[twilight] Statues: Volume XII
Title: Daydreaming Reality
Fandom: Twilight
Pairing: Edward Cullen/Alice Brandon
Rating: PG
Summary: She sees all the futures she’ll touch, all the happy endings that aren’t hers. [pre-twilight][for the twilight uncanon drabble request meme at pinkceptional!]
Alice found the only shadow in her room and clung to it, the way a moth clung to light. It dripped from the cracks between the padding, starting at the ceiling and amassing more, like water droplets on a window. Where it pooled, she planted her feet and huddled and closed her eyes.
As always, there was the stunning blond boy. She caught whispers of what he was doing now: wandering through New York, the same morose look on his face. She recognized Binghampton from a vacation her parents had taken her to. They said this was going to be a vacation as well - right before they shaved off all her hair and introduced her to her special jacket.
When the reel of the soldier ended, then began her favorite. It always came after, but it always lasted longer. These days it would freeze or jump or stutter, as though electricity was still bouncing through her brain after therapy.
He was unhappy, at the moment or at a moment coming up very soon. Quite unhappy. Then a blonde materialized on his arm and he shirked away, as though her fingers were darts. For some reason, this made Alice pleased. And the film rolled on in a similar way. Bronze hair blazing, he moved from scene to scene without a line of his own.
She kept her eyes shut as she was forcibly drawn from her darkness. Now he was wearing the strangest clothes, moving in the strangest silver box. Rain pitter-pattered against the windows of it, casting little patterns. It looked like his face was melting - the reflections of raindrops were all that moved over his stony eyes and mouth.
Loops of leather wrapped around her wrists and ankles. Someone murmured a lie about bracelets, but Alice wasn’t listening. She’d never seen this far into his life before, into his future.
He stepped onto slick pavement. Something cool kissed her temples; the reel jerked to him sitting at a table, a faucet shining like his moving box.
When the machine began to hum, everything sped up. Suddenly his life was erratic, changing - his lips opened in a laugh, or his eyes filled with sadness. And right there with him was his muse for living. Her hair was a color not so very unlike Alice’s mother’s, her eyes the same dewy brown as Alice’s own. When he looked into them, it was as though he were filled with so much emotion he couldn’t hold it in.
And it wasn’t the bracelets around her ankles and wrists, or her bare head strapped to the table. It wasn’t the electricity ramming into her brain and singing her eyelashes. It was something else - something she didn’t know, never had known, and never would know - that sent tears dripping down her cheeks, just like the shadows.
Title: Rain in the Gutters
Fandom: Twilight
Pairing: Edward Cullen/Rosalie Hale
Rating: PG-13
Summary: He’s beautiful, she thought, and was obviously perturbed that he didn’t appear to be thinking the same about her. [pre-twilight][for the twilight uncanon drabble request meme at pinkceptional!]
From the newspapers, she looked beatific - kind, generous, glowing. Across the tiny bookstore, her gaze darting to him over hardcovers, she glowered. Her irises sparkled a noxious, poison green, and her lips cut downward in a disapproving frown.
He’s beautiful, she thought, and was obviously perturbed that he didn’t appear to be thinking the same about her.
Nonetheless, she stopped in every second day, and every third visit bought something. Usually a cookbook she’d never look at, or sewing guides for the clothes she’d have her servants make. Occasionally she’d bring Royce in, for she enjoyed the way Edward responded. Her fiancé’s thoughts were annoying and sickly self-centered, twisted farther past Rosalie’s narcissism than she could ever imagine; it made Edward’s shoulders stiffen, his knuckles whiten over neatly lined spines. He wanted to warn her - but then she glared, again and again, and he kept his mouth shut.
The night he found her, spoiled in the street and naked, her eyes were the softest moss he’d ever seen. They were wet and glistening - honest for the first time, honestly afraid. She caught his eye for a fraction of a second, before her breath became shallow and her lashes fluttered closed. But it showed - somehow she knew Edward could have stopped this. She didn’t seem angry… only sad, only hollow and wondering.
He heard Carlisle four blocks away, already drawn by her scent, and he disappeared.
Fandom: Twilight
Pairing: Edward Cullen/Alice Brandon
Rating: PG
Summary: She sees all the futures she’ll touch, all the happy endings that aren’t hers. [pre-twilight][for the twilight uncanon drabble request meme at pinkceptional!]
Alice found the only shadow in her room and clung to it, the way a moth clung to light. It dripped from the cracks between the padding, starting at the ceiling and amassing more, like water droplets on a window. Where it pooled, she planted her feet and huddled and closed her eyes.
As always, there was the stunning blond boy. She caught whispers of what he was doing now: wandering through New York, the same morose look on his face. She recognized Binghampton from a vacation her parents had taken her to. They said this was going to be a vacation as well - right before they shaved off all her hair and introduced her to her special jacket.
When the reel of the soldier ended, then began her favorite. It always came after, but it always lasted longer. These days it would freeze or jump or stutter, as though electricity was still bouncing through her brain after therapy.
He was unhappy, at the moment or at a moment coming up very soon. Quite unhappy. Then a blonde materialized on his arm and he shirked away, as though her fingers were darts. For some reason, this made Alice pleased. And the film rolled on in a similar way. Bronze hair blazing, he moved from scene to scene without a line of his own.
She kept her eyes shut as she was forcibly drawn from her darkness. Now he was wearing the strangest clothes, moving in the strangest silver box. Rain pitter-pattered against the windows of it, casting little patterns. It looked like his face was melting - the reflections of raindrops were all that moved over his stony eyes and mouth.
Loops of leather wrapped around her wrists and ankles. Someone murmured a lie about bracelets, but Alice wasn’t listening. She’d never seen this far into his life before, into his future.
He stepped onto slick pavement. Something cool kissed her temples; the reel jerked to him sitting at a table, a faucet shining like his moving box.
When the machine began to hum, everything sped up. Suddenly his life was erratic, changing - his lips opened in a laugh, or his eyes filled with sadness. And right there with him was his muse for living. Her hair was a color not so very unlike Alice’s mother’s, her eyes the same dewy brown as Alice’s own. When he looked into them, it was as though he were filled with so much emotion he couldn’t hold it in.
And it wasn’t the bracelets around her ankles and wrists, or her bare head strapped to the table. It wasn’t the electricity ramming into her brain and singing her eyelashes. It was something else - something she didn’t know, never had known, and never would know - that sent tears dripping down her cheeks, just like the shadows.
Title: Rain in the Gutters
Fandom: Twilight
Pairing: Edward Cullen/Rosalie Hale
Rating: PG-13
Summary: He’s beautiful, she thought, and was obviously perturbed that he didn’t appear to be thinking the same about her. [pre-twilight][for the twilight uncanon drabble request meme at pinkceptional!]
From the newspapers, she looked beatific - kind, generous, glowing. Across the tiny bookstore, her gaze darting to him over hardcovers, she glowered. Her irises sparkled a noxious, poison green, and her lips cut downward in a disapproving frown.
He’s beautiful, she thought, and was obviously perturbed that he didn’t appear to be thinking the same about her.
Nonetheless, she stopped in every second day, and every third visit bought something. Usually a cookbook she’d never look at, or sewing guides for the clothes she’d have her servants make. Occasionally she’d bring Royce in, for she enjoyed the way Edward responded. Her fiancé’s thoughts were annoying and sickly self-centered, twisted farther past Rosalie’s narcissism than she could ever imagine; it made Edward’s shoulders stiffen, his knuckles whiten over neatly lined spines. He wanted to warn her - but then she glared, again and again, and he kept his mouth shut.
The night he found her, spoiled in the street and naked, her eyes were the softest moss he’d ever seen. They were wet and glistening - honest for the first time, honestly afraid. She caught his eye for a fraction of a second, before her breath became shallow and her lashes fluttered closed. But it showed - somehow she knew Edward could have stopped this. She didn’t seem angry… only sad, only hollow and wondering.
He heard Carlisle four blocks away, already drawn by her scent, and he disappeared.