#that said if anyone DOES want to tackle it I’d happily beta/consult and possibly even co-write?

[hoahoahoahoahoa]

I’m not quite done with this idea but i don't think i'm in a place to sit down and write a fic so i'll just word vomit here

First of all, my two fav side effects of this AU:

Not only does Edward not have the edge on Bella that he has on everyone, but she has that edge on him. He's forced to be vulnerable to her the same way everyone but her is forced to be with him. He's getting a taste of his own medicine in the worst way. (not that he's invading others' privacy on purpose most of the time, but it is what it is)

2a. Edward does a lot of romanticizing Bella, because he can. She's the one person onto whom he can project. It sounds nastier than it is-- that's how all relationships are to some degree, especially at first before you get to know the person. The difference is how much of a novelty this is for Edward. Finally, he can get to know someone at a normally pace, not privy to private events they don't mean to share. He goes a little overboard idealizing her because she's the first mystery he's had in a long ass time. Except now... Bella can catch him doing it.

2b. Bella's got the reverse now. She gets all Edward's dirty laundry from the jump. She meets him at his very worst... and she sees him rise above it, and how quickly he turns around.

Okay busting out my copy of Midnight Sun for this play-by-play of the first book:

Obviously a big plot change is Bella knows Edward is a vampire from day one. Even if she doesn't clue in from anything she hears from him in the cafeteria (she might not even fully realize what's happening in the cafeteria; maybe Bella's telepathy doesn't have as long a range as Edward's b/c she's human and also "borrowing" the gift), it's super obvious as soon as her scent hits him in Biology.

She's frozen in place from the shock of suddenly having telepathy + the revelation that vampires are real + Edward's a telepath (that can't hear her?) + the sheer violence in Edward's thoughts. She manages to gather her thoughts enough to consider running out of the room or even asking to be excused, but she doesn't trust her voice to not give away her terror, which would escalate the situation.

Class ends and Edward runs out and Bella decides very, very quickly that Edward Cullen cannot know that she can read his mind and knows about him being a vampire. Surely he would follow through on killing her if he knew. She's got to play it cool like none of this ever happened. She can't tell anyone, because he (and his vampire family?) would kill them too.

Some of Edward's thoughts in Biology involved following her home and eating her there so there'd be less casualties. She has no way of knowing that he ran away to Alaska. It's not even a comfort that he doesn't return to school; she spends the whole time he's away waiting for him to appear out of thin air and kill her. She sharpens a stick from her backyard into a stake which she keeps in her backpack because she has no way of knowing it couldn't work, and she doesn't want to feel totally helpless, even if it's a silly gesture. No harm in trying.

In this time she does get some flashes of Alice's visions during lunch now that Alice has turned her "eye" on her. She has no clue what to make of them. Her with red eyes?? Her smiling with Alice?? Her with Edward?? These cannot be coming from her own imagination what the fuck is going on, she must be losing her mind from everything that's been happening

Edward comes back to school and Bella's picking up snippets from him from across the room. he seems much less murder-y. but she's not ready to trust that after everything she heard that first day. It doesn't help that Edward is coming in with every intention of gaslighting her ("Why didn’t she look up? Probably she was frightened. I must be sure to leave her with a different impression this time. Make her think she’d been imagining things before.")

The thing about Bella trying to hide her telepathy, which becomes very apparent in Biology on Edward's first day back, is she's never had to do that before. It's very difficult. It doesn't help that Edward's internal monologue is trained on how helpless she isa nd how it hurts to breathe near her because she smells so tasty

Talking to Edward is just difficult I’m general bc vampires are canonically capable of having multiple trains of thought at once and we know Bella is frequently ~dazzled~ by his beauty so Edward quickly becomes very concerned for this poor girl she’s hanging on by a THREAD

And of course Bella hears this worry so she’s in a positive feedback loop of anxiety. RIP

anyway Bella doesn’t do a perfect job of hiding her fear and her newfound ability. She slips up juuuust enough that Edward is Suspicious. But she makes it through

The tipping point for Bella going from "terrified" to "oh this is a complicated creature" is the incident with Tyler's van. For a horrible moment, Bella's absorbed in Alice's vision of her getting squished. Then she hears Not her! in her head in Edward's voice, clear as day. And she hears all Edward's anxiety over the potential for exposure but also how he just really, really doesn't want her to die (even if it's confusing him). She laughs a little too hard at his "no blood, no foul" joke at the hospital because she's in on it now and she's too stressed to think better of it.

I think her mind also, like. Snaps. at this point. She's done worrying. He's gonna kill her or he's not. He can't even seem to decide, and she can't do anything about it anyway, she's just going to keep on keeping on and if she dies, well, at least the end of her life will have been the most interesting bit? And yeah she's a little bit of a freak and she's fascinated by this guy. What is his deal. She’s along for the ride now

Bella doesn't grill Edward for the truth of how he got over to her so fast but she does slip up and thank him for risking so much to save her and he's like wait. Does she mean risking his life with the van or risking exposure of him and his family? There's no way she could know about that??

Of course that day is the day Alice lets it slip to Edward that he's going to fall in love with Bella. Bella isn't present for that but the next month, Edward refuses to talk to Bella but she hears a constant stream of I do NOT have a crush on her, I AM going to kill Mike Newton, I am NOT falling for her, even if it'd be so easy to fall for her, I wonder what she's thinking right now, I will NOT destroy her future, my throat HURTS and honestly it's still freaky as hell to be privy to a vampire's mind but her mind's kinda. Snapped. by now. and she can't help but be a tiny bit amused. At least he's not fighting "the monster within" anymore? Is this some weird strategy to keep from killing her? Sure, fine, whatever, thanks

Bella catches snippets of memories of the family meeting about killing her too. Btw. Much 2 think about

When Edward finally asks her if she wants a ride to Seattle, she hears how genuinely nervous he is, and she knows, fucking knows exactly how dangerous he is, so she honestly shocks herself when she says yes. He hasn’t killed her yet, and he’s genuinely fascinating, at this point she’s Into him but also studying him like a bug

At lunch that day Bella hears in Edward’s head that he’s ditching because they’re blood typing. She can’t think of a good excuse to also ditch. Edward is extremely confused that she leaves for Biology like she’s about to walk into a war zone

Port Angeles happens much the same as in canon with Bella feigning ignorance and acting like she hasn’t known about Edward being a vampire from day one. It seems silly to admit she figured out the vampire thing but not mention the telepathy, but every time she opens her mouth to admit to the telepathy, she remembers the snippets of the family meeting about killing her and she chokes on her tongue. It’s one thing for a vampire to choose to confirm a human’s suspicions about the existence of vampires. It’s another entirely for a human to have direct access to a vampire’s mind and the whole coven’s secrets, right?

So now Bella’s stuck herself in a horrible situation where Edward’s trying to be honest with her and she’s lying to his face. Angst angst angst

Bella doesn’t realize that night that she’s in love with Edward.

Edward has a really conflicting image of Bella because on the one hand nothing ever seems to surprise her. On the other, she seems nervous every time she opens her mouth. The idea that she can read his mind is just so far-fetched it just doesn’t occur to him— even he couldn’t read thoughts as a human

Bella hears the Bug Calculations in the meadow. I just wanted to point that out. It’s hilarious

Bella finally breaks. I’m thinking Midnight Sun page 349, right after this exchange:

…but when she says “you know, the rest of us feel that way all the time” it’s absolutely stricken with guilt and nerves. He never gets a choice in telling her what he’s thinking. It’s finally being thrown in her face. She can’t keep this up anymore. This can’t go on— not without him knowing

So of course replace “I was wishing I could know what you’re thinking” with a horrible minute of absolute silence from Bella. Her heart rate spikes and she finally braces herself says “no, ‘the rest of us’ includes your family. They can’t read minds, either.”

Even with his vampiric supercomputer brain™ it takes a good 5 seconds for him to register that she’s responding to something he didn’t say out loud. He chokes out her name in a strangled cry. This is the quietest his mind has ever been to her. She broke him. Good lord did she trigger something is he going to kill her— no, he wouldn’t, but what if—

Bella immediately starts crying. Sorry, babygirl. Yeah she terrified. She thinks Here it comes. She starts babbling. She blurts out the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. “I’m not like you. Not really. I can only ‘hear’ you. And I don’t think my range is as far as yours, from what you’ve described. I’ve been afraid to tell you because I figured someone like you couldn’t let someone like me live with the knowledge I have now but because I was afraid to let you suspect I knew anything, I got to know you“ etc etc

Edward is still through all of it. Deathly (hah) still. Straight corpsin’. She’s now getting static from his brain— too many thoughts too fast for her human mind to pick anything comprehensible out.

Boy oh boy if Edward was struggling with the mortifying ordeal of being known before… he just found out the woman he’s in love with has been live-streaming his inner monologue every second they’ve been together. Noice 👌

He’s really, really angry. At Bella, for hiding this. At himself, for not seeing it sooner. At himself again, for every wicked thought he’s had in her presence (I know he’s prob not catholic but the catholic guilt is strong in this one). Every shared moment with her flashes before his eyes in reverse chronological order, leaving him off with the first day in Biology. Truly the most heinous thoughts he’s ever thunk, in his opinion, and she heard it all. “You’re here.” He says. “You know exactly how close I’ve come to killing you, over and over again… and you’re here.” It occurs to him that Bella could’ve been going along with his plans and pretending to be his friend for fear of her life, but she hears that train of thought and shuts it down: “Yes, I’m here. Because I want to be.” Edward winces because okay, yes, it does suck being on this side of the telepathy, confirmed.

Still, he tells her in short order, because he thinks it needs to be said: “You can leave right now. You can never talk to me again. I won’t come after you, and I’ll protect you from my family.” He silently prays that Alice loves Bella enough to not tell Rose or Jasper about this if she’s seen it, and then winces when he realizes Bella can probably hear that he’s not 100% certain he could protect her from his family.

She takes his hand. Gives him a really sad smile. “I’ll stay… if you’re sure you want me to.”

Edward starts choking/laughing/sobbing. Here’s this girl who’s seen him at pretty much his lowest, laughed her way through his feeble disguise, and somehow still accepts him.

Hearing this thought, something occurs to Bella: she loves him. Isn’t that what love is? Seeing someone’s worst, and taking their hand? Maybe she’s not in love with him yet, but… yeah, that’s some kind of love.

Now she’s looking at him like she loves him. Edward doesn’t dare believe that’s the expression she’s wearing, so her softened gaze and slight smile are driving him crazy: “Tell me what you’re thinking— I think I’m justified in asking, now” he’s still reeling so he’s gonna crack a joke, ok

“I meant it when I said you’re beautiful.” He can appreciate that more now— she knew how truly monstrous he was when she said that. He’s been dead wrong about her not understanding, or underestimating— she knows. It doesn’t really connect in his brain. So the word “Beautiful” sends him off on his canon tangent about being designed to kill (“aS iF yOu CoUlD oUtRuN mE”)— maybe an in-person demonstration will drill it into her that he’s too dangerous to want to be around

Instead of calling herself an idiot for still wanting to be around him, Bella argues that she’s aware of all that, but she’s also aware of the horrible pain he endures just to be around her, and all the control he’s shown so far.

Okay this is long enough already djdjxjxdjsjs TBC if there’s any demand for it

AU where Bella’s gift is not so much a shield as it is an Uno reverse card

Edward can read everyone’s mind but Bella’s as in canon, but now she can read Edward’s mind

Alice’s visions are blank where she’s concerned (like the werewolves in canon), but Bella can see visions of the future involving Alice, or has visions when she’s around Alice. Jasper’s gift is already kinda 2-way so he can still sense/manipulate her emotions, but she can do it back to him. She can hurt Jane, zap Kate, etc etc

Bella would have the weirdest fucking first day of school anyone has ever had, ever. There’s a voice in her head saying “yeah okay I guess she’s pretty but kind of plain and— wait why can’t I hear her” and then Biology is just. The worst hour of her life. but being Bella she’s just sitting there like

…while Edward plans the death of her and all her classmates right next to her