Disclaimer: If you recognise it, I don't own it.
AN: This is a story challenge from my beta. The pairing is Jasper/Bella, the theme is fairytales, and the keyword is apples. I went the obvious route but I regret nothing. I decided to stick to the drabble format I'm really starting to enjoy, and to repeat words as often as possible, with very little variation, to emphasise both the fairytale aspect and the single-mindedness of the obsession. Let me know what you liked or didn't like, what did or didn't work. Thanks for reading.
1.
Into a long long life a girl makes her appearance, Snow White with skin as white as snow but still not white as his, and the wonder of it is what kept her all those long long years. Jasper imagines her long dark hair fanned out over white silk, her lavender lids shut, breathless in her glass coffin, waiting for a day long long years from now when his blue eyes open red, his red eyes open black, his black eyes open gold. In his waking dream her own dark eyes flutter open. Blood red lips curve.
Time to wake.
2.
Her lips taste of apples. It nags at him. The conviction. Jasper has forgotten what apples taste like. He would like to remember. Pale blue veins tease shimmers of irresistible scent but it's apples Jasper wants to taste, it's lips as red as blood he wants to taste, apples on her tongue.
Seven vampires and their princess, their daughter, sister, true-love, whose blood sings for his brother, whose lips taste of apples, whose snow white skin is warm – in passing.
Jasper doesn't touch this new sister.
Though he longs for warm snow, ebony silk, and lips as red as blood.
3.
Jasper stands vigil over his sleeping sister. In the candlelight there are no long long years. Just drowsy brown eyes opening in the golden light. His eyes could be vein-blue in the candlelight. He could be warm as she.
"Your brothers are hunting," Jasper says softly, but he has the tale confused, two tales tangled. There is a secret chamber a hairsbreadth beneath her skin, and nothing would remove the blood from his eyes, the red from the key. But all he wants is to taste that fatal apple.
Sleep again.
Night claims her, Snow White sleeps: dead, but dreaming.
4.
He remembers one other part of the story when he feels his brother's desperate need. Ribbons thread around her, binding her, lacing her; Edward fights too hard to keep her safe. His kisses steal her breath. Lost in wonder she lets him lace her tighter and tighter still. The witch wanted Snow White to die and so does Edward. He goes too far.
Controlling. Possessive.
He's hurt that Jasper could think that. "I love her."
Love drives Edward to thread the ribbon.
Love blinds the struggling girl.
And love binds Jasper.
Bitten the apple, she might as well be laced.
5.
Bella's story runs backward. Bound and sweet as apples, she takes the poisoned comb. Alice combs ebony silk, powders warm snow, paints red blood, and lost and dreaming the girl smiles shyly at her reflection. Alice's clothes fit her the way Alice's husband would.
Jasper makes no decision. Loves his little witch. Never decides to touch her deliberately, because what would his witch see then? Warm, lovely and doomed, Bella's story runs backward, races to its end.
Combed and laced, she can't breathe and the poison numbs her, and still her red lips smile, her lips as red as apples.
6.
Edward burns when he touches her, and Jasper's aflame with it. He mustn't touch. But Edward does – careful not to melt the snow – and sets them both alight, all unknowing. Just once, Jasper brushes her thin white scar, feels the sudden cold. This pale crescent is theirs. Slowly, her warm fingertips drift over his wrist, his scar. It's raised. That's all. The chill spread long long years before.
His sister's wide dark eyes will be gold as honey soon enough. When that barest touch is gone the damage is done. These things bind them – scars and venom, apples and honey.
7.
Touching her broke the spell, and the girl he once watched looks back at him. Too often. He's suddenly unsure. There's no part in this fairytale for Jasper, and he doesn't know what role he must play. Alice smiles sadly. But her hand finds his, mute assurance, and the love that spills from her – for both of them – tells Jasper she won't make him choose.
Lavender lids flutter shut. Bella's half-eaten apple falls from her hand. And Jasper finds his place. She is apples and ebony, blood on the snow.
He is the huntsman who must cut out her heart.
8.
So like that huntsman he must refuse, taking a brief, electric taste and no more, leaving the girl breathless and shaking and so very warm he would like to do it again – because Jasper finds he likes the taste of apples, of Bella Swan, the melting snow and the ebony silk slipping through his fingers. Her face, her slight shoulders, her hips fit his hands, and he must stop touching her before she opens her eyes. But warm hands thread into his hair and Jasper's bound, drugged, hopelessly lost in the woods.
Lips as red as blood find his again.
9.
Mirror, mirror on the wall reflects her screaming on the bloodstained bed, and Jasper watches her in the glass, watches her shriek and writhe and go limp and lie still and lie still and lie still. Bella's story runs backward and her prince's kiss has killed her. Her dead face and her dead hands and her still chest hold Jasper transfixed. The silence her heartbeat leaves deafens him.
Her eyes open red, and yes, she is the fairest of them all. Blood and snow and ebony – and, later, honey gold. Edward loosens the laces but she doesn't need to breathe.
10.
Unlaced, uncombed, poisoned so thoroughly her heart has stopped beyond any prince's power to wake, Bella is wild and beautiful and utterly irresistible. Running graceful as the deer she hunts, their blood turns her eyes gold, makes her soul sing with pleasure Jasper feels as his own. The strength and the freedom intoxicate her, and he's drunk on her delight. Her laughter sounds like mirrors. Her skin's cold as snow. And when her honey gold eyes turn black as ebony she leaves Edward's bed and comes to Jasper in the night, and her blood red lips still taste of apples.