AN: There's so much to say, but so little to write. Reviews are love.
Emotions.
It still hasn't fully sunken in yet, he thinks, and he can't help but to muse over the extraordinary turn his life has taken. A different path begs for his walking these days, one he hasn't walked ever before and it is strange. Different. Like nothing he has ever done before. Extraordinary.
He feels... compassion. Love. Anger. All of them, twisting and turning, twirling smoke in diffuse darkness, deep inside, more emotions than Jasper ever thought existed. Or Jazz, as She likes to call him. Jazz. Still he snorts at the nickname, ridiculous as it is, but if it gives him a companion then who is he to complain? Though of course he does, teasingly, quietly worrying that she might take it more seriously than it is meant and stop. No one has ever liked him enough for nicknames before and deep inside there is nothing that even for a second minds the terms of endearment; though he has yet to find one that might show her what She means to him. Alice. In mere months she has nestled into his heart and he can no longer even slightly imagine an existence without her. When she isn't there. She is beautiful, his Alice, and beauty had long ago ceased to mean anything to him; long past were the days of gazing upon a sunset, a gorgeous desert, lake, the woods. But things have changed. He, has changed. Jasper Whitlock. But not too much. Still he keeps the core of himself, feels the lust, desire, sizzling beneath the surface, rushing in his veins where blood used to run, flow, poison, and no amount of anything seems to make it stop. Burning, tasting. Blood. It calls to him, sings to him, greets him like an old friend; all kinds alike but never the same. And then he snaps out of it, after, after and never before, a drop of red in the corner of his mouth, eyes blazing and Alice's face staring, staring, not smiling. But not today. Today he snaps out of it, the woman on the other side of the hotel door leaving, walking away, laughing. Saving both herself and Jasper and in a roundabout way Alice's belief in himself.
He leans his head against the table, a human habit Alice has made him cultivate that was never quite gone, always bubbling beneath the surface, because truly nothing seems to have truly disappeared. He breathes for no other reason than to calm himself, closing his eyes, playing Alice's face like a never-ending tape, meetings and moments. Infinite. Just like his love for her, he thinks, and he laughs at how ludicrous it sounds. He hasn't yet told her and she hasn't told him. So far no need has existed. In all his life need has been what has controlled his life; a need of survival, need of cash, the need of something greater than himself. Necessities. Always has he found it but never has it been enough, lasting. He hopes with all that he is that this will.
When she comes in thought the door her short hair is modestly hidden underneath a hat and her lithe body hidden by a coat and all of her is smiles and beauty. Happiness.
"Hello, Jazz."
He says hi back and she flutters to him and when she leans down to kiss him he can smell it on her: people, places, desire (for him), but not what his nose, the monster that really isn't a monster but only him, mostly wants and searches for. Blood. As if sensing his thoughts she sits down next to him and takes his hand and he looks at it. Hers is small in his, small and smooth and fragile almost but not quite and unable to help himself he squeezes it tight. As if she has told his human self to breathe, he relaxes, his shoulders slumping and the tension seeping out of him, draining. Sitting there minutes, maybe hours, passed and he doesn't particularly care. It doesn't particularly matter. And then he looks up, looks at her, her eyes, face, Her. Her eyes are frozen in his as she quietly observes him, his scars, his face, Him, and not for the first time does he feel the need for time to stop, pause, never to end. Yet time passes, quickly, demurely, slowly. Paradox. Harshly, in the manner time always passes when one wishes for it to stop, pause, wait. Wait. When he eventually smiles, sends out a wave of calm to once more let her know he is ok, all right, she smiles back, grasping for something deeply hidden in the pockets of her coat. Falling from behind her are rays of light, shining from the tree the hotel has graced them with at Alice's insistence, a single source of light in a dark room, and the date he has read in the paper suddenly comes forefront to his mind. Trees and Santas and snow.
"Fuck.
"Alice, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to curse. Please, forgive me."
She laughs, all tingling bells. The first time he had cursed, his devastated self had wondered if that was it, if that had been the final straw that would cause her to forever abandon his scarred, hating self. It wasn't. Also that time she had laughed, his Alice.
"I just... I didn't get you a gift. I didn't realize..."
He lets his voice fade at the steady stream of warmth that always strokes his flesh when she is there and she almost always is; her beautiful, fuzzy emotions – for him, he knows but cannot quite understand, for him – never falter, doesn't stumble, doesn't change its pace from the continuous flow. For him.
"That doesn't matter. Here. Take it."
He does, looking at it, at her, at it again. It's wrapped and tied together with red string that goes wonderfully along with her coat and when he opens it it's impossible to resist a smile.
"I wasn't sure what to get you," she says but not for a minute excusing herself. "I've never given anyone a Christmas gift before."
Momentarily he feels for her intense loneliness but not for very long.
"I haven't ever gotten one, I don't think," he replies.
"Learning together?" she says quietly, sounding younger than she is, repeating words repeated so many times before. They use them together, the two of them, in moments of uncertainness. And he doesn't know how to help her and so, pretending to feel the Christmas spirit, he kisses her. He makes her smile.
That night they don't make love to one another. They could have and Gods know they do have; Jasper drowning in Alice's body, that tiny body, tightly entwined in his. Afterwards they lay together for hours, watching, dreaming but never sleeping. Never again shall either encounter the blissful nothingness of sleep, forever shall they drink and smell and feel. Always does Jasper feel, emotions battle within him, strike at him for reason unknown. And he has cried. Tearful sobs, bloodless wounds wracking the night, body and soul, and he has cursed, words never before uttered in Her presence, word apologized for but never avoided. And so when he lies there, far too often reliving his own personal hell, past, she is the one to save him. Always, Alice is his saving, dark-haired angel.
He was selfish. Jasper. Jazz. Always had he been selfish, uncouth, looking to his own personal benefit before others'. Following orders became a work of art, continued until it was no longer possible because not always was it possible, treacherous feelings disturbing his past way of life. But no matter the inconvenience, anger madness – how can one dare deny them when they inadvertently gave him Alice? She awakened something in him, still awakens, maintains. Something, never before encountered, remembered, has been let out. Freed. It is not something he had ever knows, felt, not from him or anyone else, most of them victims; and so it is a feeling so rare that he at first did not have it placed, recognized, tagged and neatly tucked into a tiny little box. Catalogued. Now the emotion is his and hers too, another thing to share, another beautiful reason for happiness. He sure loves happiness, Jasper does, the feeling of triumphing darkness and desire, even thirst. Love. And so he asked, curious and still careful and hesitant, asked her, Alice, Love of his life? He could almost admit it what she was to him then, almost but not quite, not yet properly or honestly to either of them. He asked:
"This emotion... what is it?"
Her expression was unreadable, her emotions confused. She touches his shoulder.
"Jasper.
"It's hope."