There was something about high school that led you to loathe it in principal. It could have been the fluorescent lights painting a greenish undertone on the most acne prone of teens, or the budding hormones manifesting in lip locking at the locker one was trying to get to, or even just the concept of homework weighing down on heavy conscious because doing Mr. Turner's chemistry balancing worksheet meant you wouldn't be on time to Cal Francis's keg stand party that you had been looking forward to going to all week and he insisted on having it on a Thursday because Mr. and Mrs.'s Francis are in Seattle at a plastic surgery conference and there won't be a better opportunity to get drunk for a good long while.
Looking at the cafeteria food in front of him, he thought it might have been the mystery meat that pushed the scales. His eyes flickered to the Cullen family, where the mystery man was sitting and staring straight back at Beau. He had been at it all lunch. Not that any of the Cullens were busy eating, but looking at the suspicious meat-thing in front of him, well, he got it.
Google last night had informed him that he was probably gay and the first tip on how get to mystery man's heart (or pants, he wasn't picky) was to be alluring in an 'I'm very wanted look at me but don't' type way.
Beau wasn't sure how to do that. But one of Renee's cosmo magazines offered the 5 perfect steps to snatch a man. Renee swore by Cosmo. Beau would follow in her footsteps.
He spared a glance at Jessica, who was still going on about carrot-top, sorry, Edward Cullen and his brilliant butt and beautiful eyes and ability to not be irresistibly drawn to Jessica Stanley. It must have been quite difficult going by the way he never looked her way and seemed to flinch everytime she said his name.
It was a bit odd, seeing as he was sitting across the cafeteria, but Beau was starting to think the guy was psychic.
It sounded crazy, but his reflexes were too fast and his knowledge too intuitive, to be entirely normal.
"Which one is the blond one?" He asked in the most nonchalant tone he could muster.
"Rosalie Hale?" Jessica responded with disdain.
"No the other –" he pointed vaguely to mystery man.
"The pained one who looks like he wants to kill everybody in the room and paint the walls with their blood?"
"Uh. No? Is there another blond one?" Beau scratched the back of his head, his eyebrows had shot up his forehead.
"Doctor Cullen?"
"Doctor Cullen wants to kill everybody in this room and paint the walls with their blood?" Beau gaped back. That couldn't have made for a good doctor.
"No! Have you been listening? Blond Xanax is Jasper Hale. Doctor Cullen doesn't go to high school – he's a doctor, are you okay?"
Jasper Hale. His face felt inexorably warm. It was hard to tell under the barest of light the night had provided, but Beau thought he must have been the most handsome man that he had ever laid eyes on. The cut of his jaw was sharp and deadly as the look of the rapturous black abyss his eyes took on when they shined back when Beau. He looked like one of those big paintings in the art museums featuring biblical or mythological figures – like there could be heaven and hell within the same breath before a kiss as he lingers and —
Beau remembered that he's in the middle of a high school cafeteria. It might not be the best time or place for thought of Jasper Hale grinding in closer with that fucking smug –
Shit. He needed help.
Well, nobody said he couldn't approach them. Besides Jessica Stanley but she seemed confused about the blond Cullens.
So her opinion didn't matter much to him.
It was game time.
Step 1: Make the first move
Jasper Whitlock stared at the suicidal human approaching, with a vague sense of awe. He couldn't even call this hunting if the prey sauntered up to him with his neck bared. It would have been disappointing if it wasn't so funny. Besides that— something about the look in Beau's eyes led Jasper to believe that he would have been perfectly fine with laying below him on a dinner table.
His 'siblings' paused, eyes flicking in succession to the oncoming victim.
('Jasper.' Edward growled.
'Jasper.' Emmett snorted.
'Jasper?' Alice mumbled.
)
Jasper gave him a half cocked smile. ' Bite me.' He thought towards Edward.
"Yo." The human said with faltering confidence.
"Beaumont."
"Fort. Just Beau, actually." His words were said in such a rush that it came out like a sneeze.
"Sure."
Edward stomped on his foot beneath the table.
Jasper let him linger in the silence. The rest of the Cullen Clan were unsettled to the max — astringent wonder pouring off them in buckets. Besides Emmett who was just impressed.
And Alice - who was just thinking about shoes, he supposed.
"So Beau," he flashed a set of too white, too sharp, teeth, "what can I do for you today?"
Step 2: Make eye contact and smile
Typically, when Jasper smiled at food, sorry , humans, they would lower their gaze and even retreat – but Beau smiled back. It was ballsy. And fucking strange.
He was starting to think something was seriously wrong with the man. If he hadn't wished him brutally murdered by his own hand, he would have brought him to Carlisle.
Beau's eyes hardened, and with a flinty glare, he then smiled. Jasper was fairly certain he was trying to smile. It was a bit more of a grimace. His teeth were peeking out from his lips which were stretched a bit too wide on his face like a stiffly stretched canvas by an 'amateur'. Amateur meaning somebody who had never actually seen a canvas. Or art. Actually – they might have just been full stop blind.
A smug look settled onto Beau's face at Jasper's inspection, confusing him.
If Beau wasn't human, Jasper supposed he would be feeling weary right about now.
Step 3: Pay attention to body language
Beau lowered his forearms onto the table, his face was a foot away from Jasper's; and then he leaned closer with his wide owl eyes widening even further until his scent was close enough to tangibly taste. Jasper wet his lips, venom coating the skin, on impulse. Beau leaned back just as slowly, leading Jasper towards him like a magnet, following the scent.
Beau smirked uneasily.
Step 4: Start with a compliment
"I like your face." Beau mumbled dopily.
"Thanks." Jasper grunted.
Would anybody notice if he licked him? Just a taste, a little taste, he wouldn't even bite.
Edward stomped on his foot even harder.
Step 5: Keep it short
"Gotta go." His forearms pushed up, twisting to move out of reach.
Jasper grabbed his arm, hard enough to bruise him like a peach, before he could get away.
"Why don't you stay a bit longer?" Jasper purred.
Beau looked back to Jessica's table, watching his classmates start packing up to leave. "I have to get to class." He tugged on his caught arm.
Jasper tightened his grip. "We can ditch."
"I'm a good student." Beau huffed back.
(' Jasper, let the human go.' Rosalie sneered.
'Let's see what the human wants.' Jasper snarled.
'Do we have to do this here?' Alice whined.)
Jasper tugged Beau into his lap, letting his hands wander around Beau's sturdy shoulders. "I'm not. Stay a bit longer."
"My dad will know."
( 'You're a monster.' Edward growled, leaving the table with a kick of his chair.
'Takes one to know one.' He drawled back.
)
"He doesn't scare me." Jasper held tighter, the heat from the human seeping into his marbled figure.
Beau shook, his voice unsure, "Your dad will know."
"He doesn't scare me ." Jasper bit back.
( 'Babe, if the human wants to fuck Jasper, he was hopeless in the first place.' Emmett told Rosalie.
'I don't care what Jasper wants to stick his dick or teeth into, as long as I don't have to move.' Rosalie responded with a roll of her eyes.
)
Beau fumbled, his words and his body vibrating with excitement and anxiety and all of the feelings that lit his cells aflame.
"Come back to my place." Jasper pressed.
"…said the spider to the fly." Beau whispered back, not disagreeing.
( 'I refuse to watch Jasper's weird mating dance.' Rosalie stormed away.
'Better go make sure she doesn't make any more teachers cry.' Emmett left with an apology.'
)
Jasper tilted his head back, peering deeply and soulfully into Beau's innocent eyes, "Does that mean I can eat you up?"
"You can certainly try." Beau laughed like he was joking.
"I just might." Jasper swore.
Beau's lips twitched. "Is that a threat?"
( 'Oh.' Alice gasped – leaving the table with a bell chiming laugh.)
Beau didn't even notice.
(And then there were two.)
With his lips to his throat, he spoke into the beating heartbeat pulsing from the human's neck, "A promise."
"Well, I wouldn't want you to break a promise." Beau told him, eyes crinkling in delight.
"You won't, I'm a gentleman, gentleman don't break promises." Jasper's fingers traced a vein in his wrist.
"Gentlemen don't eat people either." Beau murmured.
Jasper barked a shred of laughter. "I never said I was good at being a gentleman."
Beau snorted in agreement.
"So you'll come?" Jasper attempted to look innocent.
Beau didn't seem to believe him – but he agreed regardless. "Yeah. Yeah, let's go."
So they left.