SLASH BACKSLASH ONE-SHOT CONTEST

Story Name/ Sweet, Sweet Scotch

Name/ Achlies

Pairing/ Edward/Jacob

Disclaimer/ I don't own Twilight or anything relating to it.

To see other entries in the "SLASH BACKSLASH" contest, please visit the C2: c2/74941/3/0/1/

A/N: I've never been an Edward/Jacob fan, but this idea got stuck in my head and kind of ran off with itself. It's on the border between T and M, so I put it down as M just to be safe. And I kind of went out on a limb here, but it is slash.

Sweet, Sweet Scotch /

And she's gone.

And here I stay; wrapped in an old T-shirt she wore, smelling vaguely of a human dinner and the remnant scents of a body wash so long gone even I cannot place it. At one point it may have been yellow, or possibly white, but now its color is just dirty. The grim and stink of human civilization has ruined it completely.

She would never wrap her body in more than one blanket when I came over, insisting that she wasn't cold and that my proximity was more important. But as she slept, I would see small bumps rise on her skin. And when she began to frown in her sleep, I'd always sneak downstairs and take the blanket off the back of the couch and wrap her again. She would sweat and smell salty, and in the morning I would always return it. She'd wake up and raise one unplucked eyebrow at me in a gesture that clearly said, I was right, what did I tell you?

And most of her clothing smells like me. But this shirt doesn't.

Most days it's stuck underneath a pillow on the couch in my bedroom. Its scent absolutely permeates my room, making everything from the throw pillow to my record sleeves smell. I used to think a lot about just throwing it out, but in the end I just decided to stay away from my room.

There's nothing really in there for me, anyway.

I could toss it.

But I can't get rid of it, not really.

This is unhelpful.

Charlie would sometimes smell like scotch, though I only ever saw him drink beer. She probably only ever saw him drink beer, but that disinfectant smell, the burn in the throat as it goes down, the fumes so potent your eye could water, it was all very familiar. I would settle for just about anything now. Even gin, which reeks of fucking Christmas trees and regret.

Because I am bitter. And the scotch is so sweet.

Bitter, bitter, bitter.

But fuck do I want to remember.

And this, this thing that I am doing, is unhelpful. It's a wonder that I have yet to isolate myself from everyone. I had holed myself in my room for three days after she was gone, stopping only to sit in front of my piano, which I had moved upstairs. The dust cover is never lifted; there is nothing for me to play. Inspiration has not existed for a long time, but even my memories of notes, rests, and diminuendos do little to serve me well.

Dal segno al fine; but there is nothing to replay, only to relive. And surely it is not the same thing.

And when they ask me where I go, I lie. I say that I am going out hunting. But I never smell like the hunt when I return and they never ask me why. When she doesn't think I'm looking, Alice sends me knowing looks. Jasper can feel me. They recognize the expressions on my face, the plump fabric tucked in my pocket, and they smell the meadow on my body.

And as I've tried to banish their thoughts from my mind, I've successfully reinstated myself as Sullen Cullen. Only took three months of brooding to tack that back onto myself. It took much longer last time. But no life experience could have prepared me for countless renditions of "God Bless America" from Jasper, trying to not think of her. His voice is good, but that shit almost drove me mad.

But fuck do I want to remember.

These lithe legs, bridled to the ground by all that is human, were always meant to be in motion. And by god, have they been. Hundreds of cities, nine countries, three continents.

And still I come here.

I always come here.

I have been smelling the shirt too long now and I can no longer discern its scent from the foliage around me. I find it amazing that this place in itself does not smell of her. But the thought is silly, so I discard it. It falls to the ground next to my scotch, adding to the pile of can't-never-have-it and if-only-you-were-so-lucky.

The snapping of a twig by the perimeter of the meadow does not startle me. His presence here does not surprise me; in fact, I am vaguely surprised I hadn't seen him here before. I know he is here. He knows I am here and further, he knows I know he is here. I cannot see him but I can feel him, smell him. I can hear him. He thinks he's quiet, but he cannot hide his soft pant or the smell of each drop of salty saliva as it falls from his tongue and onto the damp forest floor.

He forgets I can hear him. His anguish matches my own.

Word for word, breath for breath, curse for curse, I am in his head. His thoughts are not in words, but in pictures, and for a moment I can see her. And she is beautiful.

But then she is gone.

"Please." It is one word, spoken so quietly that for a moment I'm almost certain I had only thought it.

But then . . . she is watching a sports game on a television in a house I do not recognize. She is measuring chicken broth into a small cup, holding it up to her eyes, mocking the surface tension of the liquid. Her hair is up and then her hair is down. She is wearing a jacket, her hot breath creating vaporous clouds in front of her mouth, and then she is swimming in the ocean. She is with wolves, she is with vampires.

She is running to me and his hand is pressed up against his shirt, the material balled tightly in between his fingers. He is screaming an internal agony, cursing me for being who she loves. And then she is running to him, and my stoic expression does not hide the betrayal in my eyes. The jealousy. My face burns and then collapses, and my pain is clear.

Then, her eyes are wide and begging him for release, for acceptance. I cannot hear her words, but I can see her mouth. Let me know I'm wanted. And he gives in. His joy is mocking me, his mind cheering in victory. It taunts me and my lips part in response. But I am happy for him, because he has made her happy. Or something like that.

He is in the forest and I am in the meadow.

And fuck do I want to remember.

And then the images are gone. I search for his head, but he has left.

"Wait," I whisper, holding an outstretched arm in the direction I think he's taken. I can still smell him, but it is faint. And growing fainter. "Please."

This thing I have requires patience and desire. And I've got both in spades.

This, this, this.

I can hear the fallen leaves crackle and break underneath his feet. I am reminded of the sound of gravel crackling under rubber tires and for a moment I can see her car.

Bitter, bitter, bitter.

When he leaves the forest, he is no longer wolf, but boy. One hand is covering himself, hiding the more intimate parts of him. He has a pair of jeans in his other hand, but he has not put them on. His mind tells me he just does not give a fuck and loathes the effort to take them off later. He is just too tired.

I too do not care, because he is only a vesicle for her. She is alive in his head.

He sits down next to me and closes his eyes. I welcome the flood of images. She is against his stomach and he is running a hand through her hair. He bends down and kisses her crown, smelling her scent. I inhale deeply, but I only smell him and the dirt.

And in the meadow, he holds out his hand and imagines me taking it. I press his knuckles under my nose and his heat scalds me.

But goddamn it, he smells like her. I look up at him and he smiles softly, sadly, and gives me an image of a shirt. It is tucked away in a bedroom I do not know, underneath a pillow I have never seen. Not nearly as worn as the rag I have fisted in my other hand.

I feel a brief flash of anger that he has taken something of hers. Something I do not have, something that now intrinsically belongs to me. Something that helps him remember. I narrow my eyes.

He notices my expression and turns his lips downward. Not a frown, not out of anger, but a sad gesture. Perhaps it's disappointment; I can't read it. He knows why I am here. He knows what I am doing. He sees my frustration, my anger, my regret, and my pride. He too is sad. And he too does not know what to do.

But unlike me, he is mad. He is angry; his head is now filled with images of vampires and blood. Purple fires and rotting corpses and her broken body. He keens, but only slightly. So quietly I can pretend I hadn't heard him.

But fuck I want to remember.

The images are too much and I roar into the vast wasteland of this meadow. Such a pretty thing it once was, but now the grass is so scratchy, the sun is too bright, and this boy in front of me is much too much understanding. His face is one of indifference but I see me in his head and I look broken. There is no sound in his mind, but my mouth is open wide, my teeth are bared, and the corners of my mouth are turned upward in what looks like a mix of desperation and pure menace. I look every bit the monster I am.

He puts his hand over my mouth in a silent plea to tell me to shut the fuck up and by god, I can smell her. I close my eyes and she is now in my head, in my memories. His strong, pungent stink does not mask his intentions and I moan into his hand.

"What are you doing?" he hisses and his voice is thick.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" I ask around his palm.

"It looks like you're pathetic."

He blinks at me and I blink back.

"You smell like her," I say.

"You look like her."

Images of her smile flood my mind. I am next to her in all of them; an arm around her shoulder, her hand in mine, my face burrowed into her hair. I do not know he has seen all of this but I don't think to ask. I don't care.

Her scent envelops me and I press my lips gently against his palm, murmuring her name under my breath. He swears loudly and pulls away from my mouth, shaking his limp hand as though shaking my shame from his skin.

I close my eyes, too embarrassed to look at him. But he is looking at me; I can see my closed eyes and tight frown in his head. And then my face is closer, closer, until I open my eyes and see his face within inches of mine. His eyes are pleading with me and their pain is overwhelming.

I close my eyes and hold my breath as his lips crash down onto mine.

He moans her name into my mouth and I let him. He moves his lips across my cold, frozen ones and I can smell his tears as they collect in the crevices of his lips. He presses his mouth harder and harder against me while I remain still. His mouth is hot and his hands are hot and they create angry, burning trails across my face. I let them.

He pulls back and presses his forehead to mine once he realizes that the kiss is not returned. My eyes are still closed and I can only feel his hot breath on my face and see his pictures in his head.

"You. Look. Like. Her," he whispers. I inhale deeply and can no longer smell her on him.

But the images of her are still there. And with a sharp, angry bite of reality, I realize what I had known all along. Why I had remained sitting in the meadow long after I knew he was here. Why I didn't stake my claim to her territory and her memory. Because it all comes down to those images of my girl in his head versus the crumpled, discolored rag still balled in my fist.

If he leaves, she leaves with him.

I kiss him back.

Because fuck, I have to remember.

He recognizes the moment I give in and bunches my hair into his fists, shifting his weight to his knees so he can lean further into me. He moans and the sound is so angry. I can feel his tears and snot dripping onto my face, running down my cheeks, and falling off the tip my hardened chin. I pretend the tears are my own, that the mucus is mine, and that I am the one crying for her.

Our lips together make me warm. I tap into his head, pushing my way through images of me on my knees and of his calloused fingers curling around how he imagines my cock to look, until I find her. The vision is blurry and hidden away, no longer in the forefront of his mind. I shift and shift and shift, but cannot find her.

I am confused. But then I realize. He is not thinking of her, he is thinking of me.

I pulled away, and I can see the look of disgust on my face. It is not very well hidden and if I'm honest with myself, I don't want it to be. I did not come here for him. I am not kissing him to kiss him. I am here, sitting next to him in a meadow that used to be beautiful and a forest that used to be exempt of all ethereal beings, and pressing my mouth against his because he has her. She is in his head.

"What the fuck?" I ask, my voice low and angry.

He doesn't say anything, just looks at my forehead, my eyes, my nose, and my jaw line. His fists are still tightly gripping my hair and he is frowning. My right leg twitches and hits the edge of his hip. He flinches at the contact and begins to pull away. He begins to wonder whether he has bargained for too much.

These legs were made to be in motion.

A single, small sob pulls from my chest and exits my nose. It sounds like I am scoffing, laughing at his naivety and regretting my coming here. But he knows better and in response, he puts his hand against my cheek, undeterred by my expression and my strangled noise. And again I can smell her. I nuzzle my head into his palm, breathing in her fading scent until there is nothing more than his heady smell.

But the images are still there, mocking me with their novelty.

I felt like I had been doing a bad job.

I lean forward and growl into his mouth, pressing myself hard against his body. He is stunned, too stunned to retreat and I see an image of a vampire I do not recognize uprooting a tree from the ground in one, fluid gesture. He is scared of me. I want to laugh.

"You smell like her," I murmur.

I feel his shoulders slump and this time it is he who kisses me back.

This, this thing I am doing, is helping no one. My silly thoughts and figurative tumbler of scotch that have always kept me company in my meadow and are now things I wish I could give him, show him. To prove that I am not okay, I am not handling this well, and that I'm about to lose my shit entirely.

But surely he knows this. He is here, too. Parading in the forest long after nighttime has come. Probably telling the same lies to his that I have told to mine.

As gently as I can, I push him to the ground. I hear the "oof" as the wind is knocked out him and I wonder if I have hurt him. But his fists are already filled with handfuls of my hair before I can muse enough to act on it. He whispers her name as I bring my lips to his.

It is not a sweet kiss; it is not one of indulgence. It's sloppy, angry, and reeks of desperation. It is hollow and makes me want to cry. But then he moans and the reaction my body has to the sound is overwhelming.

He will be my undoing.

He parts his lips and the hot, wet tip of his tongue grazes my bottom lip. It's unbelievably hot and I almost pull away. But I remember those nights, all those nights so long ago, where she needed two comforters worth of protection between us so she could sleep. So she didn't freeze.

Ah, there she was.

I open my mouth and let him slip his tongue between my lips and beyond my teeth. His lips are mashed roughly against mine and I realize that tomorrow he will have reminders of what we did here. Though I will carry this for eternity, my body will never bear scars of this turmoil. No, my body will remain unaffected. When I return home, the family will greet me with small smiles and screaming thoughts that demand answers and yet another rendition of "God Bless America", because Jasper is set on autopilot when I'm around and this is the best the Major can do.

This, this, this.

And so I kiss him back, harder. I don't give two shits whether his lips will be swollen and cracked in the morning, nor do I care that when I walk back into my house I will smell like him. I want to taste him because he tastes like her.

He is on his back and I am doing everything I can not to crush him into the ground. His body is so hot that I am almost certain I will internally combust. He is touching me, his adroit fingers tracing a pattern of fire laced with desire up and down my back.

And all I can think of is her and the sweet, sweet burn of scotch.

This moment here, with both of us fumbling for skin that is not our own, is sweet in its desperation. And I feel dirty, but if the past three months speaks anything about my character, it is that I have lost all sense of who I am. This balled rag that has so long anchored me to me is slipping from my fingers.

Scotch, scotch, scotch. And her.

But fuck do I want to remember.

I'm still in the meadow when the last of her scent dies with the few strands of her shirt that remain. He's in the forest, replaying images of her in his head that will never be mine.

And, for the moment, we are both at peace.