Dreams and dust

AN: Photo prompt 26 from the truly anon twific contest of 2012 and the 19th I have written. It was a B&W shot of a blond woman sitting on some cobblestone stairs. She is looking back over her shoulder as a dark haired man is walking away. Yes, I am still writing one shots for that set of photo prompts. I am challenging myself to write a one shot for all the prompts. Lol.

First off I thought that they had had an argument but then I thought what if he was someone she recognised and it just took her a little time to have the memory click into place. The most famous blond in the books is Rosalie and he looked a bit like Sam to me. And then I was off. But it did go a little sad.

Disclaimer: the characters and all recognisable situations belong to Stephenie Meyer - this is a work of fan fiction, except for the legends and histories of the Quileute and that, of course, belong to them. I pay my respects to their gods.

Thanks to BanSidhe and feebes86 for betaing.

Rosalie and Emmett were on a break. They had them occasionally when the immortal life got too boring and too predictable. A leave pass of a year or two did them the world of good. When they reunited (and they always did) each remembered what they loved about the other. They celebrated the reunion by letting Alice organise another wedding for them.

She was visiting cloudy and overcast London; the perfect place for vampires. The sun rarely broke through the clouds. She was indulging in another vice, smoking a cigarette and sitting on the steps. She was completely relaxed and wreathed in smoke so that was why she didn't immediately react when the guy walked past her. He hurried up the steps. Jogged a little, the way fit people did without thinking. His hands shoved deep in his jacket pockets and his shoulders hunched against the weather.

He had taken maybe twenty steps past her when she flung her head around and stared at his wide back. It was a slow memory from a long time ago but she knew that scent. Wet dog.

She whistled at him exactly as if he was a dog. He ignored her. "Hey!" she called out. "I know you…"

He turned slowly and glared at her.

"Ha! I do know you." She stood brushing the street dust from her ass. "Which one are you?"

"I thought you said you knew me?"

"Fine. Be like that." Suddenly, she got an image of a black wolf. A giant supernatural sized one. "Sam." She dragged the name from her memory recesses. Vampires had perfect memories but only for things they actually gave a shit about.

"Rosalie Hale," he responded, with a nod.

"Oh, you're good. Very polite."

He raised an eyebrow.

"So… what are you doing in London?" she asked.

"Seriously? You want to chat?"

"Why not?"

"I can think of a million reasons why not."

She grinned at him. "Sure, sure," she gave Jake's usual response.

It worked. He smiled. He pulled one hand out of a pocket and ran it nervously through his hair. He shrugged. "Wasting time."

She knew what that was like. The Cullens had all the time and money in the world. He'd had a partner in the past … a wife. Crap, what was her name? She delayed, while she tried to remember. Truth was, that domestic little thing was never on her radar to begin with. "It took me a little while to remember you. You know the way you see someone in the wrong place, it takes you a beat to place them, if they are out of their environment." She paused. "This is a long way away from Washington State."

"Almost far enough."

"Can I buy you a pint?"

He studied her. "Okay."

They walked to the nearest pub, a traditional old one on the corner of a cobbled street where they served warm beer in large glasses. They settled into a dark booth up the back.

He sipped his beer and studied her as she lit up another cigarette.

"I know… it won't kill me," she pre-empted.

"Is the family here, too?" he asked.

"Nope." She took a sip. "Just me."

His eyebrows rose. "What happened to… Emmett?"

"We are on a break."

He nodded.

"And you? What happened to… I'm sorry, I've forgotten her name." She wasn't sure why she apologised. She liked him; this quiet strong man. So different to Emmett who was strong but rarely quiet.

"Emily," he breathed it, slow and sad.

"Ah." She could guess. Gone. Dead. Buried. Can't keep up with the immortal. The Wolverine effect. "You miss her," she guessed.

"Yes."

She was so used to long-lived unchanging vampires it took her a minute to realise. "Wait a second," she leaned forward to get closer to him; to see his face. "You've hardly aged at all."

"Believe me, I know."

She grabbed at his hand and flipped it over. It felt too warm, and it looked unlined, with no age spots. "How?"

He shrugged. "Something to do with alphas or maybe it was because I was the first to phase. Nobody knows."

"That's… awful."

He drank his beer. "Not what I wanted."

"To outlive your children?"

"Yeah." He bit his lip.

Children were the one thing she had desperately wanted. She couldn't imagine watching them grow old. "Can you stop?"

"Phasing?" he checked.

She nodded.

He shook his head. "It doesn't make a difference. I've tried. I've tried everything."

"So you are a lone wolf?" The rest of the pack must have aged at a normal pace otherwise he would have said something about them. Even Jacob Black had eventually succumbed to old age.

He glanced around as if to check if anyone had heard her call him a wolf.

She rolled her eyes. "It's an expression."

"I suppose."

"So what are your options?"

He shrugged again. "Keep putting one foot in front of the other."

"That gets boring."

"You'd know about boredom."

"Of course. Born in 1915."

"1986. You beat me by seventy years or so."

And with a few more decades added on for them both.

They sat there in companionable silence. She had swapped drinks with him before she thought of a solution.

"I can help you," she suggested.

"Help me what?"

"Die," she mouthed at him silently and then lifted her top lip to show him her teeth.

He blinked. Then frowned. "Of course, the poisonous bite."

She nodded.

"It'd be painful," he said.

"Maybe… but it would be over and you could choose your time."

"I'll need to think about it." He picked up her glass. "Another?"

"Yes, please." She wouldn't drink it but she was enjoying their chat.

He walked to the bar to buy two more pints. She studied his ass. He had taken the jacket off inside the warm pub and he still looked pretty good and for once, didn't have his shirt off. That she did remember. The Quileute wolf pack members went around half naked all the time. It was awesome and as an added bonus, it had driven Edward nuts. Holding Sam's hand made her realise just how warm his body was. Still much warmer than a human.

He also got a few admiring glances from other patrons.

She got a wicked thought.

When he came back he caught her eye. "What?" he asked suspiciously.

"I have a price."

"Of course you do."

She leaned across the small table and fluttered her eyelashes at him.

"Shit." He took a large gulp of his beer and half choked.

"You've never? With one like me?" she asked.

"Nope."

"Well, there you go. Tick off another one of life's experiences. Keep it interesting."

"But I was thinking of going to the zoo tomorrow," he deadpanned.

She burst into laughter.

He went back to her hotel room with her. By then, the idea had percolated, and he seemed more intrigued now, than anything else.

When the door closed, she leaned against one wall of the small entry way and he leaned against the other.

"Rules?" she asked.

"This isn't the night."

"Okay. So no biting." And maybe a chance for a second round? Nice.

"No biting," he repeated. He smiled. It looked lupine. Made a shiver travel down her spine. This could be fun.

"The venom?" he asked. "Should I put a cover on it?"

"Fucking me doesn't turn a human. I think you'll be safe."

"Good point."

"You've still got your shirt on," she pointed out.

"You, too."

She kicked her boots off, shrugged out of her jacket and started to unbutton her blouse.

"Let me," he said in a low, throaty voice.

His hands were hot. They stared at each other. His fingertips traced down her sternum. "So cold," he whispered.

His hand slipped inside her blouse and cupped her breast. He felt twice as hot as a human. She jolted a little. All her instincts were screaming. She ignored them. It added a frisson of danger to what they were doing. Icing on the cake.

Goose bumps rose on his skin as she peeled him out of his clothes. He looked fine naked. Still in great condition. She told him that appreciatively.

"I do a lot of running," he said.

"All the way to London?"

He shushed her and tugged her towards the bed. They fell onto it together. Fire and ice was trite, but appropriate.

"You feel so different," he commented. "Hard… and yet… not."

He explored her body. Nibbled at her breasts, and licked down her stomach. He got an odd look on his face.

"What?" she asked.

"A tiny trace of venom."

"It must come from the pores in my skin. Are you okay?" She wasn't sure when she had started to worry about him hurting himself.

"Yes." He gave her that smile again; the wolfy one.

She nearly screamed when his incredibly hot mouth sealed over her vulva. That tongue? Good lord. She had never felt anything like it. Never. He reached places she was sure no tongue had ever reached before. That she could remember.

She cried out when he sank inside her. "Sam!" she shrieked his name. It was fire. He came fast; the contrast was too much for him. But he recovered quickly and then he was a man possessed. He wanted her again and again. They came together in every way they could think of, and being more than a century old, they could think of a lot of ways.

He burnt her up until she was a shell of herself. Ashes.

They showered together. She knelt in front of him. They had done everything except that. Fangs plus oral was beyond dangerous. One scrape and he would be dead.

She looked up at him. Her hands wrapped around him and her eyes bright. "Do you trust me?" she asked.

"Yes." Unhesitant.

She didn't need to breathe. He had forgotten that, but when he worked it out, he shoved her head down. He took the risk; she didn't scrape him but she did suck the life out of him. He swore at how hard she sucked.

"I need to sleep," he said to her.

It was her hotel room, so she stayed. Normally she bailed out, but tonight oddly, she felt like sleeping, too. She closed her eyes and for the first time since Carlisle had scooped her shattered body up in the street, she had a dream.

When he woke and ordered half the room service menu he complained that his back hurt. It was only later that she understood the significance of that. He hadn't completely healed the scratches she put on him.

He ate and she lay in the bed and watched him eat.

"How did you get turned?" he asked.

"I was gang raped and almost beaten to death. Carlisle found me and 'saved' me. I was meant to be Edward's mate."

"He didn't ask first?"

"No." Sam's gods hadn't asked him either. "And my vampire gift is being pretty because that was all I cared about as a human. Beauty is such a lame vampire gift," she told him. "I didn't get mind reading or super shield status."

"You are beautiful," he said through a mouthful of chicken.

"Thank you."

They went to the zoo together.

Each day he found a new thing he needed to do or see and each day she let him put it off. His bite-day she had called it jokingly, and it stuck. She let him do it because she had her dreams back. A life without dreams had been no kind of life at all. It took them some time to understand that they were addicted to each other. She was slowly killing him through tiny doses of vampire venom and he, through some aberration of his unusual werewolf genetics was slowly humanising her. The more she drank him down, the more human she became.

She found herself telling Emmett that she wasn't ready to come back. She also knew that Carlisle wanted to study them and that she would not agree to.

They ran out of things to do and see in England so they went to other countries. The week when they both spent time in bed with the flu, they realised how serious it was. They were growing old together. It was a gift that neither had ever expected.

Emmett tracked her down and saw that she was no longer his beautiful Rosalie angel. He asked her if this was what she wanted and she said it was. He shook hands with Sam, kissed her goodbye and left.

They drew up a bucket list and when they had ticked off everything, it was bite-day.

By then, they had wrinkles, liver spots on their hands, aching knees and a tendency to piss themselves when they sneezed and they were gloriously happy.

They chose a private island in the Mediterranean that they rented for six months. They lay on the beach at low tide. She still had a tendency to glimmer under direct sunlight, but the island was private and no one would see them. The supply boat wouldn't be back for weeks. They had set the runabout adrift.

"Samuel."

"Rosalie."

"Are you ready?"

"Yes."

"Happy bite-day." She lovingly sank her fangs into his arm. The fatal dose of venom coursed through his body.

He kissed her and then waited for the first convulsions. "Happy bite-day to you, too," he said as he lovingly decapitated her. It wasn't hard for an old wolf; her previously hard marble skin was more fragile these days. Her body crumbled into dust and as the venom shattered his cell walls, he disintegrated into blood and small pieces of bone.

The tide came in and washed the evidence away.

The runabout was found and it was presumed that the old couple had a boating accident. Their bodies were never found.