#so far the ficmas theme is alice suffering

[goldeneyedgirl]

Ficmas24 Day 2: Hybrid (OG Version)

Good afternoon, and we're back for Day 2! I'm surprisingly on the ball tonight, so I assume that means tomorrow will be beyond late <3

Today we have a scene from Hybrid that I was pretty happy with (for a draft). Obviously, everything in Hybrid requires Alice to be the most dramatic at every point and deal with a lot of baggage her childhood left behind. Plus I love writing her dynamic with Cynthia and dragging Cynthia Brandon into the mess of things. There's definitely some context and nuance missing, and we're building towards a lot of action happening very quickly (the Brandons learning about vampires and the supernatural for one) and even though there is a lot of editing and assembling to do, it's really exciting to see this behemoth of a fic come together.

I hope you like it, and the ask box is still open for the next 11 days of ficmas ;)

note

There's some negative thoughts directed towards the Pack in this section, and a note expanding on that below. Nothing that is more aggressive or unpleasant than canon, but just something I wanted to make note of.

—

After my … disagreement at the Cullen house, Jasper agreed that it was probably better if we found somewhere else to spend Saturday. The plan we came up with was getting snacks from my house, driving up the coast to hang out at the beach, and maybe keep going to Port Angeles to catch a movie. Which was really just a round-about way of planning to go make-out somewhere we wouldn't be interrupted.

It was nice, days like that. Where we could be normal and ordinary. Jasper would argue with me if I said that, and point out that we were neither of those things; he was a dead Confederate and war criminal, and I was a quarter vampire. I knew the guilt still hovered around him like a cloud, that he chose to be with me and that he saw it as a selfish choice. If anything, I was the selfish one.

When we got back to my place, I noticed an unfamiliar car pulled into our driveway - nothing notable, just an ordinary hatchback with a few local bumper stickers on it.

“Probably one of Simon’s coworkers,” I said, half to myself, as Jasper pulled up out the front. The nurses from Forks Hospital were a social bunch and were regularly coming around for coffee and gossip, even on their days off. Cynthia had tipped me off which ones to avoid - overt gossips, anti-vaxxers, and all around judgemental pains in the ass - but it had become a sport to aggressively avoid running into them just so I didn’t have to make banal small talk to avoid being the topic of discussion passed around Forks Hospital.

I picked my way up the front steps, dodging tools and paint supplies that were stacked around - the front of the house was still covered in tarps, and the paint streaks on the front door indicated that Simon was still deciding between the emerald green and the deep purple.

“Alice…” Jasper began. “There’s something I want to talk to you about.”

“Are you breaking up with me again?” I asked, fumbling through my bag for my keys.

“No! Alice,” Jasper said, his hands resting on my shoulders.

“Then it can wait until we get to the beach. I want a bagel and a juice, and then we can go,” I said definitively, as I opened the front door and dropped my bag on the bench in the entrance.

“Okay,” Jasper said, following me through the house. “But it’s important.”

I wasn’t expecting to walk in to the kitchen to find some awkward tableau of socialising. Jacob Black’s friend - whose name escaped me - was on the couch with a woman that had to be his mom; they looked so alike. Cynthia was sitting beside Simon opposite them, and Dad was standing in front of the television.

And I clearly interrupted something.

“Alice!” Cynthia jumped up, and then awkwardly stopped, as my parents exchanged looks. “I thought you’d be home later?”

“The plan changed,” I said, smiling at Jacob’s friend and his mom in greeting.

“What did you do?” Simon asked, and I heard Jasper snort behind me.

“I… would prefer it if we all pretended it was something rebellious and kind of cool and outrageous, like we ran out of condoms or didn’t have the money for coke,” I said, heading to the fridge, as Jacob’s friend began choking on his soda.

“Alice,” my father sighed, and I turned around to see Jasper halfway between horrified and trying not to laugh.

“There was a disagreement between Alice and Rose. And Bella and Alice. And Bella and Rose,” Jasper said. “And Rose and Edward. And Edward and Alice.”

“Who won?” The kid asked, still red from my earlier comment.

“Me, mostly,” I said, foraging into the fridge.

“Mostly?” The kid’s mom asked.

“A well-timed retreat is sometimes necessary,” Jasper said solemnly, and I pulled my head out of the fridge to make sure he wasn’t mocking me.

Then I realised that everyone was kind of quiet and looking away from each other; there was a track of untouched snacks on the coffee table, and Cynthia was sitting on the couch again, staring at her hands.

“…Should we go away and come back later?” I paused, holding up my tangerine and soda. “I have my snacks, I’m good now.” There was also a box of cookies on my desk upstairs.

“Esme Cullen was out of food?” Dad asked.

“No,” I said, frowning. “The well-timed retreat, remember?”

“Part of the disagreement,” Jasper murmured, and my father shook his head.

“Do we need to go?” I asked again, and Cynthia shook her head.

“No, you can stay. We need to tell you something, anyway.”

“Now?” Jasper asked, and I looked between them, confused.

Simon cleared his throat. “You know Sue Clearwater and her son Seth?”

I walked around the kitchen counter and hopped up on a stool, peeling my tangerine. “We’ve met - you’re one of Jacob’s friends,” I said. Seth nodded, looking between me and Cynthia.

“Sue is on the tribal council,” Simon continued. “She’s friends with my mom.”

“I’ve known Elaine Jones a very long time,” Sue said. “Simon used to spend time on the Res when he was younger.”

“Tormenting the locals,” Simon agreed. “You’ve met Leah, I think, Sue’s eldest?”

“A while ago, yes. Jacob Black introduced us.” I could feel Jasper’s hand slide around my hip, an instinctual response at the idea I’d been alone with the wolves. But it was before this, before they’d started shifting.

“We just came around to have a talk with your parents and Cynthia,” Sue continued, using a very elementary-school teacher voice.

“Yes,” my father spoke up, running his hand through his hair. “So, Alice, obviously this is something that will affect you as well. Simon and I were going to sit down with you and discuss it later but now seems as good a time as any.”

Everyone immediately looked away, falling silent. Cynthia was the first one to speak.

“So, Jenna and I went to La Push a couple of weeks ago,” she began nervously.

I frowned. “After I told you to not go near fucking La Push or the Res under very strict circumstances? And I tried to put the fear of god into you and told you that if you thought I was exaggerating, I’d get Rosalie Hale to come over and explain to you in excruciating detail why it was a bad idea?” I said sweetly. Jasper had one hand on my shoulder now and I could feel his gift drifting over me. Calm, calm.

Absolutely not.

“Alice, you didn’t give us any information about why,” my father began. “I spoke to Charlie Swan, Simon spoke to Sue, there was nothing happening on the Res that was a cause for concern. Honestly, I assumed you were taking sides in the dispute between the Cullens and the Res, and Simon and I were disappointed.”

Fuck.

So one of the mouth-breathing balls of hormones and Axe deodorant that Jacob Black called friends had gone and imprinted on Jenna Stanley and now I was being recruited to somehow… what, play ambassador?

Wow, just imagine that conversation - “So, Jessica, Mrs Stanley, your middle-school sister and daughter is now the singular, sole obsession of this delightful, sweaty acne sufferer. It’s like if having a soul-mate was a lottery you didn’t enter, had no say in, and were obliged to fulfil. But at least Jenna in middle school; this conversation gets so awkward when the kid is still in diapers. Anyway, I have very little knowledge on what Jenna’s options actually are in this situation but assume she has only very limited consent and will no longer need things like a college fund or hopes and dreams for the future.”

“Guess you wish you’d listened to me now,” I said, losing interest in my food.

“It’s not that bad, Alice,” Cynthia said in a small voice. Jasper’s hand had migrated to the back of my neck, his thumb stroking the bite scare there.

“You say that like I didn’t spend an afternoon watching a teenage boy follow around a toddler. Or the wreckage of Emily Young’s face,” I said grimly. “Jenna Stanley doesn’t deserve this. Who is the perpetrator? I need to know who to tell Jessica to hit with her car.”

“What?” Seth looked confused.

“Oh, Alice,” Simon gave me a pitying look.

“Um,” Cynthia said. “It wasn’t Jenna. Look, I know it sounds kind of creepy but it’s really not that bad. Seth’s been really nice to me, and Sue explained it all to Dad and Simon, and gave them permission to talk to the Cullens, and Seth kind of explained some stuff to me…”

It was white noise in my ears at that point, at all the information that was coming towards me.

It wasn’t Jenna.

Seth’s been really nice.

Talk to the Cullens.

Explained some stuff.

“Who was imprinted on?” I asked through numb lips, and Jasper was in front of me suddenly.

“Alice, it’s okay,” he said gently and I wanted to shake my head. I wanted to pitch a fit, like I used to in the hospital so I’d be sedated and not have to worry about the world for a while. I wanted to go back to this morning… or, no, Cynthia said it had been weeks since she went to the Res. I wanted to go back to then. I wanted… I wanted more warning about what was about to be dumped on my family.

Carlisle had mentioned that one of the Volturi had wiped out werewolves hundreds of years before. If anyone had laid even a single finger on my sister, I would make the Volturi extinction event look like a family picnic.

Distantly, there was a rational voice pointing out that this was the better outcome. Seth would be able to keep Cynthia safe from everything; James or Victoria would never be able to lay a hand on her…

“Who?” I asked again. I let my body relax.

“She’s going to faint,” Dad said, and everything sounded like it was underwater for a moment. Jasper took the tangerine out of my hands. I remembered this feeling, from the hospital. It was just another muscle memory, another layer to survival.

“Me. And Seth,” Cynthia said finally. And I stared blankly at my sister for a moment. My beautiful, sweet, bossy sister, who I’d always been so relieved never got mixed up in all this. Who went to sleep at night thinking that monsters belonged in fairy-tales. And my parents, who had been tossed in the deep end and probably been told a whole bunch of shit about the Cullens… Not to mention that there were a fair few details about Mom that no one knew that were probably going to become very important very soon.

I looked up at Jasper, biting down on my lip.

“It’s okay, Alice. It’s going to be okay,” he said so kindly. “You need to breathe.”

“Is she going to have a seizure?” Cynthia’s voice was so worried, so upset. And Seth immediately stood up to comfort my baby sister.

The thing is about Jasper is that he’s fully aware that I cannot fight him; I might be stronger than a normal human, but I still don’t stand a chance. He can break my bones with very little effort. 
 But he overcompensates for that most of the time - he’s way too gentle, too slow in dealing with me. His reflexes are more in tune to Bella than to me.

Which is why, when I ducked under his arm and lunged at Seth, he lost grip on me entirely.

“Alice!” Jasper missed me by millimetres as I moved, and then there was yelling and movement and everything was a blur. It happened so fast I don’t feel like I’ve moved at all, until there was pressure on my face, and then Jasper’s arm around my waist. My face is wet and I’m yelling but I can’t even decipher what I’m saying. Everyone is yelling, and the coffee mugs are on the floor, broken. Fuck, Simon loved that rug.

“Alice!”

“Are you okay?” Jasper has me off by the fridge, and I’m suddenly aware that my face hurts and is wet. Fuck, I’m bleeding and I look up to see Sue Clearwater staring at me in complete horror.

“What is wrong with you?” Cynthia shrieked at me, as Jasper stuffed a handful of tissues in my hands, swallowing hard. His control around my blood had gained leaps and bounds since the baseball game, but it still made him uncomfortable to be around like he was going to lose control of his body and attack me.

“I can’t, I can’t,” I mumbled into the tissues, knowing that only Jasper could hear me - and probably feel the cocktail of fury and grief and terror and exhaustion churning through my body. My little sister. My parents.

“It’s going to be okay, Alice, I promise,” Jasper said, as he slowly pulled me into his arms. But as much as I didn’t want to, I heard Sue’s intake of breath and the warning look on my father’s face as Jasper held me.

It’s all wrong. Everything’s wrong. I could have stopped this.

--

note So yes, Alice’s thoughts about the Pack and imprinting are headed in a pretty toxic, unpleasant, and hypocritical direction. This is intentional for three reasons: 1. Alice grew up in foster care and saw extensive grooming behaviours and abuse towards small children. Seeing Quill and Claire together in the imprinting context would have brought up a lot of very ugly experiences and memories for her. Ditto the real story behind Emily’s scars; in Alice’s view, just extremely violent domestic violence. 2. Alice adores Cynthia and because she was absent for so much of Cynthia’s life, has become the ultimate protector of Cynthia and prizes keeping her out of the supernatural mess. Seth imprinting on Cynthia is Alice’s failure to keep her sister safe from all of that, and she’s lashing out. 3. At this point, everyone is still under the belief that the Pack are werewolves, who are known to vampires to be outrageously dangerous and vicious. The Cullens aren’t exactly known for their balanced view of things, so they have definitely coloured Alice’s opinion.

Alice’s stepfather, Simon, is half-Native American and spent time on the Res as a kid, so Alice’s anger and frustration towards the Pack is a full plot point that has to be unpacked. Everything I write strives to be character driven before all else, and sometimes these issues get complicated, but I hope I write about them in a believable way.