A/N An update? Who would've thunk. Anyways my finals are over for the first class of summer term. So I'm back alive. Sorta. Ish.
Whatever.
I'm also working on Eve out of Eden chapter two and have Jasper/Beau Swan Drabble that I was writing while downing white claw like the white college girl trash I am.
Maybe I'll post it? We'll see. Thanks to everybody who comments, bookmarks, or kudos. I read everything you say and it makes me all warm and fuzzy. That's saying a lot bc I sorta have a hangover. I might edit this chapter again but I'm posting it before I can actually stop myself.
Do you guys want the Jasper/Beau? Also I love prompts, the last fic was my friends idea. Well sorta, we were watching breaking dawn and I asked her about what she thought Aro would be like as a therapist and well – spiral.
Her car smells like Arizona rain and Jasper's mouth on her neck. She takes a deep breath, raising her arm. She wonders if he'll be able to smell himself on her - wonders what that could possibly mean. She closes her eyes, scrunching her nose as she exhales loudly. Nothing good, I'll bet.
While the numbers are slightly faded, she can read it perfectly, not that it matters. He's her number neighbour. It's almost as if she knows him.
She doesn't. She knows that.
But still. It's weird. Or maybe not. Really it's not that weird. Shut up Bella, it's fine. It's not like he wants to eat you or anything.
She feels out of her body. How many times can a human do this without falling insane? Until lives become chess pieces and loops have the emotional weight of a bad tv show? This is some Paris Hilton – girls gone wrong – level shit already. She's terrified for a moment that she's going to come out of this something entirely different. Bella already feels like she's losing her sanity. Whatever sanity there could be in a girl who fell in love with somebody actively wanting to murder her. Me. Better not to think about Edward with all this talk of destiny and coincidence.
She never believed in destiny anyways.
Holding her phone desperately in one hand, she dials the number. Her fingers touch the keys slowly, dragging out the time it takes to press call.
It feels bizarrely like a death sentence.
Like there's no going back.
Which is crazy. I'm being crazy. It's just a phone call.
He picks up on the first ring.
"Who might I be speaking to?" A deep southern drawl purrs.
Oh fuck. Fuck me. Hello.
"Bella."
Because that explained everything.
"Bella, now Bella, how'd you get my number, darling?"
Her mouth opens, only for her body to shudder. Her mental space feels pushed. Heavy. I can't lie anymore today. And not to him. I'm so fucking sick of lying.
Her head is screaming, OH THE HUMANITY.
She puts on a plastic smile, it's more for her than him, "Oh, well, your brother, Jasper gave me it."
The line is quiet, she can hear the sound of footsteps on wooden floors, a squeaky door opening, and then silence once again. It's refreshing. She's gotten what she wanted. She got Peter's number. She just has to be patient now.
"Jasper, huh? Now, why might he have done that?" Peter speaks softly. Where Jasper is all orders and business hidden under a thick layer of snark, Peter's voice is all playful tension and underlying humour. That to start if you've even gotten Jasper to speak in the first place. Peter's different.
Peter talks like he knows the end of the joke before it's been told. He doesn't need to play bad bitch – it's just a natural state of being.
Her face blanks, she stares out the window at the Cullen's 'ducks in a row' statue garden, of ever annoying marble, vaguely replying, "I asked him to." She did, to be fair.
She can hear him hum on the other side, all deep and vibrating through her little phone.
Is it bad that I like it? He had 'if I killed you nobody would find the body' vibes. That can't be a good thing. He even hums like he's secretly saying, 'Yeah I know you think I'm hot but I'll still eat you'. The point is – actually there's no point, I'm just apparently way too lonely.
To be fair, I did date Edward. Being left high and dry is kinda in the description with that dude.
Peter snorts, "That doesn't sound much like something Jasper would do, does it? Bella dear, how do you know my brother?" She can hear the wind on his side of the phone.
Jessica and Lauren are across the parking lot, leaning up against Tyler's van. They're smiling. Happy. She wonders what happens when other people die during her loops. If they stay dead.
If I kill somebody – will the blood be on my hands? Or will it be like it never happened in the first place?
"Shouldn't you just know?" Fuck if she doesn't. Stay dead. Or know. She doesn't anything much of anything.
She can hear a long and tormented sigh, there's so much vibrato in it that she wants to ask if that just comes out naturally or if there's some level of effort going into the pure melancholy that this man can exude, "Isabella, I'm going to be transparent with you for a moment, that okay? Okay, I don't know why in the ever-loving-fuck you called me, I know, it's surprising, but you got the wrong man. I ain't helping anyone quick, you got me?"
Bella panics. He can't hang up. He can't. She won't let him.
"I'm in a time loop. I have no idea what's happening, everyone I've tried to help me has either killed me personally or indirectly, and I basically gaslit Jasper into getting you to give me advice. You have intuition right? Guesses that are miraculously true or something?"
The pause on the line is a lot longer than any of them before. She can't really blame him. It's not like he knows her or owes her anything.
"...You realise you sound a bit bat shit crazy Isabella. Right?" To her, it sounds like he reluctantly agrees. It also sounds like he's one comment away from bursting into laughter.
She bangs her head against the window. It could be worse. "Please? Just tell me something only you would know for the next loop? Please…it can be small."
Something about Peter makes her want to grab on with everything she has and refuse to let go. It isn't born out of common sense or the slightest thread of rationality – it's instinctually and gritty and dirty and so fucking desperate that she can hardly look at it. Something in her head said that Peter can help. She just needs Peter to help.
There's a long silence. She can't hear him breathe from the other line, but it isn't as though he needs to breathe much anyways.
"My little sister's name was Annabelle. No more questions." He says Annabelle like Bella would say, 'love' or Jasper would say 'Alice'. Peter cares about this girl and something in Bella is screaming that something horrible happened to her. It isn't anything she can change – but god can she wish.
She sighs. Her heart is carrying an amalgamation of things both full and heavy and light and floating as ever-willing as hope. The feeling sits fluttering in her neck.
"Thank you."
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
"And if you were smart, you would delete this number, you hear?"
I won't. I can't. Impossible. It's etched inside her organ deep. They'd have to remove my kidneys and chop up my liver, as they held her down on the operating table, to get to it. That shits MINE.
"Peter?" Her voice comes out vulnerable and wrong in all the ways she knows it was never meant to be with Peter.
"I just want to be left alone, tell that to the rest of the coven for next time, wouldn't want there to be any accidents. Bye Bella." His voice is heavy and worn in all of the wrong places like torn leather from the discount shop.
"Fuck, wait. I'm -"
Click.
After everything? That's it? That all I have for my efforts, a surly Whitlock brother, more scars than I can count, and a fucking grocery list of people I don't fucking know. And a Peter. If I even have him. God, I want him. Can't things be as easy as that? I can wish. Fuck – I can wish.
If wishes were horses then –
Better not think about it that way.
I might as well just have fun today. There's no use trying to get through to Peter again.
She opens her truck door, looking around for Edward. He must have gone to class, because he's entirely out of sight. Nodding assuredly to herself, she grumbles towards the smoker. Matty, her mind claims.
When his eyes meet hers, she swipes the pack and heads back towards the Cullens.
She can hear him yelling from behind her. She keeps walking. What's he going to do? Bite me? Been there, done that.
When she gets to the Cullens, she makes eye contact with Jasper, daring him to disagree.
"We're going to be great friends, Jasper."
That, 'I'm cursed' look, is back on his face. Great to know you care, Jasper.
She grabs his shirt, his face scrunching in confusion, desperately trying to analyse the situation, as she walks back to the car. No time to stop for questions.
Or maybe there's all the time in the world. She still hadn't figured that out yet. It'll go on the list below 'why Peter has an Arizona number' and 'Will Edward use the same fucking lines to break up with her every fucking time'. The list was only full of the most profound questions.
"I'll bring him back in one piece, Alice!" She calls over her shoulder.
"Have fun, Bella!" Alice responds without question. I fucking love pyschics. Can't everyone just agree with my plans of vaguely murderous or suicidal actions – that – easily?
She releases his shirt, pointedly looking at her truck and then back to Jasper.
He stares for a minute before blinking slowly and getting into the car. Good boy.
"Thank fucking god." She mumbles under breath.
She slides into her seat, flipping the pack of reds open and nudging him.
He slides his marble fingers into the pack and lights up.
Bella does the same.
"Major -"
"Why do you smell like me?"
I'll be as honest as the little box in my head can bear.
"You almost bit me."
"When?"
"Today, or well, a few minutes ago, really."
"Why do you suddenly have scars?"
"Victoria found me."
"How do you know about The Major?"
"You told me."
"Why'd you say we were going to be good friends?"
"Do you not want to be my friend, Jasper? Whatever, just call it a hunch."
"A hunch? Explain." He apparently, really, doesn't like vague answers. Bella assumed this to some degree, based mostly off of past interactions, but the look on his face really does spell out oncoming doom in a pretty neon font.
"I just know things."
"Like Alice?"
"No."
"..." Jasper looks somewhere between throttling her for existing in a way without clarity and giving her an extra dose of vamp brand Xanax.
"Ask anything, I'll try to be honest." She interrupts before he can dope her.
"Like Peter?"
"I don't think so."
"But you know Peter?"
Well yes. But also no. I know Peter today in a very different way than I did today and could today. Tomorrow? Fuck time travel. I know Peter, but I don't know what Peter will be to me tomorrow or what could happen the next day and it's not fair because no matter what I say it just feels like – "He doesn't like me."
"He doesn't like most people." Jasper's eyebrows raise.
She clicks her tongue, "He really doesn't like me."
He takes a minute to absorb her words. That's what she would prefer to assume anyways. It's just as likely that he's making a pro and con list with the options of 'murder the girl' and 'intense observation' at the top followed by a bunch of clinical annotations followed by a frowny face. He's a hard person to read.
Privately, I can imagine it hard to be Jasper Whitlock, let alone read him. What is there to feel for the boy who feels everything?
"What's happening to you, Bella? Why are you talking to me about it and not Edward or Alice?" Jasper finally settles on.
She wets her lip, going through her own list of what he knows, within her head, "I thought Peter could help – but now? I dunno. I don't really know much about what's happening, to be honest."
That seemed to be the wrong answer because the man only looks more tense. "What do you know?" he asks with more aggravation dripping from his venom words that she's seen on him trying to actively end her.
"Tonight, everybody leaves but Edward. In three days, he leaves me in the woods. I don't take it well. A few month after I try and kill myself. Sorta. It doesn't work out anyways. I wake up here." What do you call it when you do something dangerous knowing you can die as a result of a simple slip up and still do it without supervision? Recklessness or self-slaughter?
What a silly little lamb, she was.
"How many times have you woken up here?"
"How many times have I almost died? Six? Maybe, I haven't been that focused on the exact number. Had other stuff on my mind and -"
"Is that why your hair is turning grey?"
She calmly nods, the words not soaking in, "No I don't thi- wait -My WHAT?"
She panics, shoving her head desperately into the reflection of the car mirror.
It isn't like it was the first time around. It's not a strand or a few strands or even a manageable hand full that she could just forcible tear from her scalp so that it never fucking comes back – it's at her roots. It's growing in new. All of it. If the rest of her hair wasn't brown, she would think she had natural silver hair, because there's no salt and pepper or natural transition of age bleeding through on site – it's unnatural. Strange.
Wrong.
Bella Swan doesn't have silver hair but there's half an inch of it at the roots of her hair, the colours of moonlight and immortal blood and everything she isn't when faced with eternity, and yet all the same, it's a very human hair colour.
Her grandmother had the same shade of hair on her deathbed.
"Do you think it's from looping?" The words were out of her mouth without thought or effort, just falling desperately down like hitting a new verbal low would be better than keeping them within a head like hers.
Jasper almost looks like he cares that she's having a bona-fide breakdown and isn't fascinated by her onset cilium metamorphosis."Which loop did the grey start to show?"
"This one." Her eyes are still stockstill on the mirror.
"Then no, or at least, I don't think the loop is what's causing it. It could be a partial consequence of it. What's so different about today?"
I met Peter. I didn't care about what Edward thought, not even in an antagonistic way. I let Jasper in on what's happening. I gave permission to be killed the last cycle. The scent stayed from last time. The chest in my head – oh fuck –
"I didn't lie." She blurted. It had to be a bad sign when honesty was the stand out point of your day.
"Explain." He said in his , 'I am Jasper, You is Girl, You obey or I suck dry' tone.
"I called Peter this morning and couldn't lie. Talking to you just now, I just, my head is too full to lie right now. I was never any good at lying anyways." She wasn't actually sure if she chose not to lie or genuinely couldn't. Her instincts are all upside down angling from a medival torture device at current.
"Have you tried to force the loop?" That sounds like a horrible idea. I'll just assume it's going on the agenda.
"Not really? The first time it happened, I don't know. I think this is the first loop that I'm not going crazy. Or maybe I am, but I can just see it more clearly now."
She thinks that if he could take a deep breath in exasperation, without wanting to paint the interior of her junk-truck a nice shade of ruby, that he would. "You should try it, what does it feel like when it happens?"
I feel like I'm dying. No. I feel like I'm about to be murdered. Typically yes, but feels like a no. I feel like the world is dissolving and the entity or maybe the space that the abyss gazes in and through and within is permeating through my ever-conscious body as I desperately attempt to flinch free but my gaze is trapped and my chest had a heart beating at an unfinished tempo, itching to find the accompanying instrument to it's orchestral movement and so there's a reaching and a beating and a gazing that burns so brutally that I can't help but think it it as –
"Puzzle Pieces. They're trying to fit, but none of them can click."
"So imagine they connect this time."
Bella tries. She really fucking does. The girl starts by seeing it like a rubber band around her head that holds her in place as time marches on, so that she can reach out and grab what's missing – which just gives her a headache. Then she tries literal puzzle pieces, with a hand holding one pieces and another holding the other, but when she goes to connect them a sharp grinding floods her senses and suddenly she's floating above the clouds and –
Hopefully, not that technique. She tries imagining them floating then hallucinates them existing within reality, followed by painting them a different colour so that they can just match without her going through the effort to find the right one and then stumbles upon the obvious problem of – how would she know how to find the right piece?
Uncertain, she starts the engine.
"Let's go somewhere. I can't stand just sitting here any longer." Bella grumbles.
Jasper doesn't argue, he doesn't say anything at all ( he looks so deep in thought like he's going to run off to findanswersandhecan'tleavenoneofthemcanleaveohgodplease– ) so off they go.
The truck stops at the 'Welcome to Forks' sign. There's a path not too far away. While Jasper's endurance is unquestionable, hers very much so, is not. Plus, there's no way she'll piggy back on him, she doesn't want to explain everything again so quickly if he kills her right now( nobody ever tells you how hard it is to be a time traveller god it's hard for the soul but also the knees when your constantly sucking lucifer's man meat because if this isn't hell then fuck if I know anything ), which means it's really in everybodies best interest if she can carry her own weight. There's something poetic about it as well. Fortunately, Jasper decides not to be a dick and treks next to her at an amiably human pace.
"You spoke to Peter earlier?" His boots squelch through a particularly squelch-sounding piece of mud.
"Yeah, well, I called him. He was…I can't really explain it." She's really happy Jasper's with her. He's such a nice brother to have – all terrifying and blasé about murder – somebody to really introduce to non-law enforement friends and family.
SQUELCH. He gives her the side eye, giving her the impression that he knows exactly how to explain Peter but none of it is for very polite company. Or just polite company. Or just company. Or – no fuck it, Peter is great for…having a hot voice? Peculiarly timed moments of vulnerability?
"A cryptic bastard?" He carps.
She snorts, thinking about everything she doesn't know about the man."No, he seemed sad. Amused and suspicious, yeah, but mostly, just kinda sad."
SQUELCH SQUELCH SQUELCH. Jasper nods in agreement. He had told her a few cycles before that they were brothers. It made sense. She was happy to know that Jasper had somebody before the Cullens, at least.
"He's a good man." SQUELCH.
"He's not a man at all." SQUELCH.
"None of us are human, Bella. Except you." He stops in the centre of a clearing. Bella almost wants to argue – but what is there to say? She IS human. Her existence is situated in a place unintended for her. It's a place where people like her die everyday and there's nothing to say against it or argue or fight for because she really is the lamb. For however much Edward and her had gone off in poetic tangents about morality and mortality and the blood strumming through her paper-weak exterior – it never settled beneath the skin until that moment.
"And I'm a freak." She realises, like it's something to grasp.
"A little bit, yeah." He responds, like he pities the tender parts of her heart with weary recognition.
I wonder if there's a part of Jasper that misses being breakable?
Her gaze focuses on the forest behind him. On life. "Thanks Jasper, I feel so much better."
Jasper shakes his head at her – the softest smile she's ever seen on him, slowly crawling out from some dark while he keeps his personality in. "I'm sure." He responds in kind with a roll of his eyes.
The wind is chiming through the trees – just like the last time she had dragged him out here to un-invite him to her birthday party, just like Bella you're no good for me but now it's just as much 'he's a good man' and rolling eyes and the comfort of a man unable to hurt me. This time the trees feel taller. The forest feels bigger. She feels smaller. The muddy specks on her chucks are in a different pattern and Bella is just as much the same as she's wildly different.
Just like her hair, something is growing in different. It could be age or a tumour or death or power and immortality and resolution – it can be anything as long as it's not what it was before. She can't go back to before.
"Isabelle?" Jasper interrupts patiently.
"Bella." She automatically corrects. Didn't vampires have ever-permanent, ever-perfect, memories? Lazy fucker can't even get it right when he goes all formal – was the extra syllabol really that much of a hardship?
He makes a clicking noise in the back of his throat, she thinks it might sound like a dolphin would if you choked it, "Bella. Do you think you can try now?"
Bella nod's to him, focusing back on herself with as much zen quality as she can. She thinks back to her mom and all of her, ' centre the universe and you will centre yourself ' lectures from that summer she got it in her head that she was reincarnated. Wherever the great and grand universe overlord is, he offers her no insight on how to do this. New idea. Dr. Strange, who she knew from her moms, ' how hard is it to draw comics for Marvel, I'm sure they're hard pressed for help, maybe I should submit some of my own work ' rhetoric from the summer Spider-Man came out. That was a rough summer. Renee couldn't draw her own hands because she said they had 'bad energy', so she was constantly taking pictures of Bella's for reference. The only problem with that, was it was the same summer both of her arms were still broken from her mom's, ' there should be more women in extreme sports ' fad from Spring. The Corporate Marvel CEO gods – do not take pity on her. There is no enlightenment. No grand plan. No tiny plan. Not the slightest showing of results. If anything she's starting to get a stomach ache. Her head is full of superhero montages and young protagonists coming into power; and she's failing so badly but still she feels like something in her has to be incredible and deadly and -
"I don't think this is working." Jasper frowns. It's a deep frown.
She would try and press his lips back in a smile, but she's fairly certain that if her hand comes anywhere near his – perfectly venomous and sharp and inclined to eat her and tear her apart like a head– teeth, that she'd be testing the theory of 'if having all her limbs is a necessary requirement for time travel or not'.
Her elbows dig into the dirt, pockmarking her skin with little twiggy indents. "It might take some more time to perfect things." She settles on. Or just start things, let alone perfect them. Scratch that – it might take a year to find the place in which the thing she needs hibernates and then she might need to bribe it with Charlie's liquor cabinet. Or hit it with a stick until it listens.
"You had a whole afternoon." Jasper notes, like it's totally normal to learn a new skill not natural to your species, one that even outside of your species would probably take centuries to develop, within a few hours in a forest with a man whose only advice to activating powers is "have you tried yoga?" Yes, I have Jasper. I'll have you know Renee only had to drive to the emergency room once after my first class, and it wasn't even ME who was hurt. Sure I was the one to kick the guy's head, but all of my limbs were perfectly unbroken so that's gotta count for something.
She'd gone over all of the ideas before and then some but no dice. Queasy? Yes. Ability to time travel on command? Unfortunately no.
Jasper sat next to her stiffly. Every now and then he would lean away from her and give the air a tiny sniff, lock his jaw while he glared at the closest tree, and then slowly unclenched. He repeated the process long enough for Bella to debate the benefits of seeking medication to insure this wasn't a bad mental break. Bella was still 60/40 on if this was actually happening, while she didn't think she had the creative ability to think her current predicament up, it would have been very like her to get too invested in a dream.
It was her M.O. at this point.
"I'm only human." She reminds him.
Reminds myself .
"Yeah," he tells the forest, "I'm aware."
"How's the thirst?" She asks, fully aware that Jasper is not thriving when next to her. He looks just as queasy as her at this point, which she can only attribute partially to empathy.
"Like a burning hot brand." He drums back. Well, she knows that feeling. She knows the exact feeling.
Back in the box that goes in the box I'm not thinking about that I can't I fucki–
"Bella?" Jasper interrupts her down spiral, concerning flashing on his face before it settles back to qualmish. "You doin' okay?"
"I think…that the idea is not worth thinking about at the moment in time."
He nods. She thinks Jasper knows the feeling even better than she does. No – she knows he does. They really are just two traumatised weirdos leaning against each other in a dark forest. The thought that she's skipping school for this makes it better. One way or another, she doesn't think she'll ever be back at Fork's High. This would only be better if they were drunk out here, it would really hit all the perfect teen angst coming of age benchmarks that's she's read about in books where the protagonists lives are somehow less fucked up than hers.
Nope, not having a pity party again. Won't fucking do it. Less introspection, more anything-for-god-sake-else.
"Can vampires get drunk?" Bella blurts.
He gives her a spooked look, like she's found an idea he does not want to pursue in any form.
"Why do you ask?" Jasper cringes.
"At first I thought it would make sense to get your prey shit-faced if you wanted to get second hand high, but then I was wondering if it would be like orange juice where you probably couldn't taste it after they had some, so then I circled back to the idea of vampires doing shots. It's basically poison or something to humans, so maybe it works for vamps?" Her hands gesture as she speaks, making a good shit-faced motion and then a good eating-people miming followed by a talented 'getting capitol K krunk on tequila shots' gesticulation. Jasper looks more and more bewildered as she speaks.
"Vampire feed on drunk prey?" He looks at her. She nods. He continues. "Said vampires get drunk." He confirms. She nods. "Vampire does shots in a dive bar in Tijuana?" He looks at her; he smiles with his teeth. Her eyes owl out; her chin dips.
He continues.
"Vampire gets shitfaced." Bella smiles like she's just heard fantastic news. "Vampire has to puke." He confirms, this time sadly.
"Is it hard?" She innocently presses.
"To get drunk?" His eyebrows raise, "No it's quite easy, we don't metabolise things the same as humans. If it's in blood it can be a very long intoxication, our bodies are meant to process it slower. The harder the drink, the harder the rise and fall, but it's careful to choose less fermented or fucked with drinks. Patron is better than Jameson on any day."
She makes an understanding noise in the back of her throat. It makes sense. Or well, as much sense as any Cullen has ever made. The bar is very low. But the Cullens have never made sense because they've never trusted me, and why would they trust me? I'm just Edward's little toy, ready to be discarded at the drop of a hat.
I want to say it's not fair. But this isn't new information.
"I don't think I can be a veggie vamp." She sighs, gaze on the forest and not the man. He's an empath, he'll either really get it, or really won't.
"You're not an 'anything' vamp." He reminds her. He isn't wrong per say, but her head tells her she'll end up dead or immortal by the time this makes sense.
"If I was." She tags on, unsure if she wants to actually explain herself further.
"Getting drunk means that much to you?" His words sound humorous but his face isn't amused.
"Oh that – no. I don't think I can be a Cullen." It isn't that I'm not good enough or some convoluted bullshit about self worth, I just don't want to open myself to them again with my hands out and trusting and willing to get my heart broken.
I don't want to be broken again.
"To be perfectly candid, I'm not a very good Cullen." He sighs sagely.
"Yeah no, I agree."
"Aren't you supposed to argue that I'm a good person who fits in and has the power of love or something."
"Uh – I mean I can?" I thought Jasper knew when people lied to him?
"You don't think I'm a perfectly good veggie vamp?" Jasper mutters incredulously. His arms cross. She thinks he looks like the poster boy for going off war. He stands like it. Sits like it. Exists like it.
He probably is. Or was. Jasper Whitlock was born for war and chose to live peacefully after the world had changed. But he hadn't changed. Nothing on the outside had at least.
"You've eaten me a few too many times for that to be…my first conclusion." She tries to be delicate. As long as it doesn't come out as resentful or belittling it's probably fine.
Jasper isn't shocked by her answer. The fucker gives her a little half smile.
"Well, you look perfectly fine." He comments smugly.
I don't feel it but go off I guess. "I mean –"
"And I haven't actually tried to eat you today."
Is that really the standard for this? "Yet, I would just like to point out, yet."
"Even though I've really wanted to."
Is any of this supposed to be comforting? "Can you give me some empath Xanax, if we're continuing down this line?"
Jasper obliges. He has this aura to himself of the cat who caught the canary. What a pompous dick-head.
"I've been very helpful today."
Has he? She's feeling just a bit too floaty to tell him, point blank, no."You were more helpful yesterday, to be fair."
His chin bobs. "Yesterday is today."
"I mean – maybe?" Still not sure how that one works.
"Close enough." He determines.
None of this is getting her any closer to answers. Or help. Would it be shitty to ask him to try and murder her so she could call Peter again?
Jasper decides for her, "Whatever you just thought – no."
Then what else am I supposed to do?
"Is there anyone who specialises in powers, like a vampire trainer or something?"
Jasper grunts. He looks even less receptive to talk about this than he did when she brought up Peter or alcohol or her scars or anything else. This one – this one might be an actual bad question. A do not enter, type of question.
His fingers tap on his thigh, "Eleazor." he growls out.
This Eleazor must be a horrible beast, something or someone of unimaginable horrors, if it scares off Jasper. She can see it now, so clearly she wonders if she has some sense of precognization. A man with bones carved rings and a crown made out of carrier pigeon feet, sat atop a throne died blood from the enemies of his reign.
"Who is this – El…Eleazor." She stutters.
Jasper snarls deeply, a sound echoing throughout the forest, warning any creature out. He turns to her, disgust painting his crystallised features, "A Denali."
A Denali, yes, something unimagina – "Wait, isn't that your sister coven?" She asks bewildered.
"Yeah. Eleazor is the king of all bothers."
Note to self, Jasper hates Eleazor. Knowing Jasper, that doesn't actually mean much of anything.
"Did he do something or -"
Jasper jumps up, deranged and uncaged; Bella genuinely worries for herself, for just a slip of a moment. The subconsciously promoted self-protection instinct startles her.
"HE CALLED ME A BEAST." The words carry long and hard.
" What's wrong about that?" She whispers.
"Bella." Jasper seems to crumble into himself, not fully, but just enough to tug at her heart. "Sorry. Shit. Sorry – I really didn't mean to lose it like that. No, it was just the first time he met me. He told all the Denali's to go back inside and called me a monster, a beastly thing incapable of the feelings I absorbed."
"Wait – what?" Bella's lost.
"He's an analyst. There are a lot of them, it's not an uncommon power, but his is the strongest recognized. I get that, I – shit I get that and he knows way too much about it all. He just -"
"Hey!" She interrupts. It doesn't matter if she doesn't know or if she's missing one puzzle piece or a hundred, she can't watch this go on any further. It tugs at her soul and hurts something fiercely. Before she can stop herself, her hand reaches for his wrist and stops him. It's odd. She's grabbed him by the shirt but touching Jasper Whitlock as he falls apart feels profoundly different. She desperately wants to be someone he could call a friend.
But she doesn't know what to say.
"I have an idea."
He freezes. His eyes are on the place that her skin is on his – and fuck if she knows that he's losing it – but she's losing it too. Vamp-Xanax did not last long. But she has an idea. It's not a good idea. But, well, it's something. Fuck if it isn't something.
She explains it as calmly as she can and to her surprise, he listens. Sure – he has some points against it, but he agrees. He doesn't even stomp all the way back to the car, it's more of a light trample.
"God, you're beyond godly fucked up, aren't you?" He tells her, halfway to the truck. SQUELCH.
SQUELCH. Bella rolls her eyes, "Says you."
"And what great company you keep." SQUELCH. He quips back.
SQUELCH. "It's not like any of this will matter tomorrow." She clarifies.
.SQUELCH.
God, they really make it easy to loathe the rain, don't they? Getting back my boots could mean Victoria, but now my chucks have gone to shit.
"It's not like any of that will matter tomorrow." He mirrors back, his eyes on the mud dripping off her sneakers.
SQUELCH.
"I thought you would have a harder time getting that." She remarks.
"Mmm…yeah. No, I don't get it. I can't think like that. But you can. I can feel that." SQU–
"Are you sure about this?" She turns to Jasper, raising her head so she can look him in the eyes and maybe just know.
"Shouldn't I be asking you that?" He grumbles back with a tinge of laughter.
"I'm not the one who could be murdered in retribution."
"You're literally human."
"So?"
He doesn't have an answer to that. Good. He shouldn't.
"Just drive, soldier boy."
"Yes, ma'am."
Jasper Whitlock steps into the Cullen household at approximately 7:21pm, his eyes bright crimson, and lips stained cherry. He's stumbling.
"Surprise!" The Cullens shout, expecting Bella to be carefully walking up the driveway with him.
"SURPRISE!" Jasper shouts back, a huge smile stitched over his permanent scowl. He gives the 'surprise' some cute jazz hands to accentuate it but he forgets his hands are a bit full.
THUMP. Bella Swan hits the ground, her arms holding a bottle of Bacardi like it's a precious delicacy, and a shout of, "JASPER. WATCH IT. You could have hurt her." Her eyes start to water, still focused on the Bacardi. Jasper bends down, picking up both cherished pieces of cargo, as carefully as he can, deciding on a fireman's carry this time. Bella goes up with an ' umf '. The new position shows off the brachiosaurus bandaids on her wrist. They aren't very large, so she has seven lined up, one after the next. She actually ran out, so when they were buying the Barardi, they also stole some very fierce pirate themed band aids. They were on sale. There's only one pirate bandaid on her wrist, though.
It has a parrot on it.
"Soz, Isabelle." He slurs back, starting towards the stairs as the family continues to stare in shocked silence.
"Bella?" Edward cries in shock.
"Nooooo ∽" Bella moans, her hands tightening on the bottle.
"Yeah…Edward…stop being such a – such a… uh." Jasper gets distracted staring at Alice. Her legs look great in that dress. Lean and well formed all the way up to that tight –
Bella jostles. "PARTY POOPER." She proclaims.
Jasper blinks in super human speed, he can actually hear the dial up sound inside his head. Or it could be an auditory hallucination. Who could tell?
Po-tay-toe, po-ta-toe.
"Bella, I am not uh, an uh, a –" Edward can't even finish the thought.
What a pussy, Jasper thinks.
"Jasper." Edward's voice comes out something between scandalised and skinning a cat.
Oh fuck – he's reading my mind, oh fuck – don't think about sucking on his girlfriend, oh fuck – it wasn't like that, oh shit – maybe he should drink more Bacardi, oh fuck – what is Bella doing, Jasper thinks.
Bella takes another swig of Bacardi, scrunching her nose up at the taste. "Im'a pirate." She tells the room.
Emmett starts to cackle somewhere in the background. The sound of Rosalie hitting him really really hard follows quickly.
Bella's cheeks puff out. "You sayin' I'm not a pirrratttee? I'm such a pirate, you ain't never seen swashbucklin like this. I'll swash all your buckles, just you watch." She buries her head into Jasper's side. The angle is kind of difficult with the way he's holding her, but she would like to think she's mostly successful. "Just you watch." She tells the side of Jasper's pecs.
Jasper starts going up the stairs. It's a slow going process, up two stairs, down one stair, up three stairs, stumbling down five stairs. Wait, where did the extra stair come from? Jasper gapes.
"Bella." Edward clarifies. Clarify is a very loose use of the word. To what or whom Edward is clarifying, is not at all clear. Edward just feels like there has been some clarification within the single word. This is not the common thought within the room.
"EDWARD." Bella shrieks. She clings harder to the bottle and starts giggling.
"Bella." Edward talks down to her in a patronising tone.
"Edward." Jasper repeats, eyes squinting at the stairs.
"Bella?" Carlisle interrupts.
All eyes in the room turn to the man. He doesn't look disappointed, per say, but there is a certain level of hesitation within the single word. Carlisle approaches the odd duo, his eyebrows raised to his forehead.
"Carlisle!" Bella chirps back. "You can't take the Barardi." She explains.
"Okay, Bella." Carlisle's voice has taken on the 'doctor who knows things' tone. Bella's head is a bit woozy, but she second guesses herself. Carlisle doesn't sound concerned, he sounds curious. It's a very scientific type of curiosity he's exuding. She bites her lip, trying to figure out the problem.
She holds the Bacardi out to him. Bella is willing to make some sacrifices.
Carlisle stares at the bottle and shakes his head.
Thank fucking god.
Bella tucks the Bacardi back into her side. OH!
She reaches a hand out to him. He looks around, ensuring it's for him, and steps closer. His eyes can't seem to decide if Jasper's Stair Problem is more interesting than Bella's Drunk Problem, but he does look awfully fascinated by it all. Bella doesn't blame him, not in the slightest. But then again she's a bit buzzed at the moment.
"Want some?" She offers, like it's a bowl of flamin' hot cheetos, and not her wrist.
Carlisle hesitates.
"Carlisle!" A scandalised Edward interrupts.
"What? It's a very curious phenomenon. I had heard about the practice, of course, but among a willing subject? Who knows what's biologically at hand? The ability to study this in a controlled envir-"
Edward shakes his head. "Give me Bella." He demands. Jasper's too focused on the Stair Problem to notice the order. Normally, he would say no. Jasper is a strong man with an equally sturdy backbone, who takes care of people within his protection, but well, the stairs might be multiplying. He counted them three hundred and seventy nine times, but sometimes there are twelve in each flight while other times there are thirteen, and once there were only six. He's fairly certain there was a mistake that time.
So when Edward takes the weight of drunk Bella off of Jasper's shoulders, he's a bit preoccupied.
To be fair, it's the first time in over fifty years that he's been shit faced. His tolerance isn't at its best. He figured it came with the whole – not eating the townsfolk – sorta deal.
Bella's pressing buttons on her phone as Edward lugs her out to the forest, carrying her around like she's a sack of potatoes.
"Bella," Edward starts, setting her back down on her feet. Bella's starting to get a bad feeling, she's pretty sure she's been in these woods before but she can't quite grasp the details. Something about a doggy?
"I'm so sorry, Bella." Where'd Jasper go? He was just here, I wanted to do a group call with Peter. Maybe they'd just alpha growl back and forth and it would be like a little doggy conversation and maybe one of them would woof, "I'm no good for you." Do vampires woof? I'm pretty sure I've seen Emmett bark at Rosalie but maybe that's a sex thing where Rosalie plays a pretty little kitty and then Emmett – "I don't love you anymore." Is Jasper okay? I know the stairs were being mean to him which isn't fair, he just wanted to show me his collection of books in the study. He said I could borrow his copy of Dracula because I thought it would be funny. "It will be like we never existed." But what if I read Dracula and then I like those vampires more? What if there were more species of vampires – oh my god what if there's a coven of vampires living with a bunch of native bat shifters and they're all in love and – "Your sieve-like mind." WHAT IF THEY'RE IN LOVE, that would be so cool I wish I could turn into a bat then I could just hang upside down all day and me and Jasper could get more Bacardi and, oh shit did I call Peter accidentally I didn't mean to -
"Bella?" Peter interupts her thoughts. Edwards gone. She never saw him leave. Where'd he go?
"Peter?" She croaks back. The drunk feeling is starting to feel a lot less fun and a lot more scary. She doesn't feel entirely in control, in an entirely self aware way, that's simultaneously telling her that the control she probably needs is out of reach for a while longer and that she needs it right now back and within reach if she wants to make it out alive. It makes her anxious. She wants Jasper back.
"Bella, I thought I told you not to call." He doesn't sound upset, more so just tired.
"Oh." She breathes. She didn't mean to bother him. Everything is woozy and hazy and underwater and is that a wolf? It's coming out from the bushes slowly, creeping forward one foot in front of the other with a canine grace. She stands up, leaving the Bacardi and her phone on the ground, as she stumbles to her feet. "Bella?" The voice sounds distressed.
But she isn't thinking about that now.
He doesn't look like a werewolf. He just looks like a wolf. His eyes are wild.
"Are you okay?"
The wolf stops to stare at her, she thinks it's debating if she's a threat or not, which I'm not.
But it doesn't seem to agree.
And then it's jumping all teeth and stormy eyes and she's tripping –
"Hey! Fuck – Bella? Just fuckin' respond –"
And whimpering, "JASPER JASPER HELP." like it's her last hope.
Because it is
and Peter's still calling out and
I don't know
why he cares now
but the dog is already
on top of me when Jasper burst through the leaves
and I'm terrified and Peter's still yelling and
everything is -
click.
"BELLA."
unclick.
The abyss falls with her.
She can still hear Peter crying when she wakes up.