ghostsighs | fic: twilight - at the crossroads i am standing (edward/jacob)

title. at the crossroads i am standing
fandom/pairing. twilight / edward/jacob
rating. pg
summary. He remained sitting, even when a fist pounded into the wall, a hole left behind, so much smaller than the one in both their chests.
notes. Dedicated to

pocketsun, as all my E/J fics are. She's my fixer, my Jacob and my safety pin. Title from Sarah McLachlan's Hold On. Originally posted here.

“We’re like animals,” he’d said, “just like animals.”

Words spoken and never retracted, etching into every part of them, cascading through the space they never allowed until this moment.

“Give me a reason to stay. Promise me something. Anything.”

Every single word like teeth sinking into his skin. He could feel the bite, feel the venom coating the malicious intent. His eyes fell, focusing on the wood floors that held more memories than he wished.

“I can’t love you,” were the words that finally slipped between his parted lips, weighing heavy in the air around them, hanging like dust, stabbing at the man before him but he couldn’t let himself care. No, not now. Anytime but now.

“There’s a difference between can’t and won’t, Edward.”

Again, again he was reduced to hands wringing, eyelids refusing to stay closed, thoughts he didn't want inside his own mind. He couldn't hear this, he couldn't.

It was difficult to break a heart, even worse to hear the sound of it breaking.

Hands at his jaw, forcing him to look into warm brown eyes he never wanted to see like this: pain building behind them and threatening to break through.

“Tell me you don’t. Say it. I want to hear you fucking say it.”

Focus on anything else. Don’t let the hands you wanted on your skin for ages before they were break you. The eyes you could read like your favorite book, pretend they are anyone else’s. Do not admit what you feel, not even to yourself.

Internal monologues were always so shallow.

This moment was in slow motion and he grasped at straws, begging for silence, begging for the steady thump of a heart he knew better than any other to finally hush, quiet. Oh, just be still.

No, no, no. The warmth was gone, the skin he could still taste wasn't near his own and no, no, no it was over. His eyes searching a room they had shared too many times before. Edward could see his hands reaching out, taking back his silence and his cowering eyes, but it was all a wish, an illusion.

“If I’m hurt, it is my own fault. I put too much faith in you, Edward. I let myself believe that I wasn’t alone in how I felt.”

This was now a slasher movie, with Jacob brandishing a knife and cutting him into pieces like the worst displays of cruel inevitable humor.

“I never promised I would love you.”

Words he immediately regretted and the way Jacob’s aching still-beating heart jumped, made his skin crawl in a way he’d never felt. He remained sitting, even when a fist pounded into the wall, a hole left behind, so much smaller than the one in both their chests.

“You never promised me anything, Edward. And I let you..” hesitation, the worse telltale sign, “I let you get away with never giving anything.”

The same brown eyes were boring into him again and he could hear the words in his head before Jacob ever spoke them, hearing them twice. Knowing he deserved their slices at least five times more.

“It wasn’t enough to break my heart by stealing her, you had to do it all over again with your own brand of poison.”

He stammered his words, not sounding like the college-educated man he knew he was. “I love her. I’ll always love her. Just as I’ll never love you.”

Edward wondered if Jacob could tell he was lying.