A/N: This chapter is shorter than the others have been, but I hope you'll still enjoy it.
We tried to adjust to having Jasper with us, but his gift made it difficult. Peter and I would be laughing and talking while Jasper went out to hunt and when he'd return there was always tension in the air around us. Maybe blaming it all on Jasper's gift would be undermining how uncomfortable I was sharing my time and space with him. Most likely it was a combination of both.
Peter and Jasper fell into an easiness that could only be explained by how close they'd been in the camp. We frequently hunted together, and at times were able to enjoy it. They enjoyed having each other and it was nice to see Peter smiling and laughing so freely. Jasper became Peter's great accomplice and they were constantly getting into some sort of trouble with me. Frequently, they were the reason we could only stay in one place for a short period of time.
"Shit! Char," Peter ran into the hotel room we were staying in with Jasper close on his heels. "Pack woman!"
"What," I asked, standing from the bed and watching as the two of them began shoving things into our bags.
"We need to leave," Jasper said to me as if I couldn't gather that much on my own.
"What the hell did y'all do this time," I asked and began filling a bag, a false sense of urgency swelling in me. "Cut that shit out Jasper. I'm hurrying."
"I'll take that," Jasper said taking the bag from my hand and picking up another one. "See y'all in the car."
"Peter," I asked as he finished latching a suitcase and grabbed my hand, pulling me towards the door, "are you going to tell me what happened?"
"In the car Darlin'," he said, "I'll tell you everything in the car."
He pulled me behind him as he ran out of the hotel's back entrance. The sound of a door being broken down echoed through the hall behind us.
"Oh my God," I said as Peter pushed me into the car Jasper had waiting for us. "You jackasses tried to rob a bank, didn't you?"
"Oh, we should try that next Jasper," Peter said, both of them grinning until they saw my face.
"Or not," was Jasper's reply.
"So why are we racing out of town again," I had to ask, even though I knew the answer didn't really matter.
"Um," they both said while having a silent argument about who was going to tell me.
"We got busted running corn liquor," Peter confessed and I had a feeling that Jasper had used his gift so that he wouldn't have to be the one to tell me about it.
"Corn Liquor," I asked mystified, "Y'all are morons. Haven't y'all heard of prohibition?"
"That's kinda the point Char," Jasper said and I just glared at him.
"We made $500 Darlin'," Peter said and I began to rub my forehead.
"Can I ever leave you two unsupervised," I asked.
We drove 1000 miles before settling down again in another hotel in a different city. In a way, it was nice to have a change of scenery, but I was beginning to feel slightly unsettled by the constant movement that we always seemed to be in. I began to long for a place that Peter and I could make ours and call home. We lasted two months this time, a short amount of time even for us. Peter and Jasper just couldn't seem to resist finding trouble.
"Darlin," Peter said as he eased into the hotel room alone. "Now don't get mad."
"Where's Jasper," I asked.
"He's bringing 'round the car," Peter replied, "Don't get mad, alright?"
"What happened," I asked as I began to pack our things.
"I'll tell you in the car," Peter said as he hefted the luggage. "We'll go out the back."
I followed behind him, thankful that at least this time there weren't cops busting down the hotel room door behind us. Peter got all of the luggage into the car while I slid in. As soon as he was in the car, Jasper gunned the engine and we were once more fleeing a city.
"Y'all get busted running corn liquor again," I asked glancing between the men on either side of me.
"Not exactly," Jasper said.
"Then what," I asked Peter.
"Well, we took your advice," he said with a hopeful smile.
"My advice," I asked, shaking my head. "If y'all had taken my advice, I'd be sitting in a bathtub full of hot water right now."
"You did mention robbing a bank Char," Jasper pointed out to me, hitching his thumb towards the back seat of the car.
I turned around in my seat and looked into the back of the car. There were bags of money piled into the foot space. I turned back around slowly and sat in my seat staring out of the windshield as the countryside flew past us.
"Darlin," Peter said beginning to rub my neck, "are you ok?"
"She's furious," Jasper said and I could feel his gift attempting to calm me.
"Shit," Peter said and Jasper just nodded at him.
"Shut up," I said to both of them and they immediately complied.
We rode in silence for the rest of the day, and Jasper wisely stopped attempting to calm me and let me calm on my own. When we found the obviously abandoned home on the outskirts of a small town and decided to stop, I finally spoke to them.
"It will be my birthday soon," I said after getting out and shutting the car door behind me, "I would really like to spend it here."
I walked into the house, leaving them to bring in the luggage. They followed me, assuring me that they would settle down and that we wouldn't have to move on again until after my birthday had passed. I think that my silence during their last get-away spoke volumes to both of them and they were extremely nice to me during the time leading up to my birthday. I often received peace offerings from them, though I'd forgiven them their stupidity the day after we arrived.
It was my birthday, the fourth since Peter had gone back for Jasper. The stifling emotions that seemed to be who he was weren't nearly as bad as when he'd first joined us but they were still there. Peter had taken Jasper with him into the nearby town earlier, to hunt and pick up something for my birthday he said, but I think it was to give me a break from Jasper's gift. I busied myself tidying the abandoned house that we had been staying in for the past few months. I built up the fire and took a seat in front of it with a book that Jasper had brought me a few weeks ago as another peace offering. I felt the two of them before they ever entered the house. Jasper's overwhelming depression wrapping me in a cocoon of darkness long before Peter's arms found their way around me.
"Happy Birthday Charlotte," Jasper said and held out a wrapped package to me.
"Thank you Jasper," I said and took it from him.
"Open it!" Peter immediately chimed in.
I removed the paper from the box and opened it. I folded back the layers of tissue paper to reveal a very modern dress. It was in the shade of green that I loved to wear because it reminded Peter of my eyes when I was human. I pulled the dress from the box and held it up and it was perfect. I couldn't have picked out a better one for myself.
"Your tits are gonna look amazing in that," Peter said but my eyes were on Jasper.
"Thank you Jasper," I said to him, offering him a smile. "It's perfect."
"You're welcome," he replied, "I know that you like that color."
"I do," I nodded. "It's beautiful."
"I'm going to just," Jasper said as he pointed towards the room that he'd claimed for his own, "go read."
He left the room, and I folded the dress neatly back into its box. Peter pressed a kiss to the side of my head.
"I have something for you," he said with a grin as he pressed another box into my hands, "but open this first."
I opened the box to reveal all of the undergarments that I would need to wear the beautiful dress from Jasper. Peter had even thought to get shoes and a handbag to go with it. I looked up at him and smiled.
"Thank you Sug," I said to him. "I'll wear it tomorrow."
"Good," he quickly replied as he kissed down my neck, "because tonight I don't want you wearing anything."
"Peter," I half protested, "Jasper is in the next room and he just hunted."
"I don't care," he replied and began unbuttoning my dress.
I couldn't resist the feel of Peter's lips on my skin, though we'd always tried to be mindful of Jasper's abilities and state of mind when we were intimate. His depression tonight was ignored as Peter's fingers grazed my nipple, I couldn't find it in me to care what Jasper felt or heard. My hands moved to the buttons of Peter's clothes and soon we stood there naked, wrapped around each other.
Peter lowered me to the rug in front of the fire and settled between my legs. His hands and lips roamed freely over my body and mine did the same to him. I sucked lightly on his neck, and he slipped a finger inside of me. I raised my hips into his hand and his lips met mine. His tongue brushed my lower lip and I opened to him moaning into his mouth. Our tongues danced with each other as he brushed his thumb over my clit.
"Peter," I groaned at him, pleading for more.
He withdrew his hand and I could feel him stroke himself. He ran his cock along my slit before slowly pushing into me.
"God Char," he moaned at me as he began to thrust.
It was a slow coupling, allowing both of us to enjoy the sensations created by the other. Our mouths were locked together in moans of mutual ecstasy. The tension Peter's strokes were creating built within me and I began to flutter around him. He increased his pace and the sound of flesh meeting flesh joined with the gasps and grunts of pleasure. His hand once again found my clit and I cried out his name as my walls began to clamp down around him. His thrusts became erratic, deeper, and each plunge into me drove me further into the oblivion of my orgasm. He gave one final thrust with my name on his lips and shuttered as he collapsed on top of me.
I ran my hands up and down his back as he recovered and soon, he rolled to his side and pulled me into him. We lay there, grinning like fools at each other. My hands drew designs on his chest, and his ran up and down my side.
"Happy Birthday," he said to me.
"Thank you," I replied, "I would have been thirty-two today."
We stayed in front of the fire for several more hours, taking the time to enjoy the comfort we found in each other's body. It was a good birthday for me. We didn't stay in the house much longer after my birthday passed, fearing the attention that our presence might bring since it was supposed to be abandoned. It was Jasper that called me out on what I was thinking as we loaded our luggage into the car.
Jasper looked at me as he put a bag into the trunk and tilted his head to the side in question. Peter was in the abandoned house, re-covering the furniture with the dust cloths that we'd removed when we got here.
"Longing, desire, love, uncertainty, sadness," Jasper said with a nod towards the house, "You should tell him."
"I will," I replied and put down the last of the bags for him to load.
I thought about what Jasper said as we drove away from the house. I did need to talk with Peter, but it was so difficult for us to talk with Jasper's emotions tainting us. They were so much lighter than they'd been when he joined us but the effects of the negative emotions would show themselves frequently still. It was always worse after Jasper hunted, Peter had pointed that out to me the day the two of them returned from a hunt and I inexplicably began sobbing over a hairbrush. It helped if you were expecting them. We knew that if we had sex while Jasper was in the house that his guilt over our last day in the camp would crash into us and leave us feeling like teenagers who had been caught in flagrante by their priest if we weren't prepared for it. I leaned into Peter's side as he drove and absently ran my hand along his thigh.
"When we stop," I asked him, "will you hunt with me?"
"Of course, Darlin'," he replied and leaned around me to waggle his eyebrows at Jasper.
We drove for several hours before we stopped and got a hotel room. After checking in, we dropped the bags off in the room and Peter wrapped an arm around my shoulder.
"We're off to hunt," he said to Jasper, "Don't get jizz on the bed. That's my job."
"We'll be back soon Jasper," I said to him as we walked out of the room. "Ignore Peter."
Once outside of the hotel, I turned to Peter as we walked and smiled a small smile. He answered my smile with a wink.
"What's on your mind Darlin'," he asked me.
"I want a house," I told him. "Nothing fancy, just someplace that's ours."
"Like Garrett," he asked and I nodded.
"Darlin'," he asked me, "what's brought this on? I thought you were happy."
"I am Sug," I said to him with a smile. "Very happy. It's just, we move around so much."
"Um-hmm," he answered.
"Wouldn't it be nice," I questioned him, "to have stuff that's ours?"
"We do," he said pulling me to sit on a park bench with him.
"We have clothes," I sighed out. "I just thought it would be nice for us to make a home together."
"It would be nice," he agreed. "What kind of house?"
"Something small," I settled into his side with a smile. "Big enough for us. What do you think?"
"A nice view," he answered, "We had a nice view where I grew up."
"That sounds nice," I hummed. "What else?"
"A big ass bed," he laughed and gave me a squeeze, "and a big tub."
We laughed together, getting more and more ridiculous as we talked about the kind of house that we might like to get.
"Where would you like this house," he asked me still chuckling over some of the silly things that we'd mentioned.
"I would love for it to be in Texas," I said knowing that it was just a dream and I felt Peter stiffen next to me, "but that's just a dream Peter. I know that we can't move to Texas."
"Why don't you start looking in to places tomorrow," he asked me.
"I'll go to the library as soon as it opens in the morning," I said smiling at him. "We can afford a house, right?"
"Darlin'," he chuckled, "I'm pretty sure we can and if we can't, me and Japer can just knock over another bank."
"You wouldn't dare," I accused him and he leaned in and brushed his lips over mine.
"I will do anything for you," he whispered against my lips.
E/N: Thank you to those of you that take the time to let me know what you think via reviews. They mean a lot and help me stay motivated. And much love to my AMAZING husband, who gives me a smack on the ass whenever I get a chapter right.