Waxing Crescent (Alice Cullen x Bella Swan)

Chapter 6 - Faux Vegetarian

Alice walked towards me slowly, as if she could sense the fragility bubbling under the surface. Her face was unreadable - a swirling mixture of shame and trepidation.

"Bella, you must not be afraid. I should have told you sooner but you have an uncanny knack for distraction," She huffed, a strained smile piercing through, "I have never... drank... from a human, if that is what you are truly asking? All the days of my immortal life I have abstained."

She stalled at the foot of my bed, running her fingers over my covers, "I cannot tell you whether or not this is true for my mortal life. For all I know, I could have been some psychopathic fiend, driven to merciless acts of cannibalism," She let out a short, unamused laugh, "But, what I can tell you - here and now - is that you are safe. Everyone in Forks is safe. Every human being that I will ever meet will always be safe."

"What about the rest of your family?" I quipped, still unconvinced. For Alice, it seemed only natural that she wouldn't harm a human.

Kindness, joy, and stereotypical displays of bohemian freedom, typically do not go hand in hand with blood baths. As for brooding, icy aloofness, and manic pitch-black glares?

Maybe she was guiltless, but I wasn't so sure about the rest of her siblings. Well. Sibling.

"Them too, Bella. We are-. Okay, it is a bit of a misnomer - an inside joke - but it is the best way to explain it. We are vegetarians."

"Vegetarians?" I raised my brow questioningly, "What? You all eat tofu?"

"We only drink from animals," She grinned sheepishly, rubbing the back of her neck, "Carlisle showed us all another way. When I was born into this life, the very first vision I had-..." 

She coughed her words back, looking down at her feet before she continued. 

"-Aside from you... Was of him. How one day he would be my Father and I would become a part of something more. The Cullen family. I always knew what I would become. So, I spent the years I lived alone waiting for them. Preparing myself for that very future. This diet is all I have ever known. It is what my family believes in. It is what I believe in."

She offered a tentative smile, "Human life is precious and it should never be wasted, especially by moral creatures like ourselves."

"Vampirism and morality doesn't exactly go together in the movies," I grumbled, pressing deeper into my pillows.

"No, but we are not in a movie, Bella," She took a few more steps closer, slinking under the covers and down next to me. The temptation apparently too much for her to resist.

I nuzzled closer, ignoring the keen chill of her skin. There were worse ways to die, I figured; Frostbite in exchange for Alice wrapped around me was incredibly great value.

"You're so soft yet so hard. You feel as hard and cold as granite, yet delicate as silk," I muttered, partially to myself as I ran my hands over the length of her torso, resting them on her waist before she shifted down and tucked her head under my chin.

I pressed my fingers into the soft skin of her exposed arms, fascinated by the rigid solidity I found dwelling beneath the initial suppleness.

"One of the many perks of undeath," She laughed half-heartedly, "On one side of the coin, we can walk away unharmed from a bus crash. On the other? We feel like cold lifeless statues. It is not so appealing, is it?"

"I wouldn't say that," I whispered into her hair, inhaling her unique floral scent, "It's just different. We like different, remember?"

I could feel her smiling into my chest, and I enjoyed the chill that she left stinging through the cotton of my top.