title: darkshines.
author: padfootly (ff); thrown_rosesx/jasperrwhitlock (lj).
summary: a reply to coquettishness's "bliss." can be found at: fanfiction net/s/5324087/1/Bliss
The taste of salt has never had an appeal to me, especially in my vampiric life. There are bits and pieces of my human childhood that I can remember – certain meals containing the ingredient. Though, it was never very specific. None of my living memories were clear expect that one night, over a hundred years ago when I was Jasper Whitlock, trailing through the nights in a brave duty to make sure women and children had fled town.
Emmett had once made a bet with me to see how much of the grainy seasoning I could not only swallow, but keep in my stomach for an unpleasant twenty-four hours. Suffice to say, I didn't last very long before I was hunched over the toilet. Alice wasn't pleased, but Emmett couldn't keep the large grin off his face.
But this time it was … different. My scarred hand was entwined with my wife's, our feet meshing into the small, hard texture that was no competition to our marble bodies. The aroma of the salt water lingered in my mouth, leaving a bittersweet taste that mixed with the venom. Dark navy stretched over the sky, dotted in random places of bright light where the stars were.
My feet slowed until I reached a stop, and I grasped onto Alice's hand and gently pulled her toward me. Her black spikes were tamed, framing the thin shape of her face in only a way that she could truly pull off. One of my hands wrapped around her waist, encasing her frame against my body. Everything about this night was to be peaceful and relaxing; all for her. Alice was the sole thing that made me feel remotely alive – more-so than I had ever come near reaching when I was human. There was the frequent question of how did I ever deserve this woman? somewhere in my conscious. She was so pure and ethereal. I possessed every trait that most authors wrote about for their villains. Maria raised me to be three things that generally had the same meaning, but different implications: an assassin, a murderer, and a monster.
To the people who I stoically ripped to bits, I was the assassin. I was filled with numbness as I complied with Maria's wishes – ripping each limb from the frame of what used to be a person. Until the very end, where I would absorb the full force of what it truly meant to be afraid, and to be filled with their understanding that this – the red eyes, scars, and blonde hair that was thick with blood – was the last thing that they were ever going to see.
To the people who I had blindly killed in an attempt to satiate the uncontrollable burning in my throat, I was the murderer. During my beginning year of being a newborn, I killed more people than I had cared to share with Carlisle and Edward. Not only was I sporting the weight of my own bloodlust, but I was carrying on the burden of everyone else around me that was being changed. At the time, I thought I was just thirsty. I could drain up to four bodies in one night by myself and still have the itching feel like I hadn't been hunting in nearly three weeks. Alice was the one who knew exactly how large the number was – the large number that I shamefully concealed behind thoughts.
And to all my victims, I was a monster. My vampiric abilities granted me the power to snap the neck of a human with the remotest touch. With my bare teeth, I could break buildings; the bones of a human held no chance. I took the lives of a husband who provided for a family of six, while the mother stayed at home to coddle all her children. I took the lives of criminals who were wanted, leaving several police forces puzzled at the absurd death of a bloodless body. To everyone, I was superior though they did not know it. Not unless they met my crimson gaze, as I stood over their bodies and took their lives.
"Jasper," her soft voice said. My lips had pressed against her forehead, and my grip around her frail body was unnaturally tight. "Stop."
One word; that was all it took. One simple, single-syllable word was enough to yank me from my destructive thoughts. The golden-hue of her eyes met mine, and I spoke in the best way I could; with my emotions. My hands gently caressed the warm skin of her back, lightly pressing into each indent that her spine created against the tight skin. Her bones were more prominent than I could be comfortable with. If only she had proper treatment during her human life. But she didn't chose this, or to be abused in an asylum. If anything, the flaws she had only made her more beautiful.
My lips formed a silent, "I'm sorry," as my hands repeated the soothing gesture of trailing up her back, then down to her hips. Each time I put pressure against part of her skin, I let the adoration I held for my Alice leave my body and fill her as completely as I could. My actions today were a complete contrast to the playful attitude I held the previous night, as I took her into a place that only I could while concentrating on a single line of text from a newspaper. I didn't like to use my so-called gift to bring Alice pleasure. All I was doing was contorting the emotions around me into one. I had never come into contact with another empathetic vampire, so I couldn't get their opinion on the subject. I wanted to be the reason Alice was left breathless, because my hands were trailing down her body, or because my lips were pressed into the hollow under her ear. Not because I was able to take Emmett's contented and morph it into arousal.
Understanding was replacing the guilt that I often felt when I delved too deep into my past. Her smile erased everything, and her hands laced behind my neck. The lips that spoke of so much comfort pressed against mine, and my surrounding disappeared. She smiled into our kiss, seeing the film of my decision to love her in the one way that I could. Her hands released their knot behind my neck, trailing down my chest until she reached the spot where I should have had a heartbeat. It was closer to the earlier hours of the morning, where teenagers would be sneaking back into their homes and pretending to be asleep as their parents checked on them. Her thumbs caressed the area of skin, speaking I love you with each passing that she did over my chest.
With a careful movement, and one arm wrapped tightly around her waist, I began lowering myself onto my back in the sand. The small, hard pebbles pushed against me and chilled to my touch. Alice situated herself on top of me, with her small frame arched above me, her arms tucked neatly against my sides. Her nimble fingers were bunching up the material of my shirt.
The minutes passed, clothes were shed until nothing but the sand was around us. And as the sun started to peak amongst the horizon of the water, I showed my wife exactly how much I loved her with urgent, passionate hands and quiet, whispered 'forever's.