Work Text:
The anguish of the earth absolves our eyes
Till beauty shines in all that we can see.
-- "Absolution," Siegfried Sassoon
---
He's not 21 yet, but it doesn't matter. No one cards him anymore, not since he passed 6'5" and is as big as a pro football player. Jacob isn't sure if it's because they believe he's of-age or if they're afraid what he'll do if they don't serve him.
He's figured out by now that his werewolf constitution metabolizes beer too fast to get drunk, so whiskey is his drink of choice. The devil in a bottle, the downfall of far too many of his people--including his Aunt Ruth--he knows what it can do. Still, Bella Swan's memory drives him to it.
The bottle is near to half-gone when he hears her laugh. No, he catches himself, not Bella's laugh, but close. Close enough that he has too look. Three young women sit in a booth, nursing their own bottles of beer. Two look genuinely happy; the third, the one who'd laughed, looks as if she's doing it for their sake.
She looks like Bella looked, the first time she came to his garage.
In between shots, Jacob can't help but watch her. She's tall, almost six feet, but for all that looks like a lost child. Her blonde hair has slightly darker roots growing out, and her curves are in all the right places. He knows the instant she catches him. Their eyes meet, two lost souls looking for something real in all the wrong places. She gives him a shy smile, and he looks away.
The bottle is close to empty when he smells her approach. Her scent is clean, a feminine combination of floral soap and vanilla, with just a hint of the beer she's been drinking all night. She pulls out the stool next to him and settles in with that same nervous smile. "I'm Annie," she offers. "My friends wanted to go to some lame dance club, and I--." She trails off and looks down at the bar. "I didn't," she whispers.
Jacob wants to wrap his arm around her and tell her it would be all right. Instead, he just offers her his name and a shot of whiskey.
An hour later he has her pressed against the wall of her living room, kissing and licking every inch of skin he can reach. She's moaning loudly, obviously more sure of this than anything else the entire evening. They end up on her couch, then her bed, a tangle of limbs and whispered demands. He takes her face-to-face, her long legs wrapped around his hips and her hands clinging to the headboard for dear life. He slams into her, barely conscious of his strength, but she doesn't seem to care, thrusting her hips back at him with equal ferocity. Her eyes are squeezed shut and she's gnawing at her lower lip like she's starving. Jacob feels his orgasm building and leans in, kissing her roughly as he tweaks her clit.
Then she's coming and screaming, and god she's screaming so loud her neighbors must hear and he's coming and he doesn't even care that he just met her because she feels so good, so hot and tight, just like he thinks Bella would feel if she would ever forget the leech and come home to him.
He collapses on top of her, sweat dripping off both of them, his face pillowed in the crook of her neck. He can't bring himself to move yet, just reveling in the smell of woman and sex. He nips her neck and she laughs breathlessly, pushing at his significant weight. He rolls onto his side and looks at her, exploring her sex-soaked skin with his fingers.
"Do I look like her?" Her whisper startles him, and he drags his gaze up to her face. There is no accusation there, just honest curiosity.
Still, he hesitates. "Not really. You sound like her. And you look like she looked when I first met her." He gives her a half-hearted grin. "Lost."
She smiles sadly. "You look like him, but he isn't so big." She sits up and hangs her legs over the side of the bed, eyes finding a closet Jacob hadn't noticed before. The door is open, and it's half empty. He follows her to the edge of the mattress, pulling her back between his legs and wrapping his arms around her. He drops a gentle kiss on the top of her head and holds her as she cries.
It isn't absolution, but it'll do for now.