Rating: T
Disclaimer: Not my sandbox. I'm just playing in it.
Feedback: All comments welcome.
Notes: Takes place during New Moon.
House of Cards
Of one thing he was absolutely certain: it was more than just his thirst for her blood that kept him coming back.
Day after day he put on a charade of benign innocence, but carefully kept his distance from the petite brunette and her alluring scent. He consoled himself in the knowledge that he was drawn to her because of her frailties - her humanity - and nothing more.
The constant burn in the back of his throat seemed to intensify exponentially whenever he found himself in the same airspace as her. The venom in his mouth flowed in frightening quantities and he swallowed faster and faster to rid himself of it - all the while doing his best not to breathe in her intoxicating scent.
But, despite his best efforts, he found himself drinking her in, suffocated by her sweet allure as it washed over him in glorious waves of tantalizing desire. His non-existent fangs ached with unfulfilled anticipation and desire.
He avoided her if at all possible, not wanting to tempt fate beyond the necessary bounds of civility. It wasn't so difficult to stray away from her at school. They were in separate grades so they had separate classes and lunch was made somewhat more manageable because Edward had taken to sitting with her a few tables away. Whether it for some semblance of privacy or because he knew the limits of Jasper's self-control, the reason was not important.
But it was harder to avoid Bella Swan outside of school. The Volvo became a saccharine haven for her scent, saturated through and through. Her scent lingered in certain parts of the house, mainly Edward's room and the family room, but, lately, the room he shared with Alice had started to hold a phantom trace of her; the blanket on the bed practically drenched with her sweet human perfume.
It seemed that everywhere he turned Bella Swan was there, either in person or in a lingering whiff that wouldn't fade away. Temptation and fate - twin sisters with a wicked streak a mile wide - slapped him in the face around every corner.
Jasper's self control was lacking in all the wrong places. He had tried very hard over the last few decades to reign in his bloodlust, to keep the thirst in check, but after nearly a century of life in an atmosphere of hate and anger, constant betrayal and instant gratification, he was still finding it infuriatingly difficult to quell the monster within.
His past lay like an angry black gash across the canvas of his soul, tainted beyond repair and a near constant ache in the pit of his abdomen. He wasn't a masochist like Edward and he didn't relish wallowing in his short comings, but whenever Bella was around, he found himself lapsing back into a world that shunned the life he was trying so desperately to fit into. Her blood and the flush of her cheeks reminded him of the newborn dawn, innocent and naïve to the true evils of the world, and he wanted nothing more than to protect her – from everything – but mostly from himself.
It was apparent from the start that Bella was a magnet for trouble – usually of the more malignant variety than most – and it was inevitable that something would go awry. A single drop of her sweet blood was all it took. His mind snapped as he zeroed in on that glistening red liquid, warm and tempting as it flowed from the innocent paper cut on her finger. All hell broke loose but the only thing he really remembered was the feeling of shame that washed over him as he fled into the infinite depths of the forest. He knew, deep down in some unspeakable and unfathomable region of his unconscious mind, that something like this would eventually come to pass. Like playing with gasoline and matches, she was a ticking time bomb for disaster and he was the fuel that needed only the tiniest spark to ignite.
Days inked by in a haze – mostly spent hunting in the forest and headily avoiding Edward – though he knew his family did not blame him for what happened (not even Edward if he was being honest with himself), but he still felt responsible for their hasty departure from Forks and the abandonment of Bella Swan.
Edward's anger had fizzled out in the wake of the accident, but he still exuded some latent hostility, most of which Jasper was sure was solely for his benefit. If Edward had to be unhappy, so did Jasper.
He decided not to tag along as the other Cullens moved to Alaska. Instead, he went south for a while, his mind reeling with a thousand different thoughts – all spinning a tangled web which was impossible for him to disconnect himself from.
Wrong, wrong, wrong, he kept telling himself over and over, vainly hoping to talk some sense into his mutinous mind, but in the end, it was his lack of self discipline that once again got the upper hand.
He knew he shouldn't have been there, for a million different reasons, but each reason swirled like a raging tempest in his head, eventually circling back to one reason and the center point of gravity within his tattered soul: self-control and his woeful lack thereof when it came to the human species. And, more specifically, Bella Swan. He knew, better than anyone, better than Edward, that his self-control was a house of cards in a hurricane. All it took to knock him down was one glance, one tiny whiff of Bella, and he was rendered lame upon the altar of desire.
The window was slightly ajar and even from the ground he could already catch a hint of the scent he had been dying for ever since his departure a few weeks ago. It washed over the ledge and glided down on a gentle breeze. Jasper drank it in, desperate for more, hungry for the smallest of tastes.
It only took a matter of seconds for him to climb the tree with well practiced ease – smiling slightly at finding a positive advantage of being counted among the undead. With all of its flaws, the supernatural ability of stealth and speed was undeniably a benefit.
Her room was unnaturally dark, a product of the massive amount of fabric that hung like curtains over the window. It didn't take his eyes but a fraction of a second to acquiesce to the change in light levels. His eyes wandered straight towards the bed in the center, and to the girl who had preoccupied his thoughts for the past few weeks. She lay on her side, facing him, her hands balled up into angry fists near her face, and she was lost in the throes of some unimaginable nightmare. Her eyes flew back and forth beneath the closed lids and she whimpered something unintelligible even to his ears. He could see a dried trail of tears that carved twin pathways down her flushed cheeks and he felt a stab of anguish steal into his dormant heart.
This isn't right, he thought.
He knew he should leave, that he never should have come back in the first place, but deep down the guilt that this was all his fault gnawed ceaselessly at him and he wanted, somehow, to make things right. But Jasper had never been very good at fixing things. Things – people – they were easily broken but not so easy to put back together. Once shattered, the pieces became brittle and jagged, impossible to correctly reassemble.
Watching Bella sleep, he knew that she was broken – inside and out. The emotions that emanated from her were dark and desperate. The misery was palpable in the room and Jasper could taste it with every breath he took. The emotion mixed with the glorious scent of her blood made for a potent elixir – one which he found quite difficult to ignore.
Without knowing why, except that he couldn't help it, he took a step forward. Her heart was racing now, and he wondered what she was dreaming about.
She was intoxicating. The ache in the back of his throat manifested itself as an excruciating burning sensation, and he swallowed hard.
Easy, he chided himself as he knelt cautiously beside the bed, this is Bella! Edward's Bella.
He leaned in despite his better judgment, his face only inches away from hers. Inhaling deeply, his hand reached out to stoke a stray strand of hair out of eyes. He tucked it behind her ear, his hand sliding down the smooth line of her jaw, tracing the trail of dried tears that he had come too late to wipe away.
As his cool fingers found the silver chain around her neck, she jumped, and for one terrifying moment, he was certain that he had woken her, but she merely sighed and rolled over onto her back, her head lolling to the other side, her neck completely exposed to him.
Horror flooded through him as the ache in his throat warred with his conscious. His eyes snapped shut and his breathing stalled.
This was too much, he knew he should leave, but as he opened his eyes, he found himself paralyzed by her beauty. He could see it, even in the depths of her despair, she was beautiful. He wanted to fix her, to put the pieces back together, no matter how long it took him, no matter how hard it would be, but he didn't know how. But he knew this – this was a thousand shades of wrong. He shouldn't be here standing in Edward's place.
But someone had to.
"Edward?"
Jasper froze, his eyes darting to the open window.
Bella sighed and rolled over, completely away from him. Heedless of the consequences of his actions, he reached out once more and began to rub slow circles along the small of her back. He allowed the tips of his fingers to dance upward, tracing the curve of her shoulders, lingering a moment too long on the smooth curve of her neck, the vein there pulsating with dangerous temptation beneath his cool fingers.
"Everything's okay," he whispered, remembering what Alice had once told him of Bella's infamous sleep talking.
The words were meant for her deaf ears, but they soothed his violent soul just as much.
He finally let his hand fall away with an exaggerated sigh, and he unwillingly found his feet. The window was calling to him as the first rays of dawn peeked over the treetops, but something unidentifiable made him stop, and left him trembling and incapable of separating himself from the warmth that her proximity provided.
Even as the fresh dawn air hit him, her scent still filled his nostrils and after a night of drowning in it he knew that it wasn't likely to fade anytime soon. She was still as enticing as ever, but he wasn't at all sure that it was only her blood that beckoned to him anymore.
Somewhere along the way he had traded short black spikes for long brunette waves, and molten gold for doe brown. It something he would never admit to anyone and it was something that he was careful to keep buried in a dusty corner of his mind with all of the unpleasant aspects of his past that he refused to acknowledge. Because I love you and Bella in the same sentence were forever forbidden to him just as much, if not more, than the sweet lifeblood that flowed through her enticing veins, just inches below the surface of her beautiful pale skin. It was a line drawn in the sand that he could not - would not - cross. A line that separated Jasper and Bella far more than words such as human and vampire ever could. A profound line that formed an invisible barrier between them, and yet, it was as tangible as the succulent scent that clung to every fiber of his being.
The sun had finally risen when he climbed onto the windowsill. Brilliant golden light flooded the small town, filtering through the ancient trees and chasing away the thick layer of fog that had settled like a shroud over the sleeping town during the course of the night.
His foot was poised to make the leap into the tree when the rustling of sheets warned him too late that he had overstayed his welcome.
A small, strangled gasp issued from behind him, but he barely registered Bella choking on his name before he was gone in the space of a heartbeat. An apparition on the windowsill, a sleep induced vision of the impossible, a shadowy figment of her overactive imagination – she need never know he was really there.
The trees melted together around him as he cut a frantic line through the undergrowth, his dormant heart nearly beating with exhilaration. The world rushed past him at an alarming speed, warming him with more than the heat of the morning sun.
Jasper.
Even shaking, his name had never sounded so sweet tumbling from any other pair of lips.