Chapter 5: Origins of the Legendary Couple

September 16th, 2005 - 1 Week After The Hallway Altercation

I was sitting in the lunch room on this fateful day.

...Alright, that was a bit dramatic, but this whole "Plan" The Cullen Girls created had taken off to new heights, and "Dramatic" didn't do it justice.

Last night, Alice, Janet, Emily, Esme, and even the ever-illusive Elenore all showed me The Storyboard of Alice and my public relationship they had been working on in secret for the last week. 

A. Fucking. Storyboard. 

Like, the next 3 months of Alice and my school interactions were planned out in a flow chart on a white poster board with meticulous detail and adorable little drawings of us all as chibi anime characters, courtesy of Edwin, who would help with the planning every once in a while. 

I was...overwhelmed, to say the least. 

I was also falling incredibly hard for Alice. The dramatic, passionate, spunky, adorable, and slightly insane girl was someone I could no longer live without.

1 week in, and I was already addicted. Damn pixie drug...

With that in mind, the decision to smile, compliment her, and accept the situation was a rather easy choice to make. 

So here I sat, waiting for the 2nd event to start with bated breath. 

Glancing over at the Cullen table briefly, I see Alice and Elenore smirking back at me, causing me to turn my head away quickly and fight the flood of warmth heading to my cheeks. 

My first meeting with Elenore Cullen was both anticlimactic and embarrassing as hell. 

She had been out hunting for the last week, as she apparently likes to go alone on extra hunting trips occasionally. When we all returned from school one day, she was playing piano in the living room.

Elenore stood at 5'10" with long brunette hair and...golden eyes. She had the proportions of a runway model, but, honestly, that seemed to come standard for most Reds, it would seem. Still, she was a different kind of beautiful, in a much darker, mysterious, and even broody way than any of the others. She wore dark eyeshadow and lipstick, giving off a goth-queen vibe, and, honestly, if I had to pick any of the Cullens and label them as a vampire, it would be her 100% of the time.  

We were quickly introduced, and I tried to be polite in my interaction with my potential sister-in-law, but her first words to me after our initial greeting were, "God, Alice. He is almost as obsessed with you as you are with him. I'm happy for you both...Though don't you think hooking up in a high school bathroom three separate times in one day is a bit much...?"

That caused me to freeze for several seconds, and my face colored a deep red as I tried to formulate an intelligent response. One that got harder to make as Emily, Edwin, Janet, and even Alice herself started crying with how hard they were laughing. 

I mean, she wasn't wrong. Alice and my sex life started crazy and never stopped. If anything, it has only grown crazier. She had told me how new Red mates typically acted and that, were I also a Red, we would have taken off for a couple of years to...consummate our new relationship. Most of the time, this was following an official wedding. 

Our situation was a little different, and it caused Alice to hold back quite a lot. She accepted it and even assured me several times that she was enjoying us getting closer gradually instead of instantly being each other's perfect half as she was used to seeing with her other family members.

All the Cullens mirrored this view, in fact, as new experiences for immortals were to be treasured. 

Anyway, since that time, I have not really figured out how to deal with Elenore. I didn't dislike her at all...but her smirks after reading my mind made me feel very vulnerable and uncomfortable.

Alice explained that she couldn't really help it, at least not with surface thoughts, but I had the sneaking suspicion that Elenore had looked much, much deeper than that. The sadness and comradery I saw in her eyes when she looked at me sometimes caused me to squirm.

There were still several things I had not gotten around to telling Alice. Painful things that haunted me. Things I wanted to leave buried for a good while longer. 

Still, Elenore was part of my new family now, and if there was one thing Samuel Roland Raith valued, it was family above all else. That meant I would go to bat for her, and I instinctively knew she would do the same for me.

Things have slowly evolved in that direction with all of The Cullen Clan over the last week, and I only imagined that it would grow from here.

...Well, except for Ross. Ross could still be an asshole sometimes. 

But...a family. I had a family again.

That was a can of emotional worms I had no time or desire to open right now.

Back to the "Second Encounter."

I knew it was starting when I heard a commotion behind me. Turning to inspect the scene, I saw a stumbling Alice looking in my direction in panic, having just tripped over a student's backpack while carrying a full tray of drinks for her siblings. 

I watched, as if in slow motion, as the drinks launched from her tray and shot straight for me like missiles. 

Luckily, or unluckily, depending on how you looked at it, I was now a bit of a pariah at school after my encounter with her the previous week, and I was utterly alone at my table.

No less than ten different dudes from all four grades told me that they would kick my ass if I talked to Alice again, and I was pretty sure most of the female population either hated me or were desperately trying to figure out a way to get more juicy details from me about the incident. 

Not even my reputation as a 6-foot, delinquent senior could save me from the school's ire. Hell, even some teachers were giving me the cold shoulder, and that was despite me acing all of my classes!

All this to say, there was only one target in the splash zone, and he stared at the incoming disaster with dead eyes. 

*Clatter* *Splash* 

It was as if all the students in the cafeteria had suddenly become mute. Not a single word was spoken, and not a peep was heard from anyone. They all stood or sat in complete, shocked silence as they watched several different drinks drip from my body and clothes. 

Standing slowly as I brushed back my now sopping wet hair from my face, I turned to face the woman I was slowly coming to love with a scowl that could curdle milk. 

"Well, now, if it isn't the clumsy princess here to humiliate her lesser once again. Tell me, Alice, were you not getting enough attention from your fan club? Needed more pity levied on you to make yourself feel special? Or do you just have a preternatural gift for fucking me over?" I ask, derision dripping from my every word.

"S-Samuel...I...I'm sorry. I didn't mean-" Alice attempts, still showing a look of shock and devastation on her face. 

"Save it," I snap, punctuating my words by slamming my backpack onto the table and collecting the soaked textbooks I was reading. "I wouldn't want your boy toys thinking I was up to something again. Maybe you can convince one of them to help you clean this up because I sure as shit ain't gonna."

I turn to leave the cafeteria, ignoring all the dropped jaws and wide-open eyes as I pass. No one spoke. No one stopped me. But just as I was about to exit, I hear small feet sprinting towards me.

Alice grabs onto the corner of my soggy sweatshirt, and I see tears in her eyes as she says, "Samuel...I am so sorry. It was...I never meant for this to happen..."

Honestly, I think we are nailing this shit. Sure, it was overdramatic to the extreme, but she and I acted well together. 

I ignore her lips twitching up in excitement and humor as she faces away from the rest of the school, and answer her with a curt, "Whatever," as I pull my sweatshirt free from her grasp and leave the lunch room. 

The second I stepped out, the dam was finally broken, and it sounded like the entire school was suddenly shouting over each other about what they had just seen. 

I kept the scowl in place all the way to the gym, where I flagged down the head P.E. coach and Whammied him into letting me use the male shower for the next hour. 

I cleaned up quickly but chuckled to myself as I felt a certain, very naked, clumsy princess wrap her body around mine from behind. 

Our Second Encounter was deemed a triumphant success, and we celebrated it in the most depraved manner possible. 

* | * | *

October 6th, 2005 - 3 Weeks After The Cafeteria Fiasco

Surprisingly, my reputation at school seemed to do a 180 over the next few weeks. I went from a pretentious asshole to the guy being bullied by the most popular girl in school overnight. This didn't mean I was well-liked by any means, but people started leaving me alone out of pity, so I counted it as a win. 

Sure, some guys still tried to mess with me, but I managed to stop them real quick. 

Here is some free advice for anyone being bullied. Don't act big, don't be mean, don't make wild threats; instead, act like you are entirely out of your mind. Be so crazy that they won't even think to mess with you again. 

Here is an example from 2 days after the surprise rain I experienced in the lunch room:

I was minding my own damn business, as I am often wont to do, when I suddenly found myself being pushed roughly into the gym's changing room showers after P.E. and cornered by four senior guys in my class. 

"You need to apologize to Alice, or we are gonna have problems. She didn't do anything wrong, and you made her cry. You are acting like a total fucking baby, and either you grow up and make it right, or you meet us at the back of the gym after school. Your choice." Douchebag 1 says in a threatening manner while trying to look big. 

It was only slightly ruined by the fact that he was a good half a foot shorter than me and scrawny as hell; still, he had 3 other douchebags with him, and one was 6'5" and had to weigh upwards of 280 lbs—damn football jocks.

Not that I was ever in any real danger. Even if I couldn't reduce them to vegetables at will, what with all the sex I was having with a certain pixie, I was a fucking White Court Vampire. I could go toe to toe with a werewolf if I really needed to!

Well, not physically, but I could freeze and shatter their legs in seconds, so I think that still counts. They resist magic, but only if you directly affect them with magic. Freeze the air around their arms and legs to as low a temperature as possible and watch as they break themselves within seconds. It works with fire, too, but that is not my specialty.  

The point is, I wasn't scared. No, I was, in all actuality, thrilled. 

There are few things in life I love more than scaring the piss out of bullies. 

So, instead of cowering or giving in to their demands, I gave them the most demented, wide-eyed smile possible and pulled out a pair of pliers from my backpack. 

"Hehehe...You have really nice teeth, do you know that? Really, REALLY nice teeth. I like teeth. I love teeth. I have necklaces made of all the teeth I own. I collect teeth, you see...Can I have yours? Can I have your teeth!?!" I ask, my voice rising in pitch slowly until I am raving like a madman by the end. I hunch my shoulders and start shifting from foot to foot in excitement.

The boys pretending to be men stare at me in shock, completely unsure of what to do and never encountering a horror situation like this before.

Not giving them a chance to respond, I take an exaggerated step forward, raising the pair of pliers close to my eyes as I look over at the others in the group. 

"Teeth! You all have such wonderful, beautiful, delicious teeth! Please, let me have them. I can, right? I can have them? I need them. Your teeth? Your Teeth! Hehehe!"

When I take another step forward, all four of the bullies take steps back. 

"Shhh. It's okay. You don't need to be frightened. I have a can of laughing gas in the back of my car. You won't feel a thing...but not too much now...wouldn't want to kill you...not like them...but they never found the bodies...They had such beautiful teeth! Had to move. Had to run. But the teeth always call me back! HAHAHAHA!"

"You're fucking nuts! Get the fuck away from me, freak!" Douchebag 1 stumbles back as he tries to put some space between us. 

I don't let him, breaking out into a dead sprint towards their group, shouting "Teeth!!!" all the while, I chase them out of the locker room before turning back at the door to finish changing and getting ready for my next class. Before I do, however, I pop the lock on Douchebag 1's locker and deposit the pair of pliers inside. I then relock it and head on my merry way, feeling great about having successfully hunted four bullies...and possibly giving them mental scars for the rest of their lives. 

Fun times!

When I told the Cullens about The Tooth Demon of Forks High School, Elenore instantly read my mind to see it, which led to her collapsing and wheezing on the ground in laughter. 

This drew Edwin in, and he shared the memories with everyone, who all started crying with laughter. All except Ross, who looked a bit pale...It certainly wasn't because I had pulled out a new pair of pilers I bought and was sniffing them while looking directly into his eyes or anything. 

Tangent aside, it was not only the boys who treated me differently after the cafeteria debacle. The girls of the school seemed to take my pitiful display as a chance to talk with me. 

Now, I haven't mentioned this in a while, so I feel like it needs to be restated. 

I am hot.

No, that is an understatement; I am gorgeous. 

I am easily able to stand next to all the Cullens and make them look inferior - or, at least, that is my humble opinion. 

And, wouldn't you know it, eating well, getting plenty of sexercise, and not having to look over my shoulders in terror every fucking second only improved my looks!

This is all to say that, feeling they finally had a chance, many, many girls approached me to console me on my bullying situation. Hell, they were practically crawling out of the woodwork to bad-mouth Alice in every little and petty way they could just to earn my attention. 

Leading the pack of starving wolves was the Queen Bee herself: Jessica Stanley. 

Now, I am not one to say the word hate lightly, but having to hear this clueless junior girl shout my name like she was blowing an air horn every single day and having to nod along politely to her verbal diarrhea at 10,000 words per minute was really solidifying my hatred for her.

Then, there was all the shit she spewed about Alice. 

"Did you hear Alice slept with the entire football team last year? What a skank, am I right?"

"They say she wears all that makeup because she has horrible burn scars, can you believe it?"

"If I were rich like her, I wouldn't be caught dead having my brothers drive me to school. I would own a Porsche and let them eat my exhaust daily. Oh, you need a ride? Sucks to suck!"

But the worst one. The one that nearly had me killing her then and there was, "I bet that the Cullens are actually a giant sex cult. Like, they totally act all prim and proper during the day, but at night, they are just, like, banging each other left and right. What if Alice gets pregnant, and it turns out to be her dad's? Wouldn't that just be awful!? Oh my gawd!"

I had to walk away after that comment. 

Why was I putting up with all this? Why wasn't I defending her honor like I should have been?

Alice told me not to.

It was all part of the plan...For some reason? 

I don't really get it, but apparently this was important to Storyboard they put together. I needed to have all the girls attention for a future event.

I also had no intention of letting Alice know about any of the truly hurtful things Jessica and others said about her. I didn't do this because I was worried she would be hurt by them, but rather because I was a bit worried about what she would do to them.

I found that very thing out when Nosey McNoPrivacy went rooting around in my head the day after I heard that last one from Jessica. I couldn't get the stupid word vomit out my head, and it was making me a bit pissed off, even hours later. Elenore picked up on that, read my mind, gasped, and then looked at me with a kind of rage I had never seen on a woman's face before. 

She then grabbed me, all the other women of the house, including a very confused Alice, and pulled us into one of the upstairs offices. 

She said two words: "Tell them."

Lord help me; I nearly peed myself. 

Still, I was not a pushover and didn't want Alice to hear that, so I refused her. 

Which just led to Elenore telling them instead. 

Well...Yeah, I guess I should have seen that coming. 

All five Cullen women went silent for about two minutes before Alice looked at me and asked me why I didn't want to tell her. 

I explained that she and the people who saved me didn't need to hear those kinds of things. That I felt disgusted even knowing it was said in the first place and I didn't want to put that on them. 

Alice smiled, kissed me, and then promptly kicked me out of the office.

I swear to God, I saw the office room form a miasma of evil that night. I still refuse to go in there. 

The next day, Jessica had a broken arm from falling down the school stairs and was suspended for two weeks when a string of her hateful and borderline racist texts were printed and posted around the school's bulletin boards. 

I have no idea how they got those texts, but honestly, I didn't want to know. I also didn't ask who pushed her, but based on Emily's smile, she wasn't hiding it at all. 

Anyway, extreme reactions aside, people were generally nicer to me after the Lunch Room Deluge.  

This led us to today, where we were deeply entrenched in stage 3 of The Plan. 

For this scenario, Alice and I were partnered on a project for our literature class—one I had to Whammy myself into for this plan even to work.

It was not a short encounter this time, either. It would last a couple of weeks as we worked on the project, starting the same week as the
incidente en la cafetería. On top of that, we had to interact in the library every day and even sit next to each other. 

We were thrilled internally, and I am half convinced that Alice put this in the Storyboard simply because she wanted to spend more time with me at school, but we both had parts to play externally. 

Alice was playing the regretful girl who was trying desperately to make things right with me after what happened in the lunch room, while I was the "Would you just leave me alone already!?!" guy. 

In the first week, our interactions were awkward and filled with extremely long and intense pauses. She apologized to me once or twice a day, and then would apologize for apologizing again. For my part, I would ignore her or grunt out one-word answers while working on or reading something. 

In the second week, I finally broke my silent streak and told her, "Jesus, Alice. Just drop it already! I forgive you, alright? Can we fucking move on, please?" This earned me a shocked, small smile from her, and our interactions were just a tad friendlier after that, with me greeting her and even talking to her in full sentences a few times. 

By week 3, we had become noticeably closer. I still had to act a bit snippy, but that was apparently part of my charm...or so I was told. Alice, on the other hand, started making nice gestures and comments about me. About how I listened to everyone even if I didn't want to. How, even though I was bullied because of her, I never once resorted to violence. How I maintained my grades even when the teachers treated me unfairly. 

This was not said for my benefit, obviously, but rather for the benefit of the 20+ students who watched us like they were enjoying a soap opera every day. 

I swear I even saw one girl sneak popcorn in the library several times. 

Unbeknownst to these watchers, Alice and I would often hold hands under the table, hide behind bookshelves to make out, or...well, we did other things that are better left unsaid so as to not offend the brilliant author's work we did them on top of. 

Today was supposed to be the climax of the event. Something that not a single person expected up to this point. It was a romantic moment that was three weeks in the making and would ensure different kinds of rumors about us started to spread. 

The day proceeded as normal until Alice got up to grab a book for our project from the top of an old wooden shelf near the front of the library. We had actually cased the library for one such book for the better part of a week before finally just planting it there out of desperation. Today was the final preparation day before the project presentations, after all.   

With the book misplaced and the girl in place, Alice began an absolutely adorable attempt at  reaching it. Jumping up and down and grunting out curses each time she failed. I watched her closely for a minute out of the corner of my eye until one guy got brave and got up to help her. 

I slam my hands on the desk, ignoring the quiet sanctity of the library, and the guy who just casually got up casually sits down when half the class suddenly glares at him.

Shaking my head and walking up to the pixie, I demand, "Alice, what the hell are you doing?"

Alice freezes, and turns to me slowly, a bashful look on her face.

"I...uh...need the book up there. Someone put it in the wrong place..." She answers quietly. 

"And you couldn't have grabbed it from the correct shelf? Shouldn't there be, like, ten copies there?" I answer with a roll of my eyes. 

"They were all gone!" She protests with an indignant pout. 

"Fine, fine. So you need this one, right?" I point to the green hardcover textbook, to which she nods. 

Smirking at her, I step forward until she is nearly pinned to the bookshelf facing me. I keep direct eye contact with her as I slowly reach up and grab the book. 

I then bring it down and lightly tap it on the top of her head before leaning down a little and saying, "Next time, how about you just ask me? Here you go, princess."

I chuckle at her wide-eyed, innocent expression, knowing she only uses it in these situations...or in the bedroom. 

Having succeeded in my goal, I spin around and return to my seat like nothing happened, ignoring the near-dead silence in the library and the girl who had her head lowered while she held the book close to her chest. 

The moment stretches for a second longer before Alice looks up at me with a clearly bothered and flustered expression. Stomping her way over, she says, "You should be nicer to me. A-And don't call me princess!"

"I thought I was being nice," I answer lazily, not looking up from the book I was reading. 

"Well...yes. I suppose you were nice today...but you should be nicer to me all the time, not just today!" she demands. Then, seemingly realizing what she just said, Alice buries her face in her arms on the desk beside me. 

I look at her dramatic actions and ask, "What's wrong now?"

"Nothing." She answers from within her arms. 

"It's clearly not nothing," I say with a sigh.

"I said it was nothing!" She reiterates.

Shrugging, I drawl, "Whatever you say, princess."

Alice growls from her hiding place and pokes her head up from her arms to glare at me, but I ignore her entirely.

I was about to go back to reading when I realized that every single person in the library was looking over at us with rapt attention. 

Usually, we ignore this, but today, I needed to direct it a bit more.

"What are you all looking at? Don't we have a project due tomorrow?"

This gets them working again and wraps up the Third Event. However, there is no rest for the weary, as the Fourth Event starts tomorrow.

Heading back to the Cullen residence in my car, - Alice started running ahead about a mile after school so I could pick her up and drive us home together every day - Alice and I laughed and talked about how funny today's event climax was. 

"Did you see their faces after you got up real close?" She giggles, wrapping both her hands around my non-driving one.

"I am pretty sure some of them nearly fell out of their seats," I chuckle. 

"And the way you maintained eye contact the whole time...Urg! We need to get home quickly!" Alice whines,

"I still don't get how you can act so naturally, Alice. You make it all look so natural. You totally should be an actress. Want me to be your manager and Whammy everyone in ignoring you date of birth?" I answer back with a genuine smile and a laugh. 

"Ha! I am having too much fun right now to even explore that thought. For as boring as it can be sometimes, repeating school really isn't that bad. It is better than working, at the very least. Besides, it is a ton of fun acting with you, Sammy. I haven't had this much fun in...well, in ever!" she says with a warm, loving smile.

"Me either, Alice. The way you make every day we spend together fun and special...the way your smile heals my broken heart and soul...the way you make me happy and proud that I survived this long...That every moment of suffering was worth it, just to have met you...They are the reasons I fell in love with you, Alice, and they are the reasons I will never doubt my love for you."

The car was suddenly deathly silent. 

I tentatively look over at her, seeing tears spilling down her cheeks as she stares at me in open-mouthed shock. 

"Y-You said it..." she whispers, fragile as procelyn. 

"I did. I love you, Alice, and I will not run from it or you any longer. I am ready to love you and be loved in return. You are stuck with me forever, whether you like it or not." I answer just as quietly but end mine with a self-derisive chuckle. 

"Sammy, pull the car over now," Alice orders.

"We are not doing it in the forest, Alice," I say with a roll of my eyes. 

"Pull the fucking car over right now, Samuel!" She demands in a much louder voice. 

I do so, with a few more grumbles about pine needles poking my ass, but the second I stop the car, Alice is gone from her seat and ripping the door open to my shitty car to pull me out and into a tight, nearly bone-breaking hug.

"You will never be alone again, Sammy. You will never have to run again...or if you do, I will be there running with you. You are my mate, my everything, and I love you so much that is physically hurts. I will never let them get you. I would sooner sacrifice the entire world than let them have you. You are safe with me, with our family, and you are both wanted and needed here. You matter, Sammy. Your life matters, and you are worth so much more than you can ever imagine." 

I...

Well, shit.

What the hell do I even say to that?

Am...Am I crying?

We both are.

...

This feels nice.

Alice and I spent over an hour hugging each other and crying together on the side of the road, professing our feelings repeatedly and laughing over how silly and dramatic we were both being. 

'What the hell has this woman done to me...' I wondered as we drove back home, hands interlocked and all smiles. 

Whatever it was, I wanted more.