Christ, I still can't believe I'm doing this.
Title: the bears slumber and hunt at the rise
Disclaimer: Characters belong to SMeyer.
Rating: 13+
Spoilers and Verse: Mostly movieverse, though pieces of the books may be there too.
Warnings: Pre girl slash and boy slash; girl kissing.
Summary: The future is malleable, no matter the care you take.
Alice sees the bears for weeks before she knows what they mean.
#
He’s a mountain of a man, tall and broad. His grin is wide, his hands large. She will climb him, put her feet on his thighs, stand on his shoulders. She will leap from trees and he will catch her, because that is the game they play, climb and fall, climb and fall.
His wife is the most beautiful woman she’s ever seen. There is a tightness to her body, power held in check, and her eyes shine with passion. She is a tricky one, she likes to be romanced and tempted and teased.
Alice cannot wait to meet them.
#
“I love you,” she says to Jasper. “And we love them.”
“We don’t even know them.” But he isn’t arguing with her. His fingers rest lightly on the back of her hand. She thinks about lifting them to her mouth, closing her teeth on the tips. As long as she doesn’t break the skin, he doesn’t mind if she bites.
She places her mouth to every scar on his body and kisses away the sting of newborn vampires parting his flesh.
She hasn’t yet, but she will.
#
Jasper fidgets.
He can be perfectly still, a hunter at rest, but there are moments when he will pick up things - broomsticks, iron bars, fence posts, young trees - and flip them from hand to hand. They are weapons, but he needs no such thing; they become toys carried through idle movements and she loves to watch.
It will be best when he carries the wooden rifle and she dances in a line of girls.
#
She leads him straight and true, and his eyes shine at her in the darkness.
#
She is Alice Cullen now, and he is Jasper Hale. Their names mean nothing, are labels which help them pass. She has always been just Alice, as long as she can remember, and he is Jasper still.
And now they are Alice and Jasper, Rosalie and Emmett. Esme and Carlisle and Edward.
She thinks, perhaps, they need to discover a letter other than “E”.
When she tells them, Emmett is the only one to laugh.
#
Rosalie’s expression is quite strict, and it pinches up her face. Alice goes to her, puts her arms around her, gives her a hug, and her body remains stiff inside the embrace. She is not pleased with being touched.
Alice knows - she knows - Rosalie expects people to earn the right, but she can’t help herself. She has seen them, how close they will become, the places her fingers will go, and her mouth, and she cannot help but hold her.
“I beg your pardon,” Rosalie says, and her tone is cool, her voice pitched low.
She grins at her, and gives a cheeky little toss of her head so her hair falls over her eyes and then away. “Pardon granted,” she teases, and dances a slow circle around her, her fingertips sliding along Rosalie’s dress. “You can’t help it, you don’t know what we’ll be.”
“Whatever is she talking about?” The question should be directed at Carlisle, their patriarch, but is not. Edward stares, his eyebrows drawn down, his lips pressed together. She can practically feel him in her mind - she can’t, of course, but now she sees what he can do.
“I do not wish to speak of such things,” he says, and turns away. He can hear her still, but it is the semblance of privacy.
“What things?” Rosalie stamps her foot. “I will know.”
Alice’s heart swells up. She loves this determined, dominant woman already. She wants to kiss her, to pull her down and show her the future. Instead she takes Jasper’s hand, squeezes his fingers. He leans into her, but he is watching Rosalie too, the way she is practically vibrating with curiosity.
The way Emmett puts his hand on her shoulder, and runs it down her arm, soothing her, calming her. He is so large, people think he is the fighter, the impulsive one. At times, he is. Alice doesn’t curtail her smile, she enjoys what she has seen.
But when Rosalie is in need, he will be the one who is calm and at peace.
Even as she relaxes, Alice catches her lower lip between her teeth, and twists her head to cast a thoughtful look at Jasper. She wants to ask what did it, which little motion was the one to put him over the edge, but there are too many people listening, and Edward is still within her thoughts.
She looks forward to the day she can watch Jasper, so compact against Emmett’s size, bring him to his knees.
#
Edward is the fastest, but Emmett isn’t all that slow.
“Do you think,” Alice says, as if they’ve been having a conversation, as if this is just an aside, “you can catch me?”
He throws back his head and he laughs. “As if you were a deer,” he says. “Hamstrung and slow.”
“When you’re ready, give chase.” She smiles. It is a glorious day. “I’ll know to run.”
#
“I don’t like you.”
Alice closes her book, tilts back her head, and watches her from beneath lowered lashes. “You don’t like anyone.”
“I am particular.”
“What you are, is a spoiled brat.” But she is smiling, and after a second, Rosalie smiles, too.
“Yes. At times. I still don’t like you.”
“You said that already.”
“I know.”
She sits, her legs crossed at the ankle, her hands demurely folded in her lap. “You see the future,” she says. It should be a question but is not. Alice nods, allowing the truth. “Tell me what you have seen for me.”
“Many things.” She sets aside the book, and shifts around until she faces Rosalie, her weight on her knees. “I could never speak them all.”
“Then tell me,” she says, and watches her out of the corner of her eye, “why you treat me as if you know me, as if you too can read my thoughts?”
She cannot decide if she should touch her or not. She has not seen it, because she can’t decide. For all the things she knows, she can still stymie herself in doubt, her actions stilled until she can see.
There is little she does which she has not already seen.
“I will love you,” she says, and it is a frightening moment, even though she knows it will be true, she is almost certain despite the way things could change, the way decisions can twist. What if telling her is the thing which changes it all? “And you will love me.”
“Emmett.” Rosalie’s voice is weak.
“Him too,” she says with a laugh and smiles. “And Jasper. That will not change for us.”
There it is, the vision, and it makes her catch her breath. Her fingers itch and her toes ache. It is changing, twisting, falling away. No longer is there a holiday party, and shining lights, and their love stretched between them.
For an instant, there is nothing, only blackness.
And then Rosalie is kissing her.
That is not the vision.
Rosalie is kissing her, firm lips and steady fingers on her arms, and when she closes her eyes, she can see their future swirling, changing, and there they are together, sooner than she’d seen before, better, brighter.
She lies back, and Rosalie leans on top of her, their bodies pressed together, legs tangling beneath the ends of their skirts. They kiss until Alice is dizzy with it, until she clings to Rosalie’s shoulders, carefully avoiding her precious hair.
Rosalie pulls back until there is enough space for her speak, and watch, her eyes golden and glowing. Her arms frame Alice’s face, her fingers twist the short strands of Alice’s hair.
“Is this what you saw?” she asks.
“No.” Her breath comes quick. She very much wants to kiss her again, and will in just a moment more. “This is better.”
It is the right thing to say. Rosalie’s smile spreads and her face, as lovely as it is, grows more beautiful by far.
#
Emmett places a ball cap on her head, pulls it low over her forehead. Little tufts of her hair stick out from underneath, and his fingers linger there, twisting them. He grins down at her, and he fills her vision.
“I can’t believe you don’t know how to play.”
“Maybe I did, once.” She lifts one shoulder in a graceful little move. “I know you’re looking forward to teaching me.” Alice shoots him an impish grin.
He looms, angles his shoulders so he’s half bent over her, and she basks in the closeness.
“Play fierce,” he murmurs, his voice a growl, a rumble in his chest and throat. “Winning this is everything.”
“Everything?” And she is openly skeptical, her eyebrows raised.
“In this moment, yes. Everything.”
His smile is so wicked her toes curl.
Alice has a flash and she knows she will win.
#
Esme crouches behind home plate, waiting.
Alice twirls on the pitcher’s mound - less a mound and more a particularly dense bit of grass - and Emmett stands behind her. He’s taught her three pitches so far, and perhaps she was right, she knew once how to play, because her muscles have a better memory and her body knows how to move.
It is like dancing, and she is pleased.
Jasper comes up, a bat in one hand.
“Think you can get a curveball past him?” Emmett asks.
She is too busy to listen, too busy watching Jasper. The bat is nearly alive, the way it flows through the air, upright and down, back and forth. She has watched him spin many things, but the bat is balanced best.
He is confident and competent and cocky as he tips his hat and grins at her.
Her stomach is tight with anticipation.
Emmett puts his hand on her shoulder, leans down to speak into her ear. “Smoke him,” he says, and it sends a delightful shiver down her spine. She twists her head until her cheek brushes his, the prelude to a kiss.
He steps back and she lets the ball fly.
#
Rosalie slams the ball into the air, until it disappears into the storm and the clouds. Edward and Emmett circle warily, and Carlisle laughs. It will come down somewhere, they know, unless, perhaps, it hit a plane.
Alice knows where, and it is time to run. She is pure grace, quick momentum, as she springs up the tree, into its branches, and the ball lands square in her mitt. She freezes for an instant, less than the beat of a hummingbird’s wings, and she knows.
She has seen.
She leaps, the air cool and wet as she falls.
Emmett’s arms are firm and solid. He catches her, spins around, and she shoots the ball to Esme.
“Safe,” comes the call, but it doesn’t matter. Emmett smiles at her, adjusts her cap, and she has already won.
#
She will hunt bears soon, Rosalie and Emmett and Jasper by her side.
End