Lunch
Edward forces his siblings to school early on Tuesday morning even though Alice sees that James won’t be there until five minutes after the first bell rings.
He just can’t help himself. All bets are off for him now that he knows James isn’t a human. He’s a wizard and has unknown abilities, both of which make Edward consider that maybe all those visions Alice had—has—of the two of them aren’t so ridiculous after all. Maybe there’s a chance there, for something to be.
Besides, Edward tortured himself all Sunday night by waiting as close to the border of James’s property as he could get, just to see if James was alive inside or if he was truly mangled like Alice had seen. Sunday night turned into Monday morning and then Monday afternoon, which led to Sam arriving, wheeling Billy over the uneven ground and even lifting the wheelchair at times to get them right to the edge of James’s property.
Edward knows Billy is a very proud man. He doesn’t take his limited mobility lightly. Billy prides himself on his ability to cope just the same in a wheelchair as he did out of it, and he rarely asks for assistance.
To see Billy being carried, wheelchair and all, to read his mind as it happened, Edward knows how much Billy sacrificed of his own pride and autonomy to do so. All because Billy was worried about James, about his family member James, about how lonely and lost he had seemed when they’d talked down on the reservation. How James had described himself as alone and his family members all dead. Billy was worried enough to ask Sam to bring him to the border of James’s property, with no knowledge on how to enter nor how to get past the odd magic Edward and the wolves have struggled with. In that moment, Edward felt a sense of camaraderie with the old man.
And then James had appeared, suddenly and with the distinct scent of alcohol and bile and electricity clinging to him. Edward could trace him in the air, smell him on the breeze that whistled through the forest. The scents came suddenly as if released from behind a glass wall. James eventually let Sam and Billy inside and Edward couldn’t help himself from stepping out of the trees and edging forward as if he could sneak through behind them and into James’s home. He should’ve known it was a useless thought. James spotted him instantly and glared, slamming the border closed again, cutting off the taste of ozone on his tongue and the acidic scent of bile.
Edward waited there until Billy and Sam left, almost an hour later. Edward originally decided to wait to see if James was going to attend school, perhaps whether he might attend late. A useless thought, really, seeing as James had already demonstrated he has no issues skipping school on a whim, and regularly. Waiting, however, turned out to be the correct decision—because Edward managed to read Billy and Sam’s minds. He found out more about James in the minute he spent reading their minds than he had in the last week of stalking James.
He managed an abstract understanding of the living area in James’s house—something he’s seen before in Alice’s visions,a place where James is often predicted to be lazing on a chaise, drunk. But more than the understanding of his house, Edward managed to compile more information on James himself: that he lived with an odd creature called Kreacher who Sam views as horrific and unnatural and scary. Billy had been thinking about a slip-up in conversation, where the creature revealed James had a ‘muggle upbringing’ and the way James had shut that particular conversation down.
More than that, Edward learned the house inside the house was called Grimmauld Place and was actually once owned by the Black family, by the ancestors of Billy Black. Edward was jealous of the open-invitation James extended to Billy and his son, Jacob, to visit whenever they’d like and that even if he was not home, Kreacher would let them in. That James’s house was as much theirs as it was his.
Billy didn’t believe that himself. He knew the house was a James’s, didn’t even want to take it or attempt to pretend he had some claim to a magical house of his ancestors. He rather thought it was odd James felt he had no claim to something he rightly inherited from his godfather, and Edward was inclined to agree. What Billy truly had wanted, however, was to get closer to James and, in a way, his actions had managed it. A way into James’s house seemed as good of an outcome as any, and Edward agreed, with a pit of some festering, unknown emotion in his gut.
Ruminating on that new information kept Edward busy all Monday night and now, on Tuesday morning, he finds himself standing alone in the parking lot, waiting for James’s delayed arrival. His siblings all left him with varying degrees of annoyance. Edward doesn’t particularly care. He’s existed for decades having to do things for his family, like vacating the house for privacy or moving cities because someone slipped up. He doesn’t ask for much from his family. He knows that’s why they’re indulging him now. Even if their internal thoughts are annoyed, he knows that deep down each of them are hoping for something too, wishing that Edward could find his someone the way they all have.
Some of them, like Rosalie, have doubts about James. Edward does, too. But others, like Alice and Emmett, think that Edward’s too cautious and too slow, that he should hurry and make a move on the wizard. Edward may not be able to read James’s mind, but even he knows that is a bad idea. James is skittish and quick to anger. He doesn’t want anyone getting close to him, that much is clear. So Edward will have to work hard to do so. Just to see. Just in case there really is something.
James’s motorbike can be heard across town and Edward waits for him as the bell rings for class and the late students rush inside. He waits patiently, frozen, until James pulls into the parking lot, five minutes late just as scheduled. He looks unimpressed to see Edward as he rips his helmet off and glares at him across the lot.
“What are you doing?” James mutters, not bothering to raise his voice. Edward crosses the parking lot in a flash and stops at James’s side, something giddy building in him.
“I was waiting for you, obviously.”
“Why?” James drawls, swinging his leg over his bike.
Edward takes a moment to think it through. He can’t say that he’s here to see if Alice’s visions have any merit, because James has made it abundantly clear how he feels about Alice’s visions. Edward could say that he wants to be friends, but he doesn’t want to label himself as something innocuous when he is really looking for possibilities that there could be something more. He especially shouldn’t call himself a friend when he’s possibly interested in that something more. Even if the likelihood is low.
Just two days ago that thought sent Edward into an emotional spiral—the fact that he was, or could be, interested in a male—but now it feels a rather idiotic thing to be stressed about. He’s simply testing the waters and if it turns out true then, really, what difference is it to his life? Either way, he’s been lonely for a century. A male partner might be just what he’s been waiting for his entire existence, without even knowing it.
Edward takes long enough to think of his reply that James sighs heavily, like a grandfather ladened with too many burdens, and lights a cigarette.
“I want to get to know you,” Edward eventually decides on.
“No, you don’t,” James responds, smoke floating from between his lips up to Edward.
“I do.”
“I’m boring.”
“I can assure you, you’re anything but.”
“I just want to be left alone.”
“You talk to the humans just fine,” Edward says, a sulk slightly echoing in his tone that he fights to reign in. “Why can’t we also talk?”
“They don’t wait outside my house or in the car park to ambush me.”
Edward nods his head. “Sorry.” He doesn’t sound very sorry. He doesn’t even feel very sorry. He looks for an excuse. “It’s my vampire side.”
That manages to drag a small chuckle from James, cigarette dangling lightly in his calloused fingers. Edward wants to ask why his hands are like that. Maybe it’s something to do with magic? It would make sense actually, the placement. If someone did wave a magic wand around enough, surely they would develop callouses from where it rests in their hand. But Edward has never seen James with a wand and magic doesn’t seem to need one according to James’s demonstrations.
“As opposed to what? Your human side?” James asks.
“I just like watching.”
“You can’t even read my mind. What good is it to watch?”
“You’re interesting.”
James looks up at Edward, meeting his eyes for the first time the whole conversation. Edward enjoys seeing the green up close. It’s rather shocking. Brighter than he thought, but muted, as if shining through a pair of coloured contact lenses, even though James isn’t wearing any. The thick lenses of his glasses warp his eyes so they look a little bigger than they should be, but Edward finds it endearing not silly.
James furrows his eyebrows. He watches for a minute before glancing away and scuffing his cigarette out on the tarmac. He waves his hand and it disappears. Maybe he always does that when people aren’t looking—simply removes his litter with magic. Edward didn’t notice last time if the cigarettes he stamped out were left behind or if they disappeared. He adds it to the list of things to find out about James.
“Let’s go. We’re late,” James says, jerking his head to the school and looping his backpack over his shoulder. James stalks off speedily as if he could walk fast enough to leave Edward behind. Edward grins to himself and flits to James’s side, following him into the building.
———
Edward doesn’t have any classes with James, so he makes it a personal mission to visit the office after school and organise transferring into as many as he can and hope James doesn’t kill him for it later. In the meantime, he takes whatever James will allow him, which seems to be accompanying him to his class rooms and following him in the hallways in between.
“What is your favourite colour?” He asks as James swaps a book in his locker.
“Red,” James says, but his heart stutters and Edward is left to wonder if it’s a lie because he has no other way to tell.
“Do you have siblings?” He asks as James exits his classroom with Bella Swan behind him, who watches their exchange intently.
Her mind is worse than Charlie’s, whose is dense and foggy, hard to sense anything from. It’s different even to how it feels with James. With James, there’s a wall blocking him from thoughts he knows exist. With her, it’s like nothing. Just an empty shell with no thoughts.
Maybe if Edward had met her a week earlier, he would have been intrigued beyond a simple acknowledgement of her unusual mind. Maybe he would have found himself perched outside her house attempting to figure her out instead. But he didn’t, and he won’t. James is much more interesting, someone who calls to him on a different level. Someone who Alice has seen him with.
“No,” James replies curtly, shuffling down the hallway and into his next classroom. Bella follows hot on his heels with eyes darting back to look at Edward.
When did they become friends?, someone thinks and Edward has to stop himself from appearing too giddy at the prospect that James and him seem like friends.
“What is your favourite food?” He asks as James dumps his books in his locker and slams the door closed.
“Seriously? Enough with the twenty questions.”
“I just want to understand.”
“Do you see anybody else harassing others with questions? Just find out the normal way, like everybody else.”
James crosses his arms. Edward wonders what classifies as the normal way if not asking. He never usually has to ask to know. His family does, but they simply ask what they are curious about. It comes to Edward’s attention that perhaps he’s lost more of his human self than he was aware. What do humans consider a normal way to find out information?
James seems to read these thoughts on Edward’s face and he lets out a slow, suffering sigh, a noise Edward has become increasingly familiar with when in James’s presence.
“Slowly. Over time. You know, naturally.”
Edward nods. “Sure. Over time.” He likes how that sounds. It implies they’ll remain in contact for a while. Long enough to find out information slowly, over time. “Alice wants to know if you’ll sit with us,” he continues, gesturing to behind him where Alice stands waving at the opposite end of the hallway.
“For lunch?” James looks confused. “But you don’t even…” he trails off and shakes his head. “Sorry. I told Bella I’d sit with her.”
Edward plays up his sad expression in the hopes it kindles some guilty response from James. It seems to work, because he rolls his eyes and invites them to join his table. Although, Edward isn’t sure that’s the outcome he was hoping for and James seems to be betting on Edward not wanting to sit with the humans, if the small grin and glint in his eye is anything to go by. I won’t join him, but you should, Alice thinks from down the hall.
“I’ll join you.”
James’s face drops imperceptibly and he lets out a dry laugh. “You don’t give up, do you?”
Edward simply smiles back and follows James to the cafeteria. His siblings sit in their usual spot across the hall and they all seem rather entertained watching Edward trail behind James. Apart from Rosalie, who sends him a glare and some rather choice words in her mind.
The thing is, Edward already knows how she feels about James, and it’s truly nothing but hope. Hope that James might actually be the one for Edward. The one who can stop him from acting like an “emo depressed teenager”. She also holds onto the hope that James can teach her to block her mind from Edward’s interference. So, she can swear at Edward and curse him for being an idiot by engaging with the wizard, but he knows that she also secretly hopes that it goes well. Maybe that’s why she curses him out so much—because she knows that he knows.
“Uh, hey guys,” James says awkwardly as he stops at the rather packed table where he usually has lunch. “I invited Edward to sit with us today. If that’s okay?”
Mike Newton is glaring at Edward already and his thoughts make his displeasure clear. Jessica Stanley seems more than happy at his arrival, so he makes a mental note to avoid sitting near her. He can already tell she’ll be touchy and talkative and, really, he’s only here to be near James.
“Of course that’s okay. Shuffle down guys,” Angela Weber says, shoving Eric Yorkie down. Bella stares at Edward as she shuffles down as well, squishing her side against Angela.
James sits next to Bella and eventually looks up at Edward with a raised eyebrows, gesturing to the small sliver of bench next to him. Edward sits himself down, carefully avoiding touching James. Even if James knows that he’s a vampire, he can’t imagine it is pleasant for a human to touch his skin. Wizard or not, James must feel the chill of Edward’s thigh through his jeans.
“Who’d have thought that the great Edward Cullen would ever grace our presence?” Mike Newton says, his face crumpled up as he leans back, arms crossed.
“Oh, shut up, Mike,” Jessica says with a roll of her eyes. She turns quickly to Edward and smiles with a flirty bash of her long eyelashes. “Edward! It’s so nice you’re here. I’m a little surprised, of course, since you never wanted to sit here when I invited you…”
Bella snorts from beside James and she receives a glare for it. Edward decides to be honest.
“I’m only here for James.”
James’s elbow jerks straight into Edward’s ribcage and he wonders if that hurt. His ribcage is not soft, by any means. It was a rather harsh jab too. Still, Edward does understand the subtleties of human behaviour and knows that such a jab means he should shut up, or perhaps shouldn’t have said it in the first place. He doesn’t mind. Edward doesn’t want these humans getting the wrong idea—he is really not interested in mingling with them and, according to their thoughts, many of them are hoping to use this as an opportunity to get closer to the Cullens. Which his siblings would definitely not appreciate.
“What he means is that he’s here because I asked him if he wanted to join us,” James explains, before he artfully changes the subject, asking Angela what book she’s reading.
“Oh! Lord of the Rings. It’s for literature class,” she says.
A classic novel. Not Edward’s favourite—too many logic fails and riddled with stark social conservatism that reminds Edward too much of his own childhood. Still, he’s read it many times, if only to perhaps perceive it with newer, modern views. If anything, his adjusting views only make him dislike it more.
“What’s that?” James asks.
The table stops for a moment.
“You don’t know Lord of the Rings?” Jessica laughs. “Isn’t it literally a British book?”
Edward watches James to see what he says. His heart rate is about the same apart from a small jump. Perhaps because he slipped up, said something he shouldn’t have. James, a wizard, hasn’t heard of Lord of the Rings. Why? How? One would have to live on a different planet to not have heard about it, especially after the movie was released. The series is rather old now, each a cult classic in its own right.
“Oh, uh,” James pauses for a second too long, and Bella jumps to his rescue. A pattern of behaviour they seem to have developed since her arrival. A co-dependency on protecting each other’s peace almost. Edward doesn’t like it, even if James seems relieved by her jumping in.
“You know, that reminds me of a book series my friend used to talk about. No one ever knew it, but he always swore it was super famous,” Bella says, her expression morphing into a frown. She stabs the bell pepper on her plate a bit too hard. Edward wishes he could know what she’s thinking, but instead he gets a general sense of sadness from the fog in her mind.
Angela seemingly takes pity on Bella and the awkward silence that engulfs the table, asking, “What series was it? I’ve read a lot, so maybe I’ve heard of it.”
Bella crunches on her bell pepper with a bit of gusto and shrugs. “He read it when we were in elementary school. Some children’s book series. Harry Potter’s Adventures or something,” she says.
Angela frowns and says she hasn’t heard of it before and whips out her phone, searching for it online. But Edward doesn’t focus on her. He’s not truly focused anywhere, because he’s pulled in too many directions—the first, and strongest, is to James and his reaction to the book title. He seizes up, hand clenched so tightly around his spoon that Edward can see it bending and can feel the crackling of his magic in the air. James’s heart stops and starts again, much too fast, blood whooshing around his body. Edward can taste the acrid scent of stress and fear permeating the air, leeching from James.
Apart from James, Edward is also pulled to Alice, straight to her mind and the new visions bombarding her. Ones of James standing up and yelling some sort of spell. A memory wipe, it seems, with the way he sits back down and pretends it never happens and the table continues talking about Lord of the Rings as if Bella never spoke.
Another vision starts, of the cafeteria exploding, glass shattering, benches flying across the room, dozens of humans sprawled on the floor in pain.
Another, of James disappearing from the seat, completely evaporating and leaving the entire school confused.
And one more, a dark one, of James calmly walking from the room and finding his way to his motorbike, speeding it home only to crash it into a tree. Not on a bend or a turn, but from a straight road, after jerking the motorbike to the side as if to purposely curl it around the trees.
“It’s not even online!” Angela wails. “Are you sure that’s what it was called?”
Bella shrugs again, her eyes sliding over to James as he begins standing up. “I think so—hey, are you okay?”
“Yeah, yeah I’m okay,” James mutters slipping his bag over his shoulder. “Sorry. Need some air.”
James walks from the cafeteria slowly, calmly and Edward stands, ignoring the table of humans asking questions and blocking their thoughts from distracting him. His untouched tray of food stays on the table next to James’s half eaten one.
“Hey! Edward! Wait!” Bella calls but Edward pretends he can’t hear her, stalking from the cafeteria and running to the parking lot, hoping he can catch James before he leaves.