Lightning

Prologue

New Jersey, 1931

There sat a dead man in the alleyway. Two, equally disgusting bite marks leaked blood all over the man's upper chest. It stained his heavy winter jacket. No one noticed him hidden in the shadows that night but he'd be found by morning when a young mother went to take out her trash.

Not even a few yards away, two figures sat on the edge of a dock, red eyed and satisfied with the kill of another disturbed member of society, a murderer. The one, the shorter of the two, lit a cigarette and puffed smoke into the air, being sure not to inhale any of it. He turned to his bronze haired companion, who lacked conversation that night.

"You seem distant. You alright?"

"I'm not feeling like myself." He noticed the smoke and plucked the cigarette from the man's fingers, putting it out in the worn wood. "You should stop smoking these, you'll get addicted to them, Thomas."

"Christ, we're vampires. What's a little smoke gonna do? Cigarettes are on the rage anyways."

The bronze haired one rolled his eyes. "Give it fifty years, it'll be all over the news that they are bad for your lungs, ingesting all that smoke."

"Until they prove anything, I'm not gonna stop," smiled the brown haired man, pulling another cigarette from his pocket, lighting it with a lighter he stole from a previous victim.

Edward Masen-Cullen knew he was powerless to stop him. "Promise me if they do you'll stop," he sighed.

"I swear it," mumbled Thomas, and raised his hand in vows. "But, really, you don't seem right tonight. What's going on with you, Ed?"

"I don't care for this life. I thought using my gift to track killers would satisfy my guilt but I just can't shake off the feeling that I'm doing something wrong" he said.

"What are you gonna do about it? You've been doing this for, what, four years now? I've been doing it for thirty," Thomas commented.

"Four years or thirty, what does it matter, Tommy? Neither of us are happy like this," Edward replied. "Look, I have a doctor and his wife, both vampires that would love to see me. I'm sure they'd take you in."

"What's so special about them?"

Edward smiled, thinking on Carlisle and Esme like a dream that he longed to return too. "They live on diet of animals. Not humans."

"Not humans? Christ, Edward, do they know what they are missing?" Thomas laughed.

"Carlisle's never craved human blood."

Thomas whistled, making Edward chuckle. Edward stood and hauled Thomas to his feet. They began walking down the back streets of Jersey arm in arm.

"All I ask is that you come with me. Try the diet at least. If you don't enjoy it, you don't have to do it," Edward said with reluctance. He didn't want Tommy to leave him.

"I don't think they'd appreciate a hellion like me," came the soft Jersey accent.

"Even the most wild of horses can be tamed, Thomas."

"Ain't that the truth," sighed said vampire as he pressed his temple to Edward's shoulder.

Edward's glee could be felt for miles.

Alaska, 1983

"Alice! Where the hell are my cigarettes?" yelled a rather angry Thomas Dean-Hale.

"I locked them away. You don't need them," Alice said.

"Oh yes I do, sweetheart. You gotta tell where you put them," Thomas imsisted of her, using quick hand gestures to emphasize the urgency.

"No, you'll smoke them all."

"Not me, nope, not anymore. I'm gonna take them outback, take one more drag, and burn them all."

...

He was so mad. In fact, he was extremely mad, but he made a promise to burn it all if they proved harmful. He ignored the warning for at least twenty years but now, it couldn't be helped. Thomas sat in the backyard of the Cullen's Alaskan home, a fire roaring in the pit before him. It smelled of niccotine and gross ashes. He took a long drag from the one cigarette he left behind. Edward Cullen walked out and raised an eyebrow at the pile of trash.

"What's that mess?" he asked.

"My fucking cigarettes. Every pack I ever owned, every brand, every cigar, snuff, tabacco pouch I got," he said with the most pissed off frown Edward had ever seen.

"Why?"

"Cause it can give the humans lung cancer, that's why."

Edward hid a smile, "I'm surprised you kept your promise."

"It's what I do," Thomas said before he tossed the last of his collection in the flames. "Yeah, yeah, I see you smirking away."

Edward chuckled. He motioned for Thomas to scoot over. He took the space beside him. "I'm proud of you, Tommy."

"I'm keeping my lighters."

"I know." He wrapped an arm around Thomas's back, rubbing his upper arm in soft, soothing strokes. "I know." He cooed him like the upset creature he was.

Thomas was so lost in thought he never realized how fondly the other vampire gazed at him. Thomas had come a long way in fifty-two years. This was the last piece of his old life that he clung onto, cigarettes. With that gone, Thomas couldn't be Thomas Scott Dean any longer. Thomas did better at hiding his anger, tried to keep his cursing at a minimum in public, had a few jobs here and there. Completed high school for the nine times when as a human, he dropped out. He had a sweet side, a side he showed to only Edward and the Cullen's. He could do away with people now. He no longer craved human blood.

Now, he was Thomas (Tommy) Scott Hale, half brother to Rosalie and Jasper Hale, nephew to Esme Cullen. He also loved Edward Cullen, the one person that would never go away and he was happy with that.
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A longer prologue than most but this idea is really cute. Much of what actually happens in Twilight happens but will be told more from the Cullen's side so less Bella than before. This is not a Bella bashing story.

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