I don't usually write Jasper so I'm a little nervous about this one. Hope you like him. :)

Deştepta

Pairing: E/B endgame
Rating: It's about a goddamn succubus, do you have to ask?
Setting: College AU vaguely following the Twilight storyline
All standard disclaimers apply

"Thought I'd find you up here."

"You knew perfectly well where I was." The edge of Edward's lip curls slightly with the vaguest hint of disgust. He's up here for a reason; he doesn't want to be around anyone. It's only Jasper, however, so Edward doesn't stomp away. Jasper is the only sibling he isn't currently fighting with, and he'd like to maintain the peace if possible. Besides, feuding with Jasper is futile. He remains calm and placid, the still waters which run deep, refusing to trade barbs or sneers, until he reaches his limit and all hell breaks loose—physically. The last time one of Edward's moods pushed Jasper too far, they had to buy Esme a new house.

Edward perches on the apex of the gently slanted roof, his dark yellow eyes gleaming dimly in the reflected light streaming from the windows below. The scent of the late summer forest shifting swiftly toward fall envelops him: dry pine, drier sage, the cooler green of bracken fern hidden here and there in damp pockets of earth. Above it all, subtle and stirring, he can still smell Bella clinging to him: honeyed spice and woodsmoke, sweet and lingering. She touched him for only a moment, reached out and took his hand before he could pull away. The feel of that instant fire sears him even now, igniting an ache he cannot ignore, a thirst he cannot quench and he isn't sure has much to do with her blood, anyway. He's positive Jasper can feel the disquiet rolling off of him in waves and he wants to pull away. It's too intimate, knowing everything he feels is laid bare before this brother. He never much cared before, but he never had feelings like this before. He does not understand them and therefore does not want to share or admit to them. What Bella does to him is his burden, his cross to bear.

But Jasper sought him out up here, and not because Alice demanded he take Edward in hand. Alice is innocent—this time—texting quietly with someone instead of meddling in Edward's business like she has since they moved here. No, Jasper came to him on his own.

"I've been thinking about going away for a while," Edward says with no preamble. He's been toying with this idea since mid-afternoon when he tried to switch out of his anatomy lab only to discover all the other sections were full. "I know being around me isn't easy for you, and Rosalie is angry at me, and Emmett feels awkward trying to stay out of it. It would be better for everyone if I left."

For a moment Jasper does not speak, and Edward resists the urge to delve into his mind. He loathes the chaos of other people's minds, but he feels at a loss when that chaos disappears and he's placed on the same level as those around him. Maybe that's part of his problem with Bella. He can't read her, and he does not like suddenly being on equal footing with someone when he speaks to them.

Jasper lowers himself with careless grace to slouch against the roofline alongside his brother. "What happened?" His voice betrays neither surprise nor concern. Part of Edward prefers this unruffled calm, but part of him spikes with grumpiness. He doesn't need his family hovering over him as if he were a child, but a little consideration would be appreciated.

"Why don't you ask your wife?" Edward is still furious at Alice. He hears faintly the high trill of her laugh as she texts with a new study partner or something. He's still not speaking to her.

"I'm asking you instead."

Edward can feel the pressure of Jasper's calm attempting to settle over him like a fog over a bay, but he resists. He doesn't want that superimposed tranquility. To him it feels like the sedation imposed by human medication—artificial, synthetic. He doesn't want a drug; he prefers the reality of his own misery. "Don't," he warns.

Jasper eases off without argument. "Suffer, then. Have it your way."

He will. It's better this way.

They sit in silence for a time, each staring off into the night-dark forest. To Edward's eyes the night is full of color and definition, jewel-dark and almost radiant in its clarity. He can see the movements of small nocturnal creatures as easily as if it were daylight, but he ignores them all. None of it holds any interest for him. He should be at least pretending to do his homework, but concentration is impossible when his hand still burns so sweetly, tingling with exquisite warmth. He clenches his fist, then forces himself to release the tensed muscles one by one. This sensation...it's a bright twin to pain, and yet a world away. He has no words to describe the sweet ache, but it won't go away. Won't leave him in peace. All she did was grasp his hand for a moment before he pulled back, but he's terrified he'll never again be the same person he was before she touched him.

"Tell me something." The words are out before he can think better of them, which is not like him at all.

"Sure," Jasper agrees easily.

Edward shoves his hand under his brother's nose. "Touch. Here."

Jasper raises one slow, very deliberate eyebrow. The men of this family do not touch each other, generally speaking. The females are more physically demonstrative, but Edward guesses that's just a girl thing. He and Jasper and Emmett brawl, yes, because vampire tempers are short and seven adults under one roof can get to be...a lot. But they do not touch.

"Knock it off," he says now, pulling a face at Jasper. "She touched me today. Right here. It still...hurts? I don't know what to call it."

"You want a medical diagnosis, you're barking up the wrong tree, friend." But Jasper is a good sport and puts his palm in Edward's as if shaking his hand. A moment later his brow furrows and he pulls sharply away. "You're warm."

Edward's mouth thins. "I thought so. It's been so long, it's difficult to tell."

Jasper looks at him warily. "I could smell her on you, you know. The minute you walked through the door this afternoon."

Edward's chin jerks, the barest hint of a nod. He knows. He can still smell her now.

"Tried showering?"

He doesn't bother answering. He thought about trying to scrub the memory of her from his skin, and probably he should have. But the truth is, he doesn't want to. Her lingering heat has dimmed throughout the afternoon and evening, and while it terrifies him, he also doesn't want it to end.

Jasper sets two fingertips lightly against the back of Edward's other hand. "Still cold here."

"It only burns where she touched me." Edward draws back from his brother. He wanted confirmation of his suspicions but he doesn't want to share this any further. "She took my hand for a moment. It felt like fire."

Jasper's brow furrows with concern. "Pain?"

Edward's shoulders hitch. He can't answer that question, and he doesn't know why. Pain is a very clearcut concept, isn't it? But he honestly can't tell. All he knows is that, whatever it is, he doesn't want it to fade. It's not comfortable, but the discomfort is...exquisite. And that scares the hell out of him.

"You don't look hurt." Jasper's head tilts ever so slightly to the side as he studies his brother critically. "Or maybe you do."

"Quit it. I don't need to be psychoanalyzed."

"That hasn't been the correct term since at least the 1950's. You're sadly behind the times as usual, my friend." Jasper leans back, propping himself on his elbows. "Alice won't tell me what she's up to with this one, so if you're looking for answers, you're out of luck."

"I know that, and I didn't come looking for you. You're the one harassing me."

"I was just trying to help, man. Jesus. Does everything have to be a war with you? I came to check on my brother because he's miserable. Like, more miserable than usual. Is that such a crime?"

Edward does not dignify that with a response.

"I can feel that you're not just embarrassed anymore. You were, after that first, uh, mix-up."

Edward doesn't want to be reminded of that night ever again, not even by Jasper, who at least never laughed at him about it.

"But you're not embarrassed anymore. You're a confused mess instead. Usually your emotions are extremely rational and ordered. Intense—sometimes far more intense than they should be—but rational. Not today."

"I could have told you that," Edward snarls. He doesn't enjoy when his brother plays at head-shrinking. He may not be as old as Jasper but he knows who he is. He's always known who he is. Even when he left the family for a time, he still knew deep down who he was. This has never been a problem for him—not until that girl walked into his life.

Unaccountably, this makes him furious. No one has ever shaken him like this, and he barely even knows her. This should not be happening. There's no logical explanation for what she is and what she's doing to him.

Jasper clears his throat quietly. "Rosalie thinks she could be a threat."

This is not news to Edward. "Rosalie thinks everything is a threat. She thought you and Alice were a threat at first."

"I know. But I think even you'd agree she has more cause this time. We don't know what that girl is, Edward."

No, they don't know what Bella is. Edward has hunches but no solid answers, and the rest of the family knows even less. Except Alice, probably, but she's not talking.

"Carlisle asked Rosalie straight out if she wanted to move today."

Edward turns to look at his brother fully. "He did?" That's news to him. He's been up here on the roof since he got home, studiously not talking or listening to anyone.

"I mean, the wolves already don't want us here, and now we have an unknown x-factor walking around campus. There have been reports of people going missing over the summer and Emmett swears he caught the scent of at least one nomad when he was out hunting the other day. The situation is volatile. Can't say I blame Rose for being twitchy under the circumstances."

"What did she tell Carlisle?"

Jasper shrugs. "Alice swears the girl isn't dangerous and she hates moving. Emmett wants to stay because there are a couple of big wolves on the wrestling team and you know that's the sort of challenge he can't resist. Rose won't steal Emmett's fun for now but she's nervous and I think she has a right to be."

Edward and Rosalie don't often get along but he agrees with Jasper. The situation is fraught and he can't blame Rosalie for her suspicion this time. She's protective of the family they've built and wary of anything that might endanger it. Bella could very well be one of those things. He honestly doesn't know, and not knowing feels worse than knowing the worst. If she truly is a danger, they need to get out of here. Go somewhere else, start over yet again. Everyone hates moving but they'd hate it even more if they brought the wrath of the Volturi upon themselves. Wolves, innocent humans, potential nomads, and now Bella? This feels like a powder keg just waiting for a spark.

But Alice insists Bella isn't dangerous. This possibility is perhaps even more frightening to Edward, and he has no idea what to do if Alice is correct. His hand still tingles so sweetly with the unaccustomed warmth of her touch. He can smell her gentle scent on his skin and her sweet heat whispers in his veins with predatory silkiness. It's the threat of a hunter luring her prey, deceptively seductive—he knows it must be. Vampires do the same, luring humans with their unnatural beauty, their scent and allure. But Bella's a cascade of fire and warmth and emotion where his kind are cold and distant and calculating. She's a hunter, his instincts tell him, but of an entirely different variety.

"Can you read this riddle?" Jasper watches an owl swoop overhead, silent in the darkness. "She touched you. You were close enough to get a bead on her mind."

Edward grimaces, his face drawing up in a fearsome pout. "I can't help you."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means," Edward growls, biting the words through a tense jaw that suddenly refuses to relax, "that I can't help you."

Jasper flinches back slightly at the hostility firing from his brother like razor blades. His golden eyes turn wary. "What's got you acting like this? What did you read in her head?"

Edward refuses to answer.

"Look, I get that you prefer to live on the fringes of this coven. Fine. You like to pretend to be this tortured, misunderstood outcast, when we actually understand and like you perfectly well. Fine. No one's ever tried to stop you. Esme thinks you were maybe turned too young and that's why you refuse to pull yourself out of these moody-teenager funks. I never really cared about the reason, and I still don't. You are who you are, and I accept you, brother. But this is your family. If you know something that the rest of us need to, something that could put us in danger, and you refuse to share it, that's not okay."

"I don't know anything." It's almost true, too. He's aware of very few definitive facts about Bella. Yet he knows so much more than Jasper does, because he's touched her. Jasper has no idea what that felt like, and never will because Edward will never be able to put it into words. Also, he doesn't want to. Just as he couldn't bring himself to shower, to wash away the scent and heat clinging to his skin, he doesn't want to share this burden with anyone. He doesn't want to share...her, he realizes abruptly. Anything about her. Not his inability to read her mind. Not the shameful way he's spent his nights running from her only to inevitably circle back, ending up on the lawn of the reeking frat house before dawn. He can't stop Jasper from knowing his emotions, but he can deny him everything else. "Ask your wife, if you're so worried. She knows more than I do."

Jasper shifts, his powerful body barely concealing his own rising agitation, but he hasn't neared his limit yet. "Alice knows something, something she's not ready to talk about yet. Usually that means she's afraid of changing what she sees. If she's that convinced, Edward, fighting this is impossible. Betting against my girl is futile. How long have you lived with us now? I can feel your hostility, but I don't understand it."

Edward doesn't understand it, either. He only knows that, like Rosalie, he's wary. And, like Rosalie, he can feel a threat in the air. He just doesn't know where it's coming from. Bella? The wolves? Something else entirely?

But, unlike Rosalie, he's met the x-factor face to face. He's touched her hand. He saw her naked, her lithe body glistening with sweat and held up between two wolves, her dark eyes hazy with desire. His body tenses at the memory as a wash of conflicting emotions cascades down upon him. Embarrassment, fury...desire. Twice now she's mentioned the possibility of him joining them that night, which he absolutely rejects. The thought repulses him.

But she does not. And maybe that's the part he's having such trouble accepting. He's never...wanted...anyone before, human or vampire. In his time, admitting to such things was unacceptable.

Jasper hisses lowly at the waves of emotion rocking him. Instead of just flinching, this time he climbs to his feet and steps deliberately back. "I want to help," he says quietly, "but I can't just sit here while you do this to yourself."

"Nobody asked you to." Edward did not ask for help. He does not want help. Jasper can't explain to him who Bella is and why she does this to him, so he wants to be left alone.

"Are you really going to leave? Run away from this instead of facing it?"

Yes. It seems like a wonderful idea to Edward.

"I get it, okay? Don't you think I get it? Emmett doesn't because he's Emmett, and also because he's never really been alone. He woke up to this life with Rose already at his side. He loves her, but he didn't have to wait for her and he's not the kind to pine, anyway. But I get it. Carlisle gets it. Being alone hurts, but the struggle to accept that you maybe don't have to be alone anymore hurts, too."

"Why are you talking as if Alice intends to fix me up on a blind date?" Edward growls. He didn't welcome this conversation to begin with and he's done now. "That...creature...is not a match for me. We don't even know what she is." She's so beautiful she makes his heart ache, but he does not know what she is and he insists he doesn't like what he does know.

"Alice hasn't told me anything directly, but she does let little things slip from time to time. I know vaguely where she thinks this is headed."

"No," Edward insists, but even as the word leaves his mouth his fingers move to brush the spot on his hand still tingling with her retained heat. Jasper's mouth twitches. "I can't help it," Edward growls, rising to his feet and clenching his hands into fists at his sides. Jasper's mocking him, and he's going to blow in a minute. He thought this brother might understand when the rest of his siblings seem to think his reactions to Bella are the funniest thing they've seen in decades. Now he just wants to get away from them all—from his siblings, yes, but also Bella. Maybe if he runs far enough, that scent will stop following. Maybe if he runs far enough, he can tear her from his mind completely. "I can't help what she does to me!" His voice rises, as it almost never does.

Jasper doesn't laugh. His mouth twists wryly, but it's an expression comprised of equal parts amusement and sympathy. "Welcome to manhood, little brother."

Edward's frustration turns to fury as he reaches his limit. "That's not what I mean," he seethes.

"It will be." Jasper stretches, cracking his neck and shoulders.

"No. I've told Carlisle, I don't believe I have a match out there like the rest of you do."

"I know that, and I don't believe it. The world is wide and not even Carlisle has seen all of it."

Jasper doesn't know what he's talking about. Usually that's Emmett's job, but apparently Jasper has decided to take over his brother's role of talking out of his ass, since he's making no sense. Edward does not have a match; he's been alone too long to believe otherwise. "Even if I did have a compatible mate out there," he says, struggling to hold on to the last threads of his temper, "she would be nothing like Bella." That girl's touch still sears his skin, but that has to be a symptom of whatever the hell she is, nothing more.

"You don't even know who Bella is, really, so how would you know?" Jasper says reasonably.

"Because," Edward spits through his teeth, "if I wanted a mate—which I don't—she would not be that."

"Yet you just stated you have no idea what Bella actually is."

"I know what she isn't," Edward insists, though why he's being so stubborn about this he doesn't know. Jasper's bringing it out in him by remaining calm and refusing to engage his anger. And he does know what Bella isn't. She's not the kind of girl he'd have brought home to his mother, once upon a time. She's not demure, not polite, not modest or unassuming. "Before Carlisle turned me, I assumed the girl I'd someday marry would be like my female cousins. Intelligent, witty, well-educated for the time. They liked tending flower beds and playing chess, being fitted for new dresses and reading poetry."

"Not raw-dogging a frat full of wolves," Jasper says dryly.

"If you insist on bringing that up every time we have a conversation, I may stay away permanently." Even as he says it the image of Bella from a wolf's dream, bent over the dining table like an offering, slams into his mind.

Jasper grunts softly and steps back again. "That's my exit cue. That girl may not be your match; that's none of my business unless Alice says it is. But you should consider carefully why just mentioning her sends you into rut." He looks vaguely amused, vaguely disgusted.

Edward is just disgusted. "No one asked you."

"No," Jasper acknowledges, "no one did, and I give up. Run, if you're convinced it will help. I welcome your opportunity to learn from the mistake you're about to make." He steps abruptly off the edge of the roof and disappears into the night.

Edward jumps from the other side and darts into the trees. Jasper's heading for Alice and he's heading for the hills—literally. The Olympic mountain range isn't far, and he needs to clear his head. He needs a good long run before he tells Carlisle he's leaving.

Alice listens with satisfaction as she hears the conversation on the roof above her break up. She turns back to her own conversation via text.

- Edward isn't going to be in class for a while. Don't worry, he'll be fine.

The reply comes back just as Jasper climbs through the open window, graceful as a cat. - Why would I worry?

"Are you stirring up trouble there, darlin'?" Jasper throws himself down on her bed and grazes his fingertips along her jean-clad leg.

"Always," she agrees. "He'll thank me later."

"I don't know how much you heard, but I'm not sure he even likes her," he says doubtfully.

"He doesn't know her," Alice corrects. "Give it time." She pats his hand and returns to her phone.

- You and I have swimming together on Tuesday and Thursday mornings.

- How do you know that?

- Because I arranged it that way, silly! Come over after; I don't have any classes the rest of the day. Do you eat? We can stock the kitchen.

- I can, but I don't.

Jasper peers over her shoulder, his breath tickling her skin. Alice squeals and swats at him. "That's more than a little trouble, you know." His caution is borne out when another text appears:

- Sam told me to stay away from all of you.

"See?" he says gently. "She's involved with the wolves, and they don't like us. It may be best to let this one be."

Alice shakes her head firmly. "You wouldn't say that if you knew what I know." Her thumbs type swiftly. - Swim days, Bella. They'll smell the pool on you and never know the difference.

The text comes back almost immediately. - Are all leeches evil geniuses? I didn't peg your brother for either. You, however…

"Leeches?"

Alice's little trill of laughter is as high and sweet as a birdcall. "That's what the wolves call us."

Jasper catches her chin gently in his fingers, pulling her attention away from her phone. He holds her eyes with his. "What have you seen? The truth this time, please. Edward's beyond anything I've ever seen from him before, and I don't know that pushing him any more is a good idea."

Alice cups her hand around his fingers and pecks his mouth softly. "I can't tell you. I'm sorry. It's still so fragile, and I don't know what might throw the balance off. If it collapses, Jas, this will all end horribly."

"And if it doesn't?"

She beams. "Edward might just get a chance to grow up."