The Twilight Twenty-Five

Prompt: Voracious

Pen name: Mandi1

Pairing: Alice & Jasper

Rating: T

voracious (adj.): consuming or eager to consume great amounts of food; ravenous; having or marked by an insatiable appetite for an activity or pursuit; greedy.

It was getting to be too much for him. Most of the time, Jasper was used to the temptation. He had been dealing with it for over two hundred years, though he had only been abstaining from giving in for the last fifty. He knew what it was like. The fire in his throat, the overflow of venom filling his mouth, the itching all over his skin, the temptation to attack as soon as a sweet scent assailed his nose. It was the devotion to his family, to his wife, and to their way of life that kept him on the straight and narrow path. Perhaps there was a tinge of devotion to the sacred human life as well, but that was never the first thought that sprang to mind; that only came after Alice reminded him just what he was thinking of. Killing. Being a murderer. Again.

He had consumed so much blood over time that it had been strange at first to go without. His gift had been a large contributor towards his abstinence. With his empathic abilities, Jsaper was able to feel just what the human was going through as they lay dying. Even if his bite was swift and merciful, it was still a burning pain in the human's skin, and the fright and agony they experienced at the end began to make him feel sicker and sicker. And so he had quit. And she had made him strong.

But she wasn't there that day. He had continued on to Calgary College and she was still completing her senior year at Chapel Lake High School back home. He drove to campus every other day – and sometimes she would surprise him at the car before he left school to return home – but not having her next to him during those long hours of academia made the constant human exposure even more difficult. Even when he knew he shouldn't, he still had trouble quieting all his thoughts unless she was there. She knew, even without Edward's gift, just when his mind was straying to daydreams of biting, blood, and murder.

That was where he was going now, and he couldn't help himself. The boy in front of him usually sat at the back of the class – one of those jock types who had been forced to take Grammar 1301 to keep his scholarship and spent each class sleeping or doing crossword puzzles or not-so-secretly texting his next random hookup – but he had been late to class today, and the only available seat had been the second one in the far right row. The seat just in front of Jasper.

The boy had a thick sweater over his t-shirt. It was bright blue with yellow stripes and a zipper that ran from the neck to the chest (very American Eagle, Alice would have claimed derisively) and the heavy knitted fabric only seemed to intensify his scent. Jasper tried not to breathe for the longest time, but it was too much. He had to take it in. Just one whiff and…oh…

He was tempting. So very tempting. Jasper swallowed against the rush of venom that swelled in his mouth like a tidal wave and readjusted himself in his seat, pressing his body against the side of the hard little desk, trying to cause himself pain just to be a hurtful distraction. It didn't work; his body could barely feel the pinch. And so he closed his eyes, ignoring the boy and his scent and the professor lecture on the Oxford comma, and thought of the one thing that might have saved him

Alice, slipping from that stool in a nondescript diner in Philadelphia.

Alice, laughing in her white dress as they crowded into the getaway car after their wedding.

Alice, pins in her mouth as she hemmed a swatch of fabric on her dressform.

Alice, her face warm and sparkling in the sunlight, leaning over him moments after making love.

For her he could do this. He had lasted fifty years. With her, he would last fifty more. And fifty after that. And fifty thousand after that. Until the end of time.

Even with the mantra of Alice in his heart, Jasper was still beyond pleased when the class was dismissed. He left the room a little too fast, leaving a pair of girls near the door wondering just what had made him leave so quickly, but he didn't care. The fresh air would do him good. And once he was outside, it was so freeing and calming that he snuck into the woods behind the Thompson Building, letting himself have a congratulatory snack before heading to the car.

He had parked in the North Lot near the woods for this very reason; sometimes he just had to clear his head with a meal before heading home, especially if Alice wasn't going to be riding with him that day. And though she had said nothing about meeting him at the car and had given no hint to a surprise visit (as she, so awful with secrets, usually did), there Alice was, standing next to his car, her back towards him so that he could only reassure himself it was her by the darkness of her hair and the familiar curve of her body clad in dark jeans and a bright blue top. She turned his way slowly, her eyes meeting his, a strange, recalcitrant yet remorseful look in them. Her hands were clenched in front of her – no, clenched around a sweater that matched the same cerulean hue as her shirt. A sweater, blue with yellow stripes, that was still wrapped around a very dead young man.

She bit her lip and shrugged, letting the boy slip gently to the ground. "Ooops."