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One day, not long into their time second time in Forks, the Cullen coven came home to find the house in disarray. And in the middle of it all was Emmett, their newest addition. He sat cross-legged on the floor, swaying slightly from side to side. It was almost as if he was drunk, but that . . . that was basically impossible for vampires. Even if he’d drank all of the vintage that Esme liked to collect, he should still have been stone cold sober.
Carlisle should have known better.
As it was, he did not know better, so when he asked how Emmett came to be so intoxicated and Emmett produced an almost empty bleach jug, Carlisle was surprised (mostly tired but still surprised).
Jasper, however, was nodding and smiling at his brother. He carefully pried the jug out of Emmett’s hands and took a deep swig. He grimaced at the taste.
“Arsenic’s better,” he noted, staring down the neck of the bottle.
The family, bar Alice who looked unbearably fond of her mate, was staring on in unmitigated horror. That had just happened. Emmett had managed to get himself drunk off of his tits by drinking bleach, and apparently Jasper was content to join him. (Apparently, he would’ve preferred arsenic to bleach, though.)
Rosalie broke out of it first, taking Emmett’s face into her hands while she shouted at him. “Why would you drink bleach?!”
Emmett smiled up at her, “Well angel, I drank it to get drunk, obviously.”
Rosalie continued to glare at him even when he leaned in to peck her on the nose.
He sighed, “I haven’t been drunk since 1935 and I’ve taken chemistry like seventeen times.”
“It was bound to happen eventually,” Jasper agreed.
“What?!” Rosalie demanded.
Jasper shrugged, “We live a hard life, Rose. Booze help.”
“Bleach isn’t the same as booze!”
“Might as well be for us, though I like old fashioned embalming fluid better, preferably arsenic based.”
In the end, most of the family was curious enough to at least try it, with Alice willingly taking a swig from the bottle Jasper was finishing off. She smacked her lips with a strange look on her face. “Yeah,” she agreed, “You were right, Jas, arsenic is better.”
That was enough to convince Rosalie that she desperately needed a drink, if only to try and get rid of the memory. She drained a whole jug on her own, eager to forget the day she’d had.
Esme, for her part, was eager to enjoy something alcoholic for the first time since she’d been turned. She took her bleach in a wine glass and quite liked it.
Once Esme had succumbed to temptation, Carlisle felt it pulling at him. He was a man of strong will and prided himself on his self-control. But in all his years he’d never partook in such vices and he couldn’t deny he was curious despite himself. He’d been the son of a priest, had never had more than a few sips of communion wine when he was human, and obviously had never been able to attempt to get intoxicated as a vampire. He took a small sip from Esme’s wineglass and didn’t find it overly unpleasant to taste, not after more than three hundred years of only animal blood on the pallet. So, he got his own glass and sat with his wife and his children.
And then there was only Edward. He flat out refused and left the house in a huff.
(He about had a heart attack when Bella was turned and joined Emmett in draining a gallon jug of bleach.)