt bitch."
Mary's eyes widen in shock. Lucas just rubs his forehead. "Ruth--"
"Shut up, Lucas." Ruth strides forward, and her nose wrinkles. Oh, right, vampires stink to werewolves. At some point he's really going to need to make a list of all this stuff. "You listen to me, bloodsucker. You and your tick family might be back for now, but the treaty's still on. All of the treaty. And we're gonna fuckin' hold you to every last word."
"I know," says Mary. She clasps her hands behind her back and it doesn't put a single line in her silk blouse, how does she do that? Is it a vampire power? Should it go on the list?
It occurs to Lucas that he's focusing on anything other than what's happening in this conversation, because this conversation can't actually be happening.
"So you get that we'll tear you apart and burn you to ash if you step one goddamn foot out of line."
"You won't have to worry," Mary says coolly. "I promise that when it happens, we'll be far outside of the treaty area. Your tribe won't have anything to worry about."
Lucas closes his eyes, but he hears Ruth say, "When it happens? What is this when bullshit?"
This can't be his life, it really can't.
***
Lucas figured he didn't really have any right to be mad at Alice. It wasn't her fault, after all. She'd been solidly in the Pro-Turning camp from day one.
But just because he wasn't mad at her didn't mean she wasn't mad at him. She'd ranted for a solid five minutes before he'd managed to tell her that No, he hadn't been trying to kill himself. He'd gone cliff-diving. It was just a big psychic misunderstanding, which Lucas never thought were words he'd say in all seriousness and yet there they were, coming out of his mouth.
It was bizarre seeing her sitting in his living room. There had been some part of him that had started to believe the whole vampire thing was something his mind made up to help him deal with, well, life; there was a very good chance that in a year or two he would've laughed the whole thing off if Ruth hadn't turned into a werewolf, which sort of made the whole supernatural thing hard to deny.
We hear from Mary sometimes, Alice had said out of nowhere. She's... not doing too well.
Good, he'd snapped.
You don't mean that, Lucas.
Whatever.
Then she'd sniffed the air and, what, did he smell like dead fish or something? No, apparently he smelled like wet dog, or rather like Ruth, or maybe it was only Ruth that Alice was smelling because Ruth was standing in the doorway and she was seriously pissed off.
Does that leech think it's staying? she had demanded after dragging him into the kitchen by his shirt collar.
I don't know. Lucas didn't really want Alice to go, not yet. The feeling that hey, he hadn't imagined the whole thing, was really good. Also he wanted to hear more about Mary. Specifically about how Mary was miserable, and how she missed him, and how she was sorry about everything she'd said...
Well, it can't. Send it back to wherever it came from.
She, he'd corrected again, not it.
Are you kidding me? They waltz back and you're just gonna-- But whatever she was going to say got cut off, because the phone rang, and Ruth answered it, and her face had turned bright red as she listened to whoever was speaking.
I'm very sorry, she'd said after a long minute. She'd spoken the words with relish. He can't come to the phone. He's getting ready for a funeral. And she slammed the receiver down.
Lucas had frowned. What was that?
Nothing important, she'd said coldly.
Alice's shriek had echoed through the house and made them both wince.
Mary thought he was dead. Mary wanted to die too.
And it was all his fucking fault.
***
"Can you give me a minute?" Lucas whispers to Mary. When she looks nervously across the clearing he says, "C'mon, she's not dangerous."
Mary blinks, and he can tell she's reading Ruth's thoughts. After a moment she shakes her head. "Of course. You know you don't have to ask. Whatever you want, love." But even as she says it she looks unhappy, which nearly makes him change his mind because Mary being unhappy is basically the number one Bad Thing right now. Still, though, she gives him a peck on the cheek and releases his hand.
Ruth's trembling all over, and not in an about-to-phase kind of way. "You can't," she says, looking up at him -- but only a little bit up. She's a lot taller than Mary. "Lucas, you can't do this."
"I have to." He has to.
"But... but you..." Her eyes fill with tears, and Lucas is starting to think that letting the Volturi kill him might've been the better course of action, except then Mary would be dead too and that's the whole problem. "You can't."
All the werewolfness is gone from her. She's the same girl that handed him the shoebox full of bad thingies which is still sitting on his dresser. On one hand, that makes things way, way worse... but on the other, it's a little easier, now. She'll be fine. She's a kid with a crush because she hasn't seen enough of the world yet to know how much better she can do. In a year it won't matter to her at all.
He's really easy to forget.
"Please," Ruth begs. "Just... you don't need her. You don't. Don't do this."
Lucas swallows hard. "Do I have to choose?" Fuck, not that, anything but that. He's not leaving yet. He could have his best friend for a few more months if she doesn't make him choose.
She doesn't say anything for a moment... then Ruth's eyes flick over his shoulder. "No," she says with something dark and scary in her voice. "You don't have to choose." She knocks him to the side; he thuds to the ground and oh shit--
Mary shouts his name.
***
Lucas had spent months and months fantasizing about what it would be like to hurt Mary as bad as he'd been hurting. He'd done some seriously crazy shit and taken vicious satisfaction about what it would have done to her when she still cared about that kind of thing.
Now it had happened, all he had fantasized about had come true, and it didn't feel satisfying. It felt like his chest was caving in.
Alice made phone calls as fast as she could. Lucas had just paced the kitchen while Ruth stood with her arms crossed; she didn't look the least bit sorry, which shit if she'd just handed the phone to him this could have been avoided. It wasn't really her fault, it was his for jumping off the cliff in the first place, but if he'd had room in himself for anything but horror and guilt he'd be furious.
No one could get in touch with Mary. Alice said there was still a chance if they tried to head her off in Italy. Fine. Not a problem. He had to fix this. He had to save her.
Ruth lost it.
Are you fucking insane? she'd shouted at him, even as they left the house. They're going to eat you! Actually fucking eat you!
I have to do something, Ruth, or she's going to die.
It's already dead!
He'd stared at her in disbelief, and she'd flinched, but she hadn't taken it back. No matter what it does, it can't get any more dead than it is now. That thing is just a moving carcass.
She isn't a thing, he'd said slowly. The old Ruth never said or thought shit like this. And I have to go.
He had turned to get into Alice's car, and Ruth grabbed his arm. No, wait. Lucas, wait! He could feel her hand shaking. Stay. I'm alive.
He'd swallowed, but Mary was about to kill herself, and Ruth was not. So he got in the car, and Alice sped them away, and Lucas didn't look in the rearview mirror.
***
It's too fast for Lucas' human eyes to follow -- not to mention that his head is fucking spinning from how hard he hit the ground -- but within the space of a couple heartbeats a werewolf and a vampire are ready to kill each other in the middle of a forest and Jesus, this can't be his life.
"Ruth," he manages to shout through the ringing in his ears, "knock it off!"
There's a fucking terrifying moment where he thinks she won't, that she's going to try and rip Mary up anyway and very likely get herself torn to shreds in the process and no, seriously, this can't be his life... but the red wolf steps back, still snarling.
Mary's at his side in an instant, helping him to his feet. "Are you all right?" she asks anxiously.
"Yeah." He's bruised -- y'know, again -- but he's fine.
Her amber eyes close briefly as she touches his face with freezing hands. "Thank God." There's sunlight breaking through where they're standing. The shimmer of Mary's skin dazzles, as always.
Lucas hears a low whine.
He's really never had a lot of chances to see Ruth in wolf form. There was the first time, when she'd fought to keep Paul from chomping his leg off, and once or twice after that, but for the most part it's been this separate thing that he knows exists but doesn't really affect him too much. So frankly he doesn't have a fucking clue how to read Ruth's expression when she's like this.
But he can follow her eyes, at least. She glances at him for about half a second, and then she's mostly looking at Mary. Lucas thinks maybe she's about to attack again except that doesn't happen, she just keeps staring, until her gaze turns to the ground where her scraps of ruined clothes are littering the leaves. Shit, she's going to have to replace those, and Lucas knows she doesn't have a lot of spares.
For some strange reason, that's the worst part yet. Lucas pulls away from Mary and steps forward. "Ruth..."
But Ruth steps backward. The whine gets worse and more awful and Lucas is one hundred percent sure that it's his fault.
***
They'd gotten to Volterra in the nick of time. More or less literally, if there really was such a thing as a 'nick'. Mary had been prepared to commit suicide by sparkle, which was the only way Lucas could think of it because that's what Ruth would have said and the only parts of his brain that hadn't been overwhelmed by terror for the last twenty-four hours had been thinking about his best friend. But they made it, and before Mary could step out into the sunlight Lucas had grabbed her and pulled her back into the shadows.
She'd felt his shoulders, his arms, his hands like she couldn't believe what she was seeing. Lucas had forgotten how amazing it felt to have her touching him. You're alive, she'd murmured.
Yeah. What were you doing, Mary? He was exhausted and overwhelmed and had very nearly started crying. What the fuck were you--
I couldn't live in a world where you didn't exist.
But... you said you don't--
I lied.
She wasn't the only one who had lied; he'd lied to himself, and not very well. Fuck, he hadn't stopped loving Mary. He'd only smothered it to stop from hurting.
They left Italy as fast as they possibly could, staying alive thanks to some fast talking from Alice and a handful of promises about secret-keeping. And when Mary sat on his bed and said exactly what he'd been hoping for for months -- she hadn't mean any of it, she loved him so much, she was so sorry -- Lucas took her back almost before he'd realized what he'd done.
But you can't do that anymore, he'd said. Going to the Volturi, or... not ever. Please.
She'd given his palm a frigid kiss. I won't, she'd said. I won't need to. We're together now. And we'll be together forever.
What?
You were right all along, love. You'll be so much safer once you're one of us. I see that now. Her tender smile made his heart pound. It was wrong of me to question you. When we're married that will never happen again; I'll love, honor, and obey the way I should, I swear it.
Lucas had fallen off the bed.
***
He knows what the whining sound is. Ruth is crying. And Lucas feels like the absolute lowest life form to ever think about crawling from the primordial ooze -- but what else is he supposed to do? He got himself into this shit. He's got no one else to blame for it. He can't back out now.
Mary murmurs his name, and he nods. "I have to go," he says to the wolf.
Ruth disappears through the trees in a flash of red fur.
The nervousness will go away. It'll be worth it when Mary's happy and never, ever, ever tries to go see the Volturi again. And Ruth... Ruth will be fine.
Lucas takes a deep breath, then follows Mary back towards the car.
***
Next: Added Scene (Seattle)
Author: audreyii_fic
Fandom: Twilight (Team Jacob)
Rating: NC-17
Characters: Jacob, Bella, Edward (genderswap)
Genre: Romance/Humor/Angst
Warnings: Bad language and explicit sexuality.
banner courtesy of FatedFeathers
banner courtesy of blink_1nce
Summary: A boy gets dumped by a vampire and a wolfgirl tries to cheer him up. A genderswap rewrite of New Moon and Eclipse. ( Click here to start from the beginning.)
New Moon Scene Five:
what's the point of being patient for a broken heart?
Arcade Fire, "You Tried To Turn Away My Fears"
"Listen," Lucas says. His hand is freezing in Mary's grip, but there's no way in hell he's pulling it free. "I think it'll be better to wait until after graduation. That way it won't seem so strange when I... you know... disappear."
Jesus. He's really going to do this. Fuck.
Mary looks away from the road and gives him one of her dazzling smiles, and he feels the sickness around his heart lift just a little. Okay, yeah, he's nervous. But there's no choice. There never was, really. And if he didn't, he'd basically be saying he wants to kill the girl who loves him rather than accept immortality. Yeah. That made sense.
Besides, it was all his idea anyhow.
Yep, it's good to keep it in those terms. Lucas is doing his best to think in a logical sort of way, given the givens of the fucking illogical situation he's found himself in, and becoming a vampire is the clearest solution to the variety of problems that have plagued him since the moment he stepped foot in Forks.
Then the Volvo skids to a halt. Mary throws her arm in front of Lucas to stop him from hitting the dashboard, and they both stare out the window at the person blocking their path.
Ruth's eyes meet his. She gives him a look that a week ago Lucas would've sworn she wasn't capable of. She turns and jogs into the woods.
"She wants to talk to me," Mary says quietly.
Like Lucas hadn't guessed that.
***
His favorite fantasy -- and correspondingly the most guilt-inducing -- was the one where Ruth went down on him in the garage.
Most of Lucas' thoughts about Ruth involved the garage anyway, because that was just where his mind automatically placed her. Ruth meant the smell of engine grease and the sound of rain beating on an aluminum roof. It took effort to picture them in a bed or a shower or on a couch -- not that he was putting in any effort, because for the love of God he wasn't -- but the garage? Way too easy. Way the fuck too easy to be watching her sit cross-legged on the floor as she tinkered with some mechanical thing or another, then catching one of her sunny grins... and starting to think about her edging closer to the lawnchair he'd basically claimed as his own, and how she would just lean forward, nip at the inside of his thigh through his jeans, unbuckle his belt...
That was usually the point at which Lucas would need to run inside to grab a soda from the fridge. And hold it against his crotch. While he banged his head on the wall.
It didn't matter that Ruth never wore a bra anymore. Or that her legs were fucking amazing and he wasn't even a leg man. Or how in his mind she always looked like she was enjoying herself while they did whatever he imagined they were doing. She was his best friend, and he was a loser, and he would be using her crush on him to get his rocks off. If there was a Hell that would be an express ticket to the lowest circle, the one with the pointy rocks in your ears and demons holding red-hot pokers against your 'nads.
Not that he'd have that problem, because the Pack would get there first. Just so you know, Jared had said good-naturedly one day at Emily's, hurt our sister and we'll cut your balls off. Then he'd laughed, and then Lucas had laughed, and then Jared had said, No, seriously, Paul's got pruning shears in the back of his truck with your name on 'em. So eyes forward and hands to yourself, leechlover.
It would be all right. After all, he had been in a relationship with Mary for six months and he'd never even gotten to second base. He wasn't going to explode. Of course it had been kind of different then, because he'd never been able to imagine Mary doing anything like that; when he tried -- and he had -- it was like looking at some really bad mental Photoshop with ragged edges and conflicted lighting. But he had no trouble picturing Ruth in her soaked tank top with that beaming smile, swirling her tongue around the tip of his cock before leaning forward and sucking with little wet sounds and sliding her own fingers into her shorts and getting herself off at the same time, moaning and swallowing as--
Jesus. No. Maybe Lucas was a depressive asshole who relied on sweet kids to keep him from crashing motorbikes or staring at walls, but he wasn't going to let his dick make his decisions. He hadn't turned into one of those guys. It was practically the only thing he still had going for him.
Ruth. Was. Off. Limits.
He knew he shouldn't've gone cliff-diving. But he'd been in a shitty mood, one of the really bad ones, where he just seemed to be walking around in this dark fog where his entire life sucked and a vampire wanted to kill him and his ex-girlfriend had told him he was her whole life and he was picturing his best friend naked and he couldn't figure out how to get a handle on any of it and it was always cloudy, every single fucking minute of every single fucking day and if things didn't change he was going to find Charlie's shotgun and--
So he jumped off the cliff. All the other guys did it, why couldn't he? He had to prove... something, he wasn't sure what exactly, but something. And Mary would have died. He didn't mean to hit his head on the rocks, but when he swallowed the first lungful of water he wasn't all that sorry about it.
Even he understood that was bad.
But Ruth had saved him, because she was freakishly good at that. He'd woken up at her house to find her asleep on the floor next to him, stretched out on her side with her lashes brushing her cheeks. Feeling a lot calmer in general, Lucas looked at her for a long time -- longer than it was appropriate to look at a sleeping girl, really -- and started to think that maybe, if he tried... maybe it could work. Maybe the best friend-to-girlfriend transition could turn out okay. Maybe once it actually happened he wouldn't feel like such a tool. And, uh, he'd start carrying pepper spray or something to protect himself from the Pack.
Then Alice came back, and everything went straight to hell.
***
Ruth raises her chin. "Guess you're not dead," she says flatly.
"Guess I'm not," Lucas answers. His voice sounds normal, which is kind of weird considering he feels like he's off the cliff and sucking down gallons of seawater again. He'd known she was mad, but she's never looked at him like this before, like there's something hard inside her. There's never been anything hard inside Ruth before now.
It hurts like hell.
Mary releases his hand and steps forward. Even now at this incredibly bad time Lucas can't help but be amazed by how beautiful she is. It's unreal. "Before you say anything, I would like to thank you. Thank you for everything you've done. Thank you for being here for Lucas when I... I wasn't." The misery in her face is obvious, but Mary's never made much of an effort to hide when she's in pain. "I can't ever express the depth of my gratitude."
There's a long pause -- then Ruth spits on the ground. "Fuck you, you cold-cunt bitch."
Mary's eyes widen in shock. Lucas just rubs his forehead. "Ruth--"
"Shut up, Lucas." Ruth strides forward, and her nose wrinkles. Oh, right, vampires stink to werewolves. At some point he's really going to need to make a list of all this stuff. "You listen to me, bloodsucker. You and your tick family might be back for now, but the treaty's still on. All of the treaty. And we're gonna fuckin' hold you to every last word."
"I know," says Mary. She clasps her hands behind her back and it doesn't put a single line in her silk blouse, how does she do that? Is it a vampire power? Should it go on the list?
It occurs to Lucas that he's focusing on anything other than what's happening in this conversation, because this conversation can't actually be happening.
"So you get that we'll tear you apart and burn you to ash if you step one goddamn foot out of line."
"You won't have to worry," Mary says coolly. "I promise that when it happens, we'll be far outside of the treaty area. Your tribe won't have anything to worry about."
Lucas closes his eyes, but he hears Ruth say, "When it happens? What is this when bullshit?"
This can't be his life, it really can't.
***
Lucas figured he didn't really have any right to be mad at Alice. It wasn't her fault, after all. She'd been solidly in the Pro-Turning camp from day one.
But just because he wasn't mad at her didn't mean she wasn't mad at him. She'd ranted for a solid five minutes before he'd managed to tell her that No, he hadn't been trying to kill himself. He'd gone cliff-diving. It was just a big psychic misunderstanding, which Lucas never thought were words he'd say in all seriousness and yet there they were, coming out of his mouth.
It was bizarre seeing her sitting in his living room. There had been some part of him that had started to believe the whole vampire thing was something his mind made up to help him deal with, well, life; there was a very good chance that in a year or two he would've laughed the whole thing off if Ruth hadn't turned into a werewolf, which sort of made the whole supernatural thing hard to deny.
We hear from Mary sometimes, Alice had said out of nowhere. She's... not doing too well.
Good, he'd snapped.
You don't mean that, Lucas.
Whatever.
Then she'd sniffed the air and, what, did he smell like dead fish or something? No, apparently he smelled like wet dog, or rather like Ruth, or maybe it was only Ruth that Alice was smelling because Ruth was standing in the doorway and she was seriously pissed off.
Does that leech think it's staying? she had demanded after dragging him into the kitchen by his shirt collar.
I don't know. Lucas didn't really want Alice to go, not yet. The feeling that hey, he hadn't imagined the whole thing, was really good. Also he wanted to hear more about Mary. Specifically about how Mary was miserable, and how she missed him, and how she was sorry about everything she'd said...
Well, it can't. Send it back to wherever it came from.
She, he'd corrected again, not it.
Are you kidding me? They waltz back and you're just gonna-- But whatever she was going to say got cut off, because the phone rang, and Ruth answered it, and her face had turned bright red as she listened to whoever was speaking.
I'm very sorry, she'd said after a long minute. She'd spoken the words with relish. He can't come to the phone. He's getting ready for a funeral. And she slammed the receiver down.
Lucas had frowned. What was that?
Nothing important, she'd said coldly.
Alice's shriek had echoed through the house and made them both wince.
Mary thought he was dead. Mary wanted to die too.
And it was all his fucking fault.
***
"Can you give me a minute?" Lucas whispers to Mary. When she looks nervously across the clearing he says, "C'mon, she's not dangerous."
Mary blinks, and he can tell she's reading Ruth's thoughts. After a moment she shakes her head. "Of course. You know you don't have to ask. Whatever you want, love." But even as she says it she looks unhappy, which nearly makes him change his mind because Mary being unhappy is basically the number one Bad Thing right now. Still, though, she gives him a peck on the cheek and releases his hand.
Ruth's trembling all over, and not in an about-to-phase kind of way. "You can't," she says, looking up at him -- but only a little bit up. She's a lot taller than Mary. "Lucas, you can't do this."
"I have to." He has to.
"But... but you..." Her eyes fill with tears, and Lucas is starting to think that letting the Volturi kill him might've been the better course of action, except then Mary would be dead too and that's the whole problem. "You can't."
All the werewolfness is gone from her. She's the same girl that handed him the shoebox full of bad thingies which is still sitting on his dresser. On one hand, that makes things way, way worse... but on the other, it's a little easier, now. She'll be fine. She's a kid with a crush because she hasn't seen enough of the world yet to know how much better she can do. In a year it won't matter to her at all.
He's really easy to forget.
"Please," Ruth begs. "Just... you don't need her. You don't. Don't do this."
Lucas swallows hard. "Do I have to choose?" Fuck, not that, anything but that. He's not leaving yet. He could have his best friend for a few more months if she doesn't make him choose.
She doesn't say anything for a moment... then Ruth's eyes flick over his shoulder. "No," she says with something dark and scary in her voice. "You don't have to choose." She knocks him to the side; he thuds to the ground and oh shit--
Mary shouts his name.
***
Lucas had spent months and months fantasizing about what it would be like to hurt Mary as bad as he'd been hurting. He'd done some seriously crazy shit and taken vicious satisfaction about what it would have done to her when she still cared about that kind of thing.
Now it had happened, all he had fantasized about had come true, and it didn't feel satisfying. It felt like his chest was caving in.
Alice made phone calls as fast as she could. Lucas had just paced the kitchen while Ruth stood with her arms crossed; she didn't look the least bit sorry, which shit if she'd just handed the phone to him this could have been avoided. It wasn't really her fault, it was his for jumping off the cliff in the first place, but if he'd had room in himself for anything but horror and guilt he'd be furious.
No one could get in touch with Mary. Alice said there was still a chance if they tried to head her off in Italy. Fine. Not a problem. He had to fix this. He had to save her.
Ruth lost it.
Are you fucking insane? she'd shouted at him, even as they left the house. They're going to eat you! Actually fucking eat you!
I have to do something, Ruth, or she's going to die.
It's already dead!
He'd stared at her in disbelief, and she'd flinched, but she hadn't taken it back. No matter what it does, it can't get any more dead than it is now. That thing is just a moving carcass.
She isn't a thing, he'd said slowly. The old Ruth never said or thought shit like this. And I have to go.
He had turned to get into Alice's car, and Ruth grabbed his arm. No, wait. Lucas, wait! He could feel her hand shaking. Stay. I'm alive.
He'd swallowed, but Mary was about to kill herself, and Ruth was not. So he got in the car, and Alice sped them away, and Lucas didn't look in the rearview mirror.
***
It's too fast for Lucas' human eyes to follow -- not to mention that his head is fucking spinning from how hard he hit the ground -- but within the space of a couple heartbeats a werewolf and a vampire are ready to kill each other in the middle of a forest and Jesus, this can't be his life.
"Ruth," he manages to shout through the ringing in his ears, "knock it off!"
There's a fucking terrifying moment where he thinks she won't, that she's going to try and rip Mary up anyway and very likely get herself torn to shreds in the process and no, seriously, this can't be his life... but the red wolf steps back, still snarling.
Mary's at his side in an instant, helping him to his feet. "Are you all right?" she asks anxiously.
"Yeah." He's bruised -- y'know, again -- but he's fine.
Her amber eyes close briefly as she touches his face with freezing hands. "Thank God." There's sunlight breaking through where they're standing. The shimmer of Mary's skin dazzles, as always.
Lucas hears a low whine.
He's really never had a lot of chances to see Ruth in wolf form. There was the first time, when she'd fought to keep Paul from chomping his leg off, and once or twice after that, but for the most part it's been this separate thing that he knows exists but doesn't really affect him too much. So frankly he doesn't have a fucking clue how to read Ruth's expression when she's like this.
But he can follow her eyes, at least. She glances at him for about half a second, and then she's mostly looking at Mary. Lucas thinks maybe she's about to attack again except that doesn't happen, she just keeps staring, until her gaze turns to the ground where her scraps of ruined clothes are littering the leaves. Shit, she's going to have to replace those, and Lucas knows she doesn't have a lot of spares.
For some strange reason, that's the worst part yet. Lucas pulls away from Mary and steps forward. "Ruth..."
But Ruth steps backward. The whine gets worse and more awful and Lucas is one hundred percent sure that it's his fault.
***
They'd gotten to Volterra in the nick of time. More or less literally, if there really was such a thing as a 'nick'. Mary had been prepared to commit suicide by sparkle, which was the only way Lucas could think of it because that's what Ruth would have said and the only parts of his brain that hadn't been overwhelmed by terror for the last twenty-four hours had been thinking about his best friend. But they made it, and before Mary could step out into the sunlight Lucas had grabbed her and pulled her back into the shadows.
She'd felt his shoulders, his arms, his hands like she couldn't believe what she was seeing. Lucas had forgotten how amazing it felt to have her touching him. You're alive, she'd murmured.
Yeah. What were you doing, Mary? He was exhausted and overwhelmed and had very nearly started crying. What the fuck were you--
I couldn't live in a world where you didn't exist.
But... you said you don't--
I lied.
She wasn't the only one who had lied; he'd lied to himself, and not very well. Fuck, he hadn't stopped loving Mary. He'd only smothered it to stop from hurting.
They left Italy as fast as they possibly could, staying alive thanks to some fast talking from Alice and a handful of promises about secret-keeping. And when Mary sat on his bed and said exactly what he'd been hoping for for months -- she hadn't mean any of it, she loved him so much, she was so sorry -- Lucas took her back almost before he'd realized what he'd done.
But you can't do that anymore, he'd said. Going to the Volturi, or... not ever. Please.
She'd given his palm a frigid kiss. I won't, she'd said. I won't need to. We're together now. And we'll be together forever.
What?
You were right all along, love. You'll be so much safer once you're one of us. I see that now. Her tender smile made his heart pound. It was wrong of me to question you. When we're married that will never happen again; I'll love, honor, and obey the way I should, I swear it.
Lucas had fallen off the bed.
***
He knows what the whining sound is. Ruth is crying. And Lucas feels like the absolute lowest life form to ever think about crawling from the primordial ooze -- but what else is he supposed to do? He got himself into this shit. He's got no one else to blame for it. He can't back out now.
Mary murmurs his name, and he nods. "I have to go," he says to the wolf.
Ruth disappears through the trees in a flash of red fur.
The nervousness will go away. It'll be worth it when Mary's happy and never, ever, ever tries to go see the Volturi again. And Ruth... Ruth will be fine.
Lucas takes a deep breath, then follows Mary back towards the car.
***
Next: Added Scene (Seattle)