Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight.

A/N: This chapter comes with a special shout out to Torchwood-babe, who kicked me into writing again with a PERSONALISED PM. I get quite excited when that happens, albeit a bit stressed.

On with the fic!

Carlisle bared his teeth, dashed forward and sprang.

Before Jasper could dodge, the other vampire was upon him, landing on his back with all the advantage of weight and height on his side. Jasper fell to his knees, allowing his shoulders to roll forward with the impact. Carlisle pitched over his head, carried by his own momentum, landing flat on his back on the forest floor. Jasper immediately seized his wrists and pinned them.

How Carlisle Cullen had cut it with the Volturi was a mystery to Jasper. He couldn't fight at all.

He was staring up at Jasper now, not looking the least bit put out at having been floored for the twentieth time that morning. But then, Jasper was quickly learning, that was Carlisle – open and friendly on the surface, inscrutable further down, and completely unpredictable in what mattered to him.

All the same, he groped for something constructive to say. 'Not bad,' he said at last. 'You would have beaten a newborn.'

'Oh.' Carlisle looked pleased. He made to sit up, and Jasper let go of his wrists. 'Jolly good.'

'Yes.' Jasper got to his feet. 'But you've got to remember to always leave yourself a way out. If you just go hell-for-leather like that, an experienced fighter is going to take advantage of it.'

'I see.' Carlisle frowned. 'But if you are constantly trying to plan two moves at once, never acting unless you are positive that it's safe, surely that makes for a very cautious, defensive sort of fight?'

'Well, yes, but...' Jasper swung his arms back and forth in exasperation, trying to think how to explain. It was a perfectly good question. 'You just have to feel it,' he said at last, and then gave a rueful grin. Feeling it was the one thing that Carlisle seemed to be incapable of doing.

It was odd, because he was not slow or weak – if he had been, he could never have kept up this vegetarian business. Deer were a hundred times more challenging to hunt than humans. When Jasper stalked humans, he didn't have to worry about startling them; they were drawn in by his human face. When he attacked they rarely even fought, mostly just froze in shock and screamed. When they ran, they ran in straight lines. But deer were different. The first whiff of his scent would have them starting up from their grazing, hard, well-trained muscles bursting into action to propel them away from danger. They ran in a shifting, indistinct mass, and then scattered abruptly, leaving him reeling as his hunting instincts pulled him in a dozen different directions at once.

He would never have kept at it for even these two short weeks if it hadn't been for Carlisle. The blond vampire would leave Jasper downwind of the herd, swing round and startle them, driving them towards him. It was his task to make the jump, darting into the herd and breaking a few necks before they scattered. Then he and Carlisle would drain the corpses while they were still warm.

It was a method that worked excellently, and it even showed a pretty good eye for strategy. So why couldn't he apply it to fighting?

Carlisle was repositioning himself opposite Jasper. His knees were slightly bent, hands open and held up in readiness, but he looked more awkward than anything else, going through the motions without really understanding them. To Jasper's astonishment, he even looked almost bored, as thought the whole exercise was just something he was going along with to humour Jasper. And in a way, he supposed, it was. He'd suggested it because he'd been sick of watching Carlisle do more than half the work when they hunted. He felt a sudden hot flush of embarrassment – of course if didn't reach his cheeks – at the realisation. But didn't Carlisle realise that combat was important? Was he completely oblivious to the world around him?

Well, if he was bored, maybe it was time for Jasper to make the fight a little more interesting.

Carlisle was still positioning himself, but Jasper struck without warning. Carlisle hadn't found his balance yet, but when you were a vampire all those old combat techniques weren't really necessary. His reflexes kicked in, propelling him out of the way of Jasper's attack and into a perfect battle stance, poised for action. Turning, Jasper saw him crouch for a split-second before he resumed the awkward position, half-crouch, half urbane posture, that he had been using before. He probably didn't even realise it himself, but he was unconsciously correcting.

Jasper grinned, letting his teeth glitter. So the reflexes were there. It was just a matter of shocking him into using them.

He growled. Carlisle stayed calm – they had been playacting this way all morning, after all – but Jasper could see that he was wanting to assume a defensive crouch, to give a warning growl in response. Go on then, he thought. Warn me off; there's nothing stopping you. He feinted sharply, and Carlisle mirrored the motion instantly, his arms jerking up to protect his face. Good, but don't flail about. Don't panic.

He curled his fingers, letting all the civility seep out of his posture, replacing it with threat and challenge. Then he attacked.

As he sped up, time slowed down, giving him long moments to pick out every detail of his target. Once again, Carlisle was just a fraction of a second too slow. Safe in the assumption that Jasper would simply knock him down and then let go, he was losing that crucial instant's reaction time. Jasper seized his shoulders, but instead of simply pinning him, he landed a hard kick in his stomach. At the same time he snapped his teeth loudly together an inch from his throat.

When training newborns, there were a few simple rules, which you went by if you didn't want them to go crazy on you. One of them was to never, ever use your teeth.

Carlisle flinched and twisted away, a powerful contortion of muscles that dislodged Jasper and sent him spinning away. Jasper rolled to his feet, grinning in triumph. His attack had been just as strong as any of the previous ones, but this time Carlisle was still standing, because he had reacted properly. He had fought back.

Jasper wheeled round and launched into another attack, and this time Carlisle dodged. He didn't want another kick like that first one, either. But he wasn't panicking. He wasn't going bezerk, like a newborn would. Not bad, Jasper thought. Now let's see if he can keep his focus.

He met Carlisle head-on, engaging in a few seconds of the duck-dance-dodge routine that characterised vampire combat, then sprang clear. Even his enhanced muscles felt the strain of moving so fast, and he imagined that he must have been invisible to Carlisle. He seized a tree branch to halt his upward momentum – the wood splintered at the impact – kicked back down off the trunk and landed on Carlisle's shoulders, seizing a handful of his blond hair.

Nothing panicked newborns more than a grip on the hair, and sure enough, Carlisle began to thrash. At the same time a snarl, a real snarl, ripped between his teeth, and Jasper felt the old fighting-feeling fizzing up inside him: part fear, part excited aggression. He could feel Carlisle's muscles bunching and twisting beneath him, strong enough to tear into him if he made one mistake. His free hand went to Carlisle's throat, curling into his windpipe, and Carlisle snarled again and twisted his head to the side, trying to get his teeth into Jasper's wrists. He struggled again and Jasper felt a lurching sensation as both of them toppled backwards, Jasper underneath, Carlisle's head landing on his stomach. Carlisle moved, back-flipping off him, and suddenly he was the one pinned on his back.

Every survival instinct he had ever developed kicked into play, and he gave a blood-curdling roar, wrenching himself free of Carlisle's hold, spinning round and falling upon him with fangs bared. He bore him to the ground, twisting his right arm away with one hand, pinning his legs, dragging his head back to expose his throat.

'Steady on!' Carlisle protested. The words – indignant tone, British accent – cut through Jasper's haze, and in that instant's hesitation, the fury faded, and he was himself again. Jasper Whitlock, kneeling on the forest floor with Carlisle Cullen beneath him, looking shocked, pained, annoyed, but not particularly frightened, and not the least bit as though he believed this could have ended with razor-fangs meeting in his throat.

For a moment, Jasper struggled for a way to respond. Then he relaxed and grinned, showing every one of his teeth.

'Not bad. But I win again.'

'All right. Now let me up.'

Ah, there was just the slightest bit of wariness there, after all. Jasper sat back on his haunches and Carlisle stood up, flexing his shoulders. He grimaced, rubbing his head where Jasper had pulled his hair, his expression so like a pout that Jasper sniggered.

'What?' Carlisle demanded, his expression turning even more aggrieved. Jasper shook his head in disbelief. Didn't he realise he could have killed him?

'You're still not trying hard enough,' he said. 'You had me there, and then you just let me jump you. Don't stop.'

Carlisle nodded, now massaging his neck.

'You can't give an inch, because you can bet that your opponent isn't going to just give up and be torn to pieces while they can still struggle. Remember that for our next bout.'

'I will. But I think I've had enough for now.'

Jasper shook his head. 'You think you'll be able to say that when someone's fighting you for real?'

Carlisle turned to face him full on. 'Jasper,' he said. The use of the name prodded at something deep down inside him, irritatingly. 'Why do you speak as though it's inevitable that we will run into a fight?'

Jasper didn't say anything, just let incredulity show on his face.

Carlisle sighed. 'I know what the state of things in the South has been like, but things are different here. We're much further north, not part of any feud or clan, two nomads, travelling. I assure you, up north one can run into coven after coven, meet, talk, and not experience any aggression for years at a time. Civil relations between our kind are perfectly possible.'

There were a dozen replies, some of them very long and angry, which Jasper could have made to that, but he settled on the simplest, the one that would be most likely to conform to this vampire's idea of 'reasonable.'

'It never hurts to be prepared, does it?'

'Hurts to look as though you're spoiling for a fight.'

Jasper turned his eyes away, irritated. In many ways Carlisle was so easy to like – or would have been, in his soldier days perhaps, back when he had done liking – he was patient, undemanding and a good sport – but now and again Jasper would encounter these strange, unshakable principles, these sudden points of contention and this exasperating pacifist attitude. What on Earth was any vampire supposed to do with that? And the way he was so reasonable about it, never getting into an argument over these views but refusing to be swayed from them either...didn't he feel any anger, any sense of unfairness at the hand fate had dealt him? Didn't he have any fight in him at all?

Jasper got to his feet as well, stretched, and then frowned. There was some sensation he was feeling, that he couldn't pin down, not the burn of thirst in his throat but something similar, related...suddenly it snapped back to him, in one of those brief bursts of human memory. Clattering in from a day's hard cavalry training, weak in every limb, smelling the dinner cooking in the kitchen and craving meat...of course! He had spent all morning fighting hard, and now he was hungry!

They had been hunting more frequently than he usually did, allowing him to get his hand in at catching deer. He could taste in now: fourteen days' worth of animal blood, dull as ditchwater on the back of his tongue. He threw back his head and closed his eyes, letting the air enter his nostrils in a long, slow stream. Fourteen days was long enough. It was time for a human feed.

Nothing nearby, but as he focussed he caught faint scents of human habitation; wood-smoke, cattle dung, hay cut and spread to dry. He opened his eyes and grinned, his mouth already watering in anticipation. He had been too preoccupied these past two weeks to give thirst or depression much more than a passing thought, he realised with satisfaction. Maybe this time he could drink some human blood and enjoy it.

He turned east, the direction of the scent, and put a foot forward, and a voice said:

'Jasper, where are you going?'

He nearly jumped out of his skin. It was silly, but he had forgotten Carlisle – as though anything that wasn't a danger wasn't worth remembering.

'To hunt,' he said vaguely.

Carlisle's voice was puzzled. 'We hunted the day before yesterday. I didn't think you would be –'

'I'm going to the human settlement,' he clarified. 'I'll meet you back here in a few hours if you don't want to come'

He headed off once more, moving from a walk into a smooth, fluid run – and skidded to an ungainly halt. Carlisle was standing between two trees, blocking his way.

'What – ?' he blurted.

'You're going to hunt humans?' Carlisle asked. There was a note of steel in his voice that Jasper had never heard before.

'Uh...' he was suddenly wrong-footed. 'Yes.'

'Why?'

Jasper made a disgusted sound. 'Because I'm thirsty! Why do you think?'

'But I thought you were doing well with the animals.'

'Look,' Jasper growled, 'what is it to you what kind of blood I drink?'

Carlisle was giving him a Look, and Jasper felt his whole body groan in resignation. He had been afraid of this.

'Jasper,' Carlisle said, 'if I had my way no-one would drink human blood.'

'You're insane.'

'You're not the first to have said so, but that's not the point. The point is that I thought you agreed to join me and try being a vegetarian.'

'Look,' Jasper said, trying to interject some reason into the proceedings, 'you know why I decided I would be more comfortable living mainly on animal blood, but I don't propose to make it a full-time thing.'

'But you're not even struggling! Just going to hunt a human when you want to, it's –' He stopped.

'Go on,' Jasper said.

'It's wrong.'

'Wrong?' Jasper gave a snort of derisive laughter. 'Look, Carlisle. We hunt. Lots of things hunt. Humans eat animals. Bears and lions hunt deer, and they kill a human when they find one. So do we. And humans are our natural prey. If we kill them, that's just the way it is. Hell, humans even kill each other.'

'No. Some humans kill each other for the sake of it, and I'm sure you despised them in your human life as much as I did. When you were a soldier you fought in wars, but you didn't kill when you didn't need to, and we don't. Look at me.' He spread his hands. 'I don't need to. Animals are fine.'

Jasper grimaced. 'Animals are not fine.'

'They suffice! In the interests of preserving human life, it's a small sacrifice to make. Don't forget that we were human once –'

'Exactly!' Jasper burst out. 'And any one of those humans could become a vampire, and that vampire would go on to hunt humans just like every other! You're working with the assumption that humans are worth sparing, but they're all the same.'

'Maybe so.' Carlisle looked stricken, but he was still arguing. 'Maybe so, but Jasper, remember what being a newborn was like. Who could hold on to their humanity through that? If they had someone to teach them, if they just had a chance – '

'Oh, yes! A chance would be a fine thing, wouldn't it? But look, Carlisle.' He thrust his fist into a shaft of sunlight, and they both watched the sparkles shattering off his skin. 'That's what we are. We don't have a chance. Nobody really does.'

'So that's it?' Carlisle snapped, glaring. 'Life is futile?'

'Yes it is.'

'And where does that get one? Futile or not, we're alive, so we might as well make the most of it.'

'Exactly,' Jasper said tightly. 'Which is why I am going to go and drink some decent blood.'

He ducked around Carlisle, who made no move to stop him, and broke into a run.

As he ran, he seethed. Wasn't life hard enough without delusional vampires to contend with? Without depression and other covens and vegetarianism and...

Why did he have to be a vampire? It all boiled down to that. But Jasper had never been one for lamenting his fate. He set his teeth and let his instincts take over, zeroing in on the smell of the human settlement. He ran at full stretch, not wanting to spend all day traipsing from place to place. All the same, it was a good couple of hours before he passed the first sign of life: a well-worn track wending its way between the trees. Sunlight filtered down where the ground was clear, and he realised a flaw in his scheme: it was still broad daylight. He didn't like to hunt during the day if he could help it.

Well, there was nothing to be done. He would just have to make a quick grab, that was all. He passed a barn, surrounded with trails of warm human scent that set his throat cracking with thirst. He moved quickly, darting from one patch of shade to the next. Which trail to follow? He couldn't hear or smell anyone particularly close or practical to hunt...and then suddenly he froze.

Not mouth-watering but sharp and icy, triggering respect and fear. The scent of another immortal. Completely frozen, Jasper flared his nostrils once, twice...

Shudders were creeping up and down his spine. He could detect not one but three separate smells, all fresh. He didn't care what Carlisle said; this was still the south. He was on their hunting ground.

So what now? Get the hell out, or feed and then get the hell out?

He wasn't really thirsty, but damn, to get so close...

He straightened up, turned and froze. Standing in the doorway of the barn was a young girl.

She looked about fifteen, with tousled dark hair, regular-featured but not particularly striking, watching him steadily. She had surely seen him dashing around, sniffing the ground, and didn't look at all surprised, so she must be a vampire – unless she was insane. There was no fear in her, but no aggression or recognition either. She was standing in the shadow of the building, no sunlight on her skin, and her eyes were dark. Very dark.

He took a half-step forward. She didn't flinch, which probably meant there was at least one other behind her. A two-on-one fight against opponents of unknown strength and skill...unless, of course, she was the village madwoman. He strained forward, trying to catch her scent through the day-old trails filling his nose – and a scraping noise came from inside the barn.

That was enough for Jasper. The girl's head flicked round, and he bolted for the cover of the trees.

The comforting shadows enveloped him, but he didn't stop running. He had been on claimed territory. He had come face-to-face with one of the owners, in all probability. They could be pursuing him already, for all he knew. Or maybe he was overreacting, but if so, he didn't care. He ran.

No blood today then. He leapt twenty feet into the air, landing in the boughs of a tall spruce tree, and swung through the branches for a little way. Never mind. Shake them off.

None of his scent leading up into the tree, since he hadn't touched anything on the way up, and none on the ground for as long as he stayed up here. Good. Wouldn't want to lead them on to –

He froze in every muscle, missed his footing and fell. Ridiculous. One of his hands shot out without conscious instruction and caught hold of a branch, and he swung from it, feeling no strain, stunned.

Carlisle. Would he still be waiting when Jasper got back? And what if he wasn't?

Jasper dropped onto a broad branch and kept moving, but mindlessly now, thinking. Of course, Carlisle couldn't have gone that far in the time he'd been away, and it would be possible to track him down again, but what if the other vampire didn't want to travel with him any more? There wasn't much he could do about that, if so. And then what?

You'd be rid of a damn nuisance, that's what.

Rid of your only companion, too.

Something cold and icy and totally unexpected clutched at his heart when he thought those words. It was fear, he realised, but a totally different kind from the panic that had gripped him outside the barn. Despite the afternoon sunshine, the wood seemed to darken around him. It wasn't that he liked Carlisle so much, it was having company – any company – anyone who wouldn't treat him like a freak because of his aversion to hunting. He could feel the disgust and depression gnawing at the corners of his mind, threatening to engulf him without the flame of companionship to keep them away. Even fighting with Carlisle was better than that.

He took a very long route back to where he'd started. He told himself that he was trying to shake off possible pursuers, but in truth he was dreading the moment when he would have to enter the clearing where he'd left Carlisle, and see whether or not it was empty. He remembered exactly where it was, and when he got closer he could feel it like a sore or a headache on his right side, nagging at him as he circled round in a wide arc to approach from the opposite direction.

Twilight was darker under the trees than it would have been outside. He slipped between trees and reached the edge of the clearing. And there, on the far side, was a figure, sitting against a tree with its golden head on its knees.

'Carlisle!' he hissed.

Carlisle jolted half-upright in an instant, his eyes flying open in shock. 'Jasper!' he exclaimed. And then, leaning forward to look more closely, his face turning from startled to astonished, and then overjoyed, 'Jasper! You –' He darted across the clearing in a blindingly fast motion, one hand raised almost as though he were going to touch Jasper's face. Jasper had been too surprised to react to the rapid approach, but he leaned away from the hand, and Carlisle seemed to recall himself a little. 'You were a long time coming,' he said. 'Your eyes...'

Jasper realised. Of course, his eyes must be the same colour they had been when he had left. Carlisle could tell that he hadn't hunted.

'No, I...' He shrugged. 'Unsuccessful trip.'

'You didn't find a settlement?' Carlisle asked.

'Sure, I went all the way there, but –' The territory had already been claimed, he was about to say, but then he saw the expression on Carlisle's face. It was eager, almost desperately hopeful, and suddenly he thought, why not humour him? I didn't hunt. He's a decent man; if it makes him happy...'

'I changed my mind,' he said. 'I wasn't really very thirsty.'

'You did? I mean, you weren't?'

'No.'

'Mmm.' Carlisle frowned. 'You see, you're right, we are predators and humans are our prey...Lapses...are a part of what we are. But when we're not thirsty...well, animals are better.' He looked up and grinned, suddenly looking positively buoyant. 'I wasn't sure if you were coming back,' he said. 'You were a long time coming.'

'I took a long way round,' Jasper explained. 'I needed to think...'

'Of course.' Carlisle jogged back into the clearing. 'Well, what shall we do now? Stop here for the night, or move on?'

'Let's keep moving,' Jasper said decisively. The thought of that female vampire was still prickling him between the shoulder blades.

'Which way?' Carlisle asked, bouncing on the balls of his feet. Jasper felt like bursting out laughing. Which way? he thought. Does it matter? We're damned whichever way we go, so why worry? Out loud, he said,

'North.'

'Of course.' Carlisle spun round, with unerring sense of direction, turning his face towards the cloudy safety of the northern states. 'But may I suggest a detour?'

'What kind of detour?'

'A hunting detour. If you're tired of red deer, there's plenty of other options before resorting to humans. Mountain lions, grizzlies...smaller predators taste god too, if you can't find any big game...'

'You mean, there's animals that taste better than those herbivores?'

'Of course.'

'Alright.' Jasper felt a sudden, unexpected bubbling of enthusiasm. He hadn't felt like this for decades. 'Let's hunt!'

A/N: So...that was a slightly inconsequential chapter. I intended to have a cliff-hanger at the end, leading into some actual plot and action in the next chapter, but I decided that they really need to do a little bit more actual interacting before they go all smooshy and intense. Only I'm drawing a bit of a blank, so does anybody have any ideas for a scene they would like to see between Carlisle and Jasper? Anything they could discuss? Chats about childhood? Life, the universe and everything (without resorting to arguments and attempted homicide)? Name your requests!

True

P.S. I found the awesomest fic about Jasper and Carlisle ever! It's not a slash like this one, but it's good! http:/ www . fanfiction . net/s/4982620/ 1 /And_Then_He_Took_My _Hand_ Part_2_Jasper

Take out the spaces. It's called 'And Then He Took My Hand' and it's by an author called hopesallthings. Jasper's Texan accent is the sweetest thing ever! I'm not convinced by my Jasper-dialogue in this, mostly 'cos he doesn't speak much in the books anyway, so feedback would be appreciated!

I can't believe this is a PS.