Boys With Girlfriends -- Chapter Seven
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.)
Eclipse Scene One:
now who here among us still believes in choice?
Arcade Fire, "Ocean of Noise"
He's at the Cullens' house and Mary has added a huge bed to her room, which is so stunning that Lucas stumbles as she leads him in with a crooked smile. "Um, hi," he says blankly.
"Hi," Mary says, sitting down.
This is... uh... many different levels of unexpected, and part of his mind is screaming It's a trap! How it's a trap is kind of beyond him, but an insanely gorgeous girl is sitting on a huge bed invitingly and even now that's still so far outside his mental realm of plausible scenarios in life that his brain can't process it. Guys like him don't get girls like this.
On the other hand, his dick isn't asking any questions. There's a very decent chance he's going to damage his jeans if he doesn't get them off soon.
Wait, is he supposed to take them off? Isn't he not supposed to do that? What is she expecting? This bed wasn't here last week which has to mean something but he knows there's lines he's not supposed to cross so where the hell are they?
It's a trap!
"It's not a trap," says Mary. Lucas has a terrified second of wondering if, oh shit, now she can hear his thoughts too -- which would be so bad -- but apparently it's just that his face really is that easy to read. "I thought, since we've got the house to ourselves... maybe we could do a little more than usual."
"Sure," Lucas says.
Wow.
***
Lucas had tried to get in touch with Ruth; that didn't go so well.
First he tried to call, but Billy always answered, and Billy would tell him to fuck off -- not exactly in those words, but the message was clear enough. So no luck there.
Then he'd tried driving out to the reservation to find her. When he passed the general store Quil Ateara had been in the parking lot, and he'd shot Lucas such an evil look that Lucas literally threw the truck into reverse on the spot. He wanted to talk to Ruth, but that didn't mean he wanted to have an up close and personal conversation with the Pack's pruning shears.
Reaching the point of childish desperation, he'd actually tried of all things to write a message on a piece of notebook paper and have his father deliver it... but when he'd handed the envelope to Charlie, Charlie had just set it aside and said Man up, son. Which was probably pretty good advice, except Lucas didn't have the slightest idea what "manning up" would look like in this situation.
He really fucking missed her. Stuff would happen, random shit, and he'd think Ruth's going to laugh her ass off when she hears this but then he'd remember he couldn't tell her about it because she wasn't talking to him. Lucas had never had a best friend before -- hell, he'd never had any close friends period -- and so he'd never lost one, either. It sucked. There was this big Ruth-shaped hole in his life.
Lucas was with Mary every day, of course, but Mary was different. She couldn't take Ruth's place any more than Ruth had been able to take hers. Apples and oranges. And Mary never, ever swore.
What were his options?
He could give up and leave Ruth alone. That was probably the smart thing to do. He'd been an asshole, after all, pretty much from Day One, and all things considered there wasn't a lot he could do to change that now. And Mary was also clearly a fan of the Leave Ruth Alone idea. She'd never said anything directly, but whenever Ruth's name came up she just got this look on her face.
Are you saying you don't want me to be friends with her anymore? he'd asked.
It's your choice, love, Mary had replied. Whatever makes you happy.
Trap.
The other option was to just hang around the edges of La Push, being prepared of course to flee at the sight of any of the Pack, and hope that he'd run into her sooner or later. Admittedly it was a little stalker-y, so that wasn't so good. Plus... once he saw Ruth, what would he say? He suspected the only thing that could really fix things would be to dump Mary, and that wasn't going to happen.
Either way, the dreams Had. To. Stop.
***
"It's okay, Lucas," Mary says. She reaches out and he takes her hand. "I love you."
He gets a little warm glow around his heart when she says that, just like always, because he can tell how much she means it and fuck it feels good to be loved like that.
'Doing more' turns out to be moderate petting, which is a whole lot further than they've gone previously. It hadn't bothered him earlier in the relationship, especially given that Mary had been very clear about her uber-traditional beliefs right from the start, but lately the lack of 'doing more' has been getting to him. The barest of bare definition of first base isn't cutting it now. He's tried not to let it be an issue, because Lucas is not under any circumstances going to be That Guy, so the fact that he's frustrated is this dark secret he's got to keep hidden all the time.
But obviously he hasn't been hiding it as well as he thought. Mary wouldn't be acting like this otherwise. She's still not opening her mouth -- fine, makes sense, venom and all -- and there's no clothing removal, but she is letting him to outside-the-shirt second base. Lucas knows very well that that's a huge step for her, and that she's doing it to try and please him. So he would be an epic-level douchebag if he complained about it. Even if what she's doing is just making things worse.
Mary's a marble statue.
Nothing -- not her beauty, not her smell, not her little moans because apparently what he's doing feels good to her so that's reassuring -- makes up for the fact that Lucas feels like he's groping a mannequin. A mannequin that's been sitting in a freezer.
"Is everything all right?" she asks, kissing along his jaw.
"Yeah," he lies. "Yeah, it's fine."
***
He shouldn't be dreaming about women other than his girlfriend. That being said, Lucas wouldn't have felt too bad if the female forms in his dreams were just random, curvy frames with nice asses. He was a guy. That stuff wasn't a big deal.
But dreaming about a real girl?
Dreaming about the same real girl more than once?
The real girl who used to be his best friend?
Yeah. That was a big deal.
He didn't know what the fuck to do about it. His subconscious wasn't something he could just wrestle into submission, and even if it was, Lucas would probably lose. He'd always sucked at wrestling.
It was because he'd been focusing so much on Ruth before. Some part of his mind -- or, rather, his dick -- had clearly decided the end of the story was set. Lucas knew that sooner or later he would've gotten over himself and said the hell with the age difference, the hell with the Pack, the hell with everything and accepted what Ruth was offering which he suspected was a lot. He'd spent the last few weeks of their friendship fantasizing so much that it had become habit to think that way, and it wasn't like a light switch he could just turn off. Even though he was really, really trying.
He didn't imagine her in the garage as much anymore -- and thank God for that, because he kind of hated the garage dreams now, they were too realistic and left him miserable. But other fantasies stepped in to fill the void, like fucking her on the old Formica kitchen counter, or pushing her back into the sofa cushions so he'd have room to try going down on her, or even fooling around out on the beach which would probably just be really sandy and uncomfortable but God in his mind she always looked like she was having so much fun...
If he didn't come in his sleep he'd jerk off when he woke up. That took approximately ten seconds and made him feel like the worst person in the world. At least he was the one that did all the laundry, so Charlie didn't know how often his sheets were getting washed.
He'd had to ask Mary not to come through his window to visit anymore; he'd said it was because he thought his dad had overheard them talking, but it clearly hurt her feelings anyway. Maybe even made her a little suspicious. Not good, but it would be way worse if she showed up when he'd crashed early and caught him saying Ruth's name in his sleep.
It wouldn't last, though. Lucas had no intention of fucking up his relationship -- and doing who the hell knew what to Mary's stability -- just because of a few dozen wet dreams. And if he could hang out Ruth like they used to, his dumbass brain would be able to categorize her as his best friend again, instead of as someone who might grin and suggest getting it on in the flatbed of the truck. It wouldn't last.
***
Lucas cringes back when Mary slides a thigh between his legs. Shit that's cold. It's not going to be an issue once he's a vampire -- he's just gotta remember that this is a temporary problem -- but for right now, yeah, no.
"Can we try something else?" he says, sitting up.
"Like what?"
Unfortunately there's not much else they can do. For as long as Lucas is human, Mary will be hard, sharp, and freezing. That's just the way it works. But...
Lucas bites his lip. "Will you stand up?"
"Stand up?" Mary says, looking confused.
"Yeah." He scoots away, and Mary does it, she gets up and moves a few feet from the bed. She's gorgeous and with a little distance he's definitely getting into it again. That gives him just enough confidence to say, "Here's the thing. What if we... instead of doing it together... maybe, instead, we could... separately..." Please let her catch on. Please let her catch on. How is it possible to for his cheeks to feel this hot? There's got to be limits on the number of blood vessels in his face, right?
"Separately what?" Mary prompts. Shit. He's really going to have to say it out loud.
"Get off," Lucas says in a rush. "I would, um, look at you. Naked. I promise I won't touch or anything. Well, I wouldn't touch you, I'd... uh... and you could, you know, to yourself..."
New depths of loserdom officially achieved.
Mary's golden eyes are wide as saucers. "Oh," she says.
"We don't have to," Lucas adds quickly. "It was just a thought."
"But that's... what you want?"
"Well... yes." He swallows. "I'd really like it." He's wondered what Mary looks like for over a year now. She's got to be as perfect under her clothes as she is everywhere else. It's a great way to work around the marble body thing, and Jesus Christ he can't even imagine how hot it would be to watch her watch him, and vice versa. And there's the additional benefit of how maybe after this, if he was lucky which he wasn't but maybe just this once, Mary would be the one starring in his dreams again.
Mary doesn't move for a long moment, and it's a really unnaturally still kind of frozen that reminds him of what she is. Then she moves her hands up to the neck of her silk blouse and unbuttons the first button. And the second. And the third. The edge of white lace comes into view and Lucas reaches for his zipper because damn, it's really--
--then he looks up at her expression.
She hates this.
He pulls his hand back from his lap and sighs. "Hang on, never mind. Don't worry about it."
"But this is what you--"
"Forget what I said. It's no big deal."
Mary rebuttons with an obvious look of relief. Guilty relief, but relief nonetheless, and Jesus he feels like an asshole. "I know it's not a modern notion," she says to him, "but things were different in my era. People... courted."
"Courted," Lucas repeats.
"Yes. They took chaperoned strolls, and had iced tea on the porch... they might have kissed once or twice, but not... this."
"Right." She wants to be courted and he asked to get her naked and masturbate. Wow. Classy. Is there a bridge nearby he can jump off of?
It seriously looks like her eyes would fill with tears if they could, but Mary can't cry, and that's something Lucas really likes about the vampire condition. He ought to be able to handle crying women after years of living with Renee, but he can't. They absolutely scare the shit out of him. "I'm sorry," she whispers. "I just... want to be married to you first. This is one rule I want to leave unbroken."
Lucas glances at where his jacket lies on the floor.
***
Alice gave him the ring three days after Volterra. You're going to need this, she'd said with a wink, putting the velvet box in his hand. Trust me.
In the weeks since then Lucas had looked at the box for a total of probably a hundred hours, but he hardly ever opened it. The couple of times he had he'd mostly been overwhelmed by how big the ring was, but girls liked flashy jewelry, right? Anyway it had belonged to Mary's mom, and that was what mattered.
He knew he needed to get around to it. After all, he'd already signed up for eternity, so what difference did this one extra little thing make?
Except it did make a difference.
Lucas didn't want to get married.
That probably was yet another thing that made him an asshole, but his parents had gotten married, and look how well that turned out. Not to mention that judging from the increasingly melodramatic emails, the piece of paper binding Renee and Phil wasn't making much of a difference either. The whole world acted like standing at an altar and having some holy person say a bunch of words at you was what made your relationship real. Fuck that. Lucas didn't need someone else to tell him what was real and what wasn't. A stupid ancient tradition didn't stop you from breaking up. It wasn't like he thought love was bullshit -- he loved Mary -- but he'd known from the age of seven that marriage wasn't something he was ever going do.
Even so, he carried the ring around in his jacket for weeks. Partly because there would be serious hell to pay if Charlie found it in his room, but also because, well...
The problem was, Lucas really couldn't come up with a compelling argument against the whole thing. Sure, he didn't want to, but that wasn't exactly a reason that made loads of sense. He was already going to become a vampire; getting married was hardly a big deal compared to that. Not to mention that Mary had, in fact, heavily implied that being turned wouldn't happen until after a wedding. And he loved Mary. He wanted her to be happy; this would definitely make her happy.
Plus Alice had already seen it, so it was basically inevitable.
But he still hadn't asked. He didn't even know how to ask. He'd never thought he would need to.
***
"I'm sorry," Mary murmurs. "I understand if you're angry with me."
"Of course I'm not angry," he says automatically. He's not. He is absolutely not angry. He'd essentially be angry with her because she won't put out, and that's Not Good on so many levels that he'd have to create a whole new list of ways he sucks, and frankly, he's running out of adjectives.
"I do love you." Mary reaches for his hand, though she's focused on the floor. She hasn't looked him in the eye since he asked her to take off her clothes. "I'm sorry that I'm not... being the girl you wish I would be--"
"That's not true. Don't say that."
It's such a little thing, really, isn't it? Sure, it's just a piece of paper... but it's also just a piece of paper. A piece of paper that might not matter to him but means everything to Mary.
She thought she had to leave him to protect him, and was miserable for months because of it, according to Alice. She tried to kill herself because of he was stupid enough to jump off a cliff. She tried to do sex stuff with him even though she didn't want to. She's going to make him a vampire because he asked.
And Lucas is thanking her for all that by having dreams about his best friend and denying her the only thing she's ever really asked for.
It's just a piece of paper. No big deal.
He reaches for his jacket and pulls out the box.
***
Next: The First Kiss
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.)
Eclipse Scene One:
now who here among us still believes in choice?
Arcade Fire, "Ocean of Noise"
He's at the Cullens' house and Mary has added a huge bed to her room, which is so stunning that Lucas stumbles as she leads him in with a crooked smile. "Um, hi," he says blankly.
"Hi," Mary says, sitting down.
This is... uh... many different levels of unexpected, and part of his mind is screaming It's a trap! How it's a trap is kind of beyond him, but an insanely gorgeous girl is sitting on a huge bed invitingly and even now that's still so far outside his mental realm of plausible scenarios in life that his brain can't process it. Guys like him don't get girls like this.
On the other hand, his dick isn't asking any questions. There's a very decent chance he's going to damage his jeans if he doesn't get them off soon.
Wait, is he supposed to take them off? Isn't he not supposed to do that? What is she expecting? This bed wasn't here last week which has to mean something but he knows there's lines he's not supposed to cross so where the hell are they?
It's a trap!
"It's not a trap," says Mary. Lucas has a terrified second of wondering if, oh shit, now she can hear his thoughts too -- which would be so bad -- but apparently it's just that his face really is that easy to read. "I thought, since we've got the house to ourselves... maybe we could do a little more than usual."
"Sure," Lucas says.
Wow.
***
Lucas had tried to get in touch with Ruth; that didn't go so well.
First he tried to call, but Billy always answered, and Billy would tell him to fuck off -- not exactly in those words, but the message was clear enough. So no luck there.
Then he'd tried driving out to the reservation to find her. When he passed the general store Quil Ateara had been in the parking lot, and he'd shot Lucas such an evil look that Lucas literally threw the truck into reverse on the spot. He wanted to talk to Ruth, but that didn't mean he wanted to have an up close and personal conversation with the Pack's pruning shears.
Reaching the point of childish desperation, he'd actually tried of all things to write a message on a piece of notebook paper and have his father deliver it... but when he'd handed the envelope to Charlie, Charlie had just set it aside and said Man up, son. Which was probably pretty good advice, except Lucas didn't have the slightest idea what "manning up" would look like in this situation.
He really fucking missed her. Stuff would happen, random shit, and he'd think Ruth's going to laugh her ass off when she hears this but then he'd remember he couldn't tell her about it because she wasn't talking to him. Lucas had never had a best friend before -- hell, he'd never had any close friends period -- and so he'd never lost one, either. It sucked. There was this big Ruth-shaped hole in his life.
Lucas was with Mary every day, of course, but Mary was different. She couldn't take Ruth's place any more than Ruth had been able to take hers. Apples and oranges. And Mary never, ever swore.
What were his options?
He could give up and leave Ruth alone. That was probably the smart thing to do. He'd been an asshole, after all, pretty much from Day One, and all things considered there wasn't a lot he could do to change that now. And Mary was also clearly a fan of the Leave Ruth Alone idea. She'd never said anything directly, but whenever Ruth's name came up she just got this look on her face.
Are you saying you don't want me to be friends with her anymore? he'd asked.
It's your choice, love, Mary had replied. Whatever makes you happy.
Trap.
The other option was to just hang around the edges of La Push, being prepared of course to flee at the sight of any of the Pack, and hope that he'd run into her sooner or later. Admittedly it was a little stalker-y, so that wasn't so good. Plus... once he saw Ruth, what would he say? He suspected the only thing that could really fix things would be to dump Mary, and that wasn't going to happen.
Either way, the dreams Had. To. Stop.
***
"It's okay, Lucas," Mary says. She reaches out and he takes her hand. "I love you."
He gets a little warm glow around his heart when she says that, just like always, because he can tell how much she means it and fuck it feels good to be loved like that.
'Doing more' turns out to be moderate petting, which is a whole lot further than they've gone previously. It hadn't bothered him earlier in the relationship, especially given that Mary had been very clear about her uber-traditional beliefs right from the start, but lately the lack of 'doing more' has been getting to him. The barest of bare definition of first base isn't cutting it now. He's tried not to let it be an issue, because Lucas is not under any circumstances going to be That Guy, so the fact that he's frustrated is this dark secret he's got to keep hidden all the time.
But obviously he hasn't been hiding it as well as he thought. Mary wouldn't be acting like this otherwise. She's still not opening her mouth -- fine, makes sense, venom and all -- and there's no clothing removal, but she is letting him to outside-the-shirt second base. Lucas knows very well that that's a huge step for her, and that she's doing it to try and please him. So he would be an epic-level douchebag if he complained about it. Even if what she's doing is just making things worse.
Mary's a marble statue.
Nothing -- not her beauty, not her smell, not her little moans because apparently what he's doing feels good to her so that's reassuring -- makes up for the fact that Lucas feels like he's groping a mannequin. A mannequin that's been sitting in a freezer.
"Is everything all right?" she asks, kissing along his jaw.
"Yeah," he lies. "Yeah, it's fine."
***
He shouldn't be dreaming about women other than his girlfriend. That being said, Lucas wouldn't have felt too bad if the female forms in his dreams were just random, curvy frames with nice asses. He was a guy. That stuff wasn't a big deal.
But dreaming about a real girl?
Dreaming about the same real girl more than once?
The real girl who used to be his best friend?
Yeah. That was a big deal.
He didn't know what the fuck to do about it. His subconscious wasn't something he could just wrestle into submission, and even if it was, Lucas would probably lose. He'd always sucked at wrestling.
It was because he'd been focusing so much on Ruth before. Some part of his mind -- or, rather, his dick -- had clearly decided the end of the story was set. Lucas knew that sooner or later he would've gotten over himself and said the hell with the age difference, the hell with the Pack, the hell with everything and accepted what Ruth was offering which he suspected was a lot. He'd spent the last few weeks of their friendship fantasizing so much that it had become habit to think that way, and it wasn't like a light switch he could just turn off. Even though he was really, really trying.
He didn't imagine her in the garage as much anymore -- and thank God for that, because he kind of hated the garage dreams now, they were too realistic and left him miserable. But other fantasies stepped in to fill the void, like fucking her on the old Formica kitchen counter, or pushing her back into the sofa cushions so he'd have room to try going down on her, or even fooling around out on the beach which would probably just be really sandy and uncomfortable but God in his mind she always looked like she was having so much fun...
If he didn't come in his sleep he'd jerk off when he woke up. That took approximately ten seconds and made him feel like the worst person in the world. At least he was the one that did all the laundry, so Charlie didn't know how often his sheets were getting washed.
He'd had to ask Mary not to come through his window to visit anymore; he'd said it was because he thought his dad had overheard them talking, but it clearly hurt her feelings anyway. Maybe even made her a little suspicious. Not good, but it would be way worse if she showed up when he'd crashed early and caught him saying Ruth's name in his sleep.
It wouldn't last, though. Lucas had no intention of fucking up his relationship -- and doing who the hell knew what to Mary's stability -- just because of a few dozen wet dreams. And if he could hang out Ruth like they used to, his dumbass brain would be able to categorize her as his best friend again, instead of as someone who might grin and suggest getting it on in the flatbed of the truck. It wouldn't last.
***
Lucas cringes back when Mary slides a thigh between his legs. Shit that's cold. It's not going to be an issue once he's a vampire -- he's just gotta remember that this is a temporary problem -- but for right now, yeah, no.
"Can we try something else?" he says, sitting up.
"Like what?"
Unfortunately there's not much else they can do. For as long as Lucas is human, Mary will be hard, sharp, and freezing. That's just the way it works. But...
Lucas bites his lip. "Will you stand up?"
"Stand up?" Mary says, looking confused.
"Yeah." He scoots away, and Mary does it, she gets up and moves a few feet from the bed. She's gorgeous and with a little distance he's definitely getting into it again. That gives him just enough confidence to say, "Here's the thing. What if we... instead of doing it together... maybe, instead, we could... separately..." Please let her catch on. Please let her catch on. How is it possible to for his cheeks to feel this hot? There's got to be limits on the number of blood vessels in his face, right?
"Separately what?" Mary prompts. Shit. He's really going to have to say it out loud.
"Get off," Lucas says in a rush. "I would, um, look at you. Naked. I promise I won't touch or anything. Well, I wouldn't touch you, I'd... uh... and you could, you know, to yourself..."
New depths of loserdom officially achieved.
Mary's golden eyes are wide as saucers. "Oh," she says.
"We don't have to," Lucas adds quickly. "It was just a thought."
"But that's... what you want?"
"Well... yes." He swallows. "I'd really like it." He's wondered what Mary looks like for over a year now. She's got to be as perfect under her clothes as she is everywhere else. It's a great way to work around the marble body thing, and Jesus Christ he can't even imagine how hot it would be to watch her watch him, and vice versa. And there's the additional benefit of how maybe after this, if he was lucky which he wasn't but maybe just this once, Mary would be the one starring in his dreams again.
Mary doesn't move for a long moment, and it's a really unnaturally still kind of frozen that reminds him of what she is. Then she moves her hands up to the neck of her silk blouse and unbuttons the first button. And the second. And the third. The edge of white lace comes into view and Lucas reaches for his zipper because damn, it's really--
--then he looks up at her expression.
She hates this.
He pulls his hand back from his lap and sighs. "Hang on, never mind. Don't worry about it."
"But this is what you--"
"Forget what I said. It's no big deal."
Mary rebuttons with an obvious look of relief. Guilty relief, but relief nonetheless, and Jesus he feels like an asshole. "I know it's not a modern notion," she says to him, "but things were different in my era. People... courted."
"Courted," Lucas repeats.
"Yes. They took chaperoned strolls, and had iced tea on the porch... they might have kissed once or twice, but not... this."
"Right." She wants to be courted and he asked to get her naked and masturbate. Wow. Classy. Is there a bridge nearby he can jump off of?
It seriously looks like her eyes would fill with tears if they could, but Mary can't cry, and that's something Lucas really likes about the vampire condition. He ought to be able to handle crying women after years of living with Renee, but he can't. They absolutely scare the shit out of him. "I'm sorry," she whispers. "I just... want to be married to you first. This is one rule I want to leave unbroken."
Lucas glances at where his jacket lies on the floor.
***
Alice gave him the ring three days after Volterra. You're going to need this, she'd said with a wink, putting the velvet box in his hand. Trust me.
In the weeks since then Lucas had looked at the box for a total of probably a hundred hours, but he hardly ever opened it. The couple of times he had he'd mostly been overwhelmed by how big the ring was, but girls liked flashy jewelry, right? Anyway it had belonged to Mary's mom, and that was what mattered.
He knew he needed to get around to it. After all, he'd already signed up for eternity, so what difference did this one extra little thing make?
Except it did make a difference.
Lucas didn't want to get married.
That probably was yet another thing that made him an asshole, but his parents had gotten married, and look how well that turned out. Not to mention that judging from the increasingly melodramatic emails, the piece of paper binding Renee and Phil wasn't making much of a difference either. The whole world acted like standing at an altar and having some holy person say a bunch of words at you was what made your relationship real. Fuck that. Lucas didn't need someone else to tell him what was real and what wasn't. A stupid ancient tradition didn't stop you from breaking up. It wasn't like he thought love was bullshit -- he loved Mary -- but he'd known from the age of seven that marriage wasn't something he was ever going do.
Even so, he carried the ring around in his jacket for weeks. Partly because there would be serious hell to pay if Charlie found it in his room, but also because, well...
The problem was, Lucas really couldn't come up with a compelling argument against the whole thing. Sure, he didn't want to, but that wasn't exactly a reason that made loads of sense. He was already going to become a vampire; getting married was hardly a big deal compared to that. Not to mention that Mary had, in fact, heavily implied that being turned wouldn't happen until after a wedding. And he loved Mary. He wanted her to be happy; this would definitely make her happy.
Plus Alice had already seen it, so it was basically inevitable.
But he still hadn't asked. He didn't even know how to ask. He'd never thought he would need to.
***
"I'm sorry," Mary murmurs. "I understand if you're angry with me."
"Of course I'm not angry," he says automatically. He's not. He is absolutely not angry. He'd essentially be angry with her because she won't put out, and that's Not Good on so many levels that he'd have to create a whole new list of ways he sucks, and frankly, he's running out of adjectives.
"I do love you." Mary reaches for his hand, though she's focused on the floor. She hasn't looked him in the eye since he asked her to take off her clothes. "I'm sorry that I'm not... being the girl you wish I would be--"
"That's not true. Don't say that."
It's such a little thing, really, isn't it? Sure, it's just a piece of paper... but it's also just a piece of paper. A piece of paper that might not matter to him but means everything to Mary.
She thought she had to leave him to protect him, and was miserable for months because of it, according to Alice. She tried to kill herself because of he was stupid enough to jump off a cliff. She tried to do sex stuff with him even though she didn't want to. She's going to make him a vampire because he asked.
And Lucas is thanking her for all that by having dreams about his best friend and denying her the only thing she's ever really asked for.
It's just a piece of paper. No big deal.
He reaches for his jacket and pulls out the box.
***
Next: The First Kiss