Summary: Jasper goes on a rampage that destroys the Olympian coven and reels in the consequences of his actions. AU.
Back From the Edge
The sunlight burned when it flashed across his flesh, skin bubbling up, angrily red. A sharp pain flooded up his arm and it made him feel. His eyes rolled to the back of his head as he gasped and clenched his fingers shut, trying to block out the stinging as his skin closed over itself. The light blonde hair on his forearm covered up the fading damage. The light only reached him by a hair in the very back corner of the bar. Fading quickly, the sun slipped under the cover of the earth and displaced the world in the protection of the moonlight. As if in a single file, people began to immerse the little building until every space filled with the mass of people ready to waste their night away. Fat, sweaty men and perky just-turned-21s submerged him –their pumping blood mixed with their energetic emotions.
"No martyrs in the bar," the woman said, one eyebrow quirked up as if to challenge him, snapping him out of trance. She had a pot of coffee in one hand, ready to refill his cup, only to stop when she noticed that he hadn't taken a single sip from the coffee from an hour ago. "Guess we're switching to the harder stuff now?"
Jasper Whitlock raised his head to face the woman, smiling when he saw the familiar face. "Blood smells and tastes like shit if you put it in coffee, Isabella." He examined her slightly tanned face, over the small crinkles near her eyes and the laugh lines by her small mouth. She must be in her late twenties now, he thought. Still small and sharp as a firecracker. Her dark hair, the one that Edward loved so dearly to run his fingers through, was pulled up loosely into a messy pony tail, revealing the multiple piercings cuffing her ears and the small tattoo of a freckle she had decided to get on her shoulder when she was drunk and wanted to know what it would feel like, though he knew it was to distract her from seeing the scarred teeth marks on her shoulder whenever she looked at herself in the mirror. She had cursed him the next morning, beating at him furiously for allowing her to abandon $200 to add a single dot to her body. Her eyes, red-rimmed and bloodshot, blamed him for something else altogether.
She picked up his coffee and sniffed it, gagging, and set it back on the table. "I'm not letting my customers see you drinking…" she glanced around to make sure nobody near them listened, "…blood. We're a conservative farming community," she said sarcastically. The bar sat near the edge of the Sonoran Desert in an ugly, arid suburb in Phoenix. Jasper flipped her off and she laughed as she walked to the back towards the kitchen. "And put your sunglasses back on, asshole!"
Picking up the feminine, heart-shaped sunglasses from the table as sipped the cold blood mixed with bitter coffee, he covered his blood-red eyes. He spent the night watching the woman pour drinks for men and women who came to forget their lives for just a while; Isabella Swan helped them with that process. She broke fights when men took their pool games too seriously and slapped women when they threw up outside the toilet bowl and scolded teenagers for trying to slide past her with fake IDs, shoving cigarettes in their face claiming, "here, this will kill you faster, you waste-of-space cretins." Women approached him throughout the night but he'd quickly turn them away with feelings of disgust. Some were exceedingly beautiful but what would he do with them? Eat them? He'd relax the men, women, and teenagers that riled up Isabella so much before she jumped them in anger. The night dwindled by slowly, the yellow lights dimmed hour by hour until the last patron left the building.
Isabella locked the front doors. She turned to face him, her eyes telling it all. Finally.
"Really? You're not even going to try humoring me? Finish up, Jas." Isabella pushed the coffee cup closer to him. "Or what? Do you want me to heat it up? So it feels like you're getting it straight out of the neck?"
Jasper stared at her in disgust. "Your coffee is actual shit, Isabella, I'm not drinking it. I want a new bag."
"Yeah? How about you get up early in the morning and get us some freshly ground coffee? Oh, that's right, you can't." Isabella smiled, sickly sweet and Jasper wanted to bite down on her hard to waste away that smile. He bristled at the reminder of the Volturi member Mele stripping him of, not his vampiric abilities, but his protective characteristic as a vampire. His skin no longer had crystalline properties and became highly sensitive to UV light. His speed and senses reduced tremendously and he no longer had the ability to turn someone into a vampire, grimacing at the time he bit Isabella from frustration a few years ago, leaving that awful scar on her shoulder. He remembered his wife had lifted him out of Mele's presence as quickly as her little legs could, her last words to him: "It's okay, Jas, I'll be back." She kissed him softly, knowing she'd crush him otherwise then running back to the field where Edward stood. That's what he had loved about his wife: she always thought talking would work. "It's going to take me a couple weeks to draw any blood, you're either going to finish that, or go hungry." She chuckled cruelly. "Well, we know what happens when you get hungry."
His lips closed tightly with red margins becoming narrower. With one last look at her, he gulped the whole cup of coffee and blood, forcing it down his throat. His rumbling stomach came to a halt, relishing the nutrition of old blood. Isabella eyes were light with mischief but remained challenging. Try me, it said. "You're a bitch," he spit out. He got up from his seat suddenly and flipped his table over leaving a wide-eyed woman in her seat, her legs crossed at the ankles.
She began to laugh loudly at him. "You're so dramatic, Jas! Cut the shit and help me clean up the place." Isabella was about to stand up but Jasper lunged at her and she fell backwards, toppling over the chair. He held her down, his teeth bared, fangs ready to pierce through her flesh and swallow up her delicious blood….
Isabella eyebrows drew together in utter rage. Without another moment to pass, she punched him across his jaw. His teeth clacked as he fell sideways. She got up carefully, watching him spit out the blood from his mouth, a rare event she never thought she'd see from a vampire but had seen in Jasper more times than she could count considering how many times they've rolled on the floor throwing punches. Her fists were ready and tense, prepared to attack him again if he tried another move. It would definitely bruise overnight. "Don't try me, Jas. Don't even fucking try me. Not after everything you did! You don't get to come into my home, my bar and try this."
Jasper wiped away the dripping from his chin and growled at her. He dove at her again, but this time she was ready for him as she caught his arms and pushed him onto his back. She straddled him quickly and put her knee at his groin. She felt him get hard. Oh God, he's hungry. He slipped free from her hold and swiped across her face, leaving a trail of blood where his nails dug through her neck. She held her hands to her neck, trying to slow the bleeding. His eyes quickly turned black. "I want a new bag," he said in a low voice.
Isabella's nose flared in anger. "It's in the fridge. Go get it, asshole. Just keeping taking from me! Let me know when you're finally done!"
He pushed her off him and zoomed towards the fridge. The cold, automated air washed over him, breathing fresh air over the wound on his mouth. He dug through the food to the back where a few bags of blood were clumped together in one corner. Isabella's sweet, sweet blood. He won this one.
Resentment overtook them both –it rolled off of her in waves and enveloped him tightly. He tried to make her relaxed but a quick kick to the shins warned him that she wasn't in the mood to be happy. She hated losing to him but she had won last time when she stuck a steak knife into his thigh. If anyone had been out at this ungodly hour, the couple would have been quite a sight. Both of them dripping blood from open wounds, one of them openly drinking blood from a bag. The night air was thick and humid and it made her blood smell that much sweeter. He tasted her fury in every drop. But this wasn't half as much as it had been when she first purchased the bar with Carlisle's help. He had watched her for months during the evenings, never letting her know he protected her from afar. He didn't know what she did during the days until he finally stepped into the bar that night months ago when he found her boxing in the storage room using a hanging bag of rice. Her greeting to him was hard punch to the face. Get out!
They entered her small apartment, leaving the flickering fluorescent lights of the hallway behind them. Isabella kicked off her shoes, pulled down her shorts and up her shirt without another look back at him. It had been a random fuck you to him lately to say she didn't acknowledge his existence. It seemed like it was also to say, "I don't care anymore."
He followed her into the bathroom where she took off her bra and panties, using the sink to balance, leaving a dark red handprint, and climbed into the shower. Although his body thirsted for blood, he set the bag in the sink and trailed after her into the tub. The warm water sprayed on both of them, the water at their feet swirling into the drain red. Her back faced him; she refused to turn around. Her body was frighteningly thin but muscular from years of training. Her breasts, small and perky, that he could cup within his palms like he had months ago when he fucked till she slept from exhaustion. His arms wrapped around her waist and he settled his face at the crook of her bloody neck. "I'm sorry."
She stood still as she could but he felt her body shake under him. He smelled the salty tears stream down her cheeks. "You don't get to say that. After everything you did, you don't get to say that." The hold on her tightened as he tried to make her feel his apology.
"I know, I don't deserve any forgiveness. But I need you to know it anyway."
Isabella turned around in his arms. She stared up at his face, mouth open wide as a soundless wail, fat droplets escaping her eyes. She carefully pulled off his wife's sunglasses off his face and put it on her own. She cried harder. "I miss her so much, Jas."
The memory of his wife's torn head, twisted into one of absolute horror, burning in the raging fire attenuated his hold on Isabella. It had rolled off and tumbled closer to Edward's head which charred almost unrecognizably. The bodies of the La Push wolves burned underneath them, drained of life and blood. More than the blood of Isabella Swan or any human he had ever encountered fatally, Jasper could not ever forget the taste of the foul, putrid blood of the La Push warriors. Jasper had begun to run into the fire to pull his wife's body out, put her head back where it was supposed to be. Her head is too far from her body. He called for her to get up. Emmett and Carlisle grabbed and pushed back before he could reach the flames –he had barely felt it at the tip of his fingers. "She's dead!" Carlisle yelled. "They're both dead! There's nothing we can do now! We must go!" He remembered how is adopted mother had stared at him accusingly, trying her best to stay supportive, but eyes turning dark when she looked at him. Emmett and Rosalie left quickly, unsure of what else they could do to contribute to the mess he had created. Carlisle hypothesized potential diet changes and "this animal, not that" but couldn't hold back the tears when he saw Jasper's bright, red, hungry eyes.
"I'm so sorry."
They sat on the roof of Isabella's bar a few nights later in neon lawn chairs, Jasper with the heart shaped sunglasses over his ruby eyes and Isabella with Alice's flesh colored choker and Edward's family ring. He slowly but obnoxiously slurped his bag of blood while she swigged a beer that she claimed was the house favorite but he decided tasted like piss. She flipped him off until he stopped slurping. The moonlight shone on the two tortured souls as they lamented over their loved ones, both alive and dead.
"Do you think wooden stakes would work on you? Like in your heart?" she asked him, toying with the choker.
He licked his lips. "Well, wouldn't you die if I stabbed you through the heart?"
She hummed a non-committal response. More than a few times had the thought of finally ending his life come to mind. Sure, he was strong –able to throw her across the room if he tried –but it took effort and she was strong too. Except, she couldn't and wouldn't. The Cullens dispersed and although she knew she always would have access to them and their fortune, it could not replace the man who unwittingly caused the death of an innocent Quileutean girl, her fiancée, her best friend and his entire pack, and her true sister –his wife. He irritated her and mocked her and fought her tooth and nail to her wits end…and he was the only one who kept her sane. Unlike his previous self as a proper vampire and a son of the Cullen family, he no longer wore ironed shirts and polished shoes; instead, he wore an incorrectly buttoned shirt, cargo pants, and summer flip flops. She glanced at his scarred skin, once bone white, now almost pink from the blood pumping through his veins. If she hadn't known he was a vampire, she would have easily mistaken him for a human. His honey blonde hair remained the same length, messy, unkempt and forgotten.
"Jas, why'd you kill that girl?"
Jasper's whole frame stiffened but relaxed in a couple beats. "I couldn't control myself." It seemed impossible that the whole predicament had occurred because of that simple phrase. He couldn't control himself. He saw the girl and her blood smelled delicious. He should've known from her complexion that she was a part of the tribe, but the sound of the blood in her heart coursing through her body overtook him and that was it. His venomous fangs cut through her neck before his mind could say No! He killed a Quileutean girl which the La Push pack tried to avenge which lead to him killing the entire pack and at least twenty other people from Forks and La Push. The Volturi came in to clear up the damage so Edward and Alice tried defending him, even taking the blame when that failed….
Her head hung low. She knew this. She'd asked this many times before. Why'd you kill that girl?
"Bella," he whispered softly.
She raised her head up, surprised. He hadn't called her that since before the incident.
"I won't live forever." His eyes made it a promise. "I know I'm more involved that I should be in your life –but it's the least I can do for them. To make sure you have a full life."
Bella truly appreciated it, she really did. But she internally rolled her eyes. He was doing this for himself too. Humans forget, they forgive, they are temporary. He was clinging on to this thought desperately, she knew it. She gave him a tight smile and raised her beer bottle. "I already have a full life –free alcohol for life. Tell me what's better than that?"
A corner of Jasper's mouth raised up in amusement. A husband and a best friend. He reached out his arm across the arm rest, eyes carefully watching her. Bella read the cue and clasped his hand. They turned their heads back to the sky above them where the moon hung looming over the city and the two wished for better lives.
A/N: So I didn't know this till recently but Meyers wrote a gender-reversed version of the book with a new character named Mele who could take and transfer powers from vampires. So I worked off of that and made it so that she could take entire vampire abilities away like their physical attributes.
Please let me know what you guys thought of this! I know it's a bit condensed so I would really appreciate hearing what could be improved. If you guys like this enough, I might make this into a few more chapters to develop Jasper's and Bella's relationship.