note: sorry for the delay!
The song Jasper sings is "All you do is talk," by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.
Chapter 9
Edward had died at the age of seventeen, unsurprisingly still a virgin, while Jasper died as a soldier - a Major, in fact - and he had not. Edward saw Rosalie and Emmett - not to mention Carlisle and Esme - and was more determined than ever to wait for love, even if not a true mate, at least a girlfriend would be nice. None of the women in the Volturi compound interested him much, except perhaps Chelsea, but Edward was well aware that she had forced the interest. She had Afton, anyway, so the interest she piqued was equally mild in both males and females; she just liked being the center of attention if she could be. Jasper had only tried to sleep with her once, and after he and Afton nearly ripped each other to pieces, she never attempted to induce sexual interest in Jasper again.
After that, Jasper had felt free to sleep with whomever he desired, male or female, as long as they looked his way first. Even some mated vampires would have threesomes with him, because they knew that he was accomplised, both physically and emotionally. And Jasper was fully bisexual, preferring females, but male vampires didn't often get a "no" from him.
Edward privately thought of him as a slut, and Jasper knew it. Both of them knew the other's sexual preferences, and both of them thought the other was an idiot. Edward didn't exactly read minds during sex - the thoughts were often too jumbled for words to form, so his telepathy merely translated them into "this is A having sex with B" and that was that. He could get the start, and as a result, he knew many varying techniques, but the climax of xex itself was still a bit of a mystery to him. (Not physically, emotionally.)
So that was that. On the way to Alaska, he'd hoped the two unmated girls would at least want to have some conversations with him, instead of just keeping Jasper busy all weekend, but he was wrong. They normally only slept with humans, so the mere concept of an interested vampire male made them quite interested in return. So Edward ended up hunting interesting animals in the preserve with the mated pairs.
Laurent was the only vampire he'd met in the two "vegetarian" covens to have reddish eyes. He privately admitted to Edward that he had a bit of trouble staying on the diet. Edward could read Irina whenever she saw his eyes, and her thoughts were full of pain and regret. The sisters had converted to vegetarianism from being "succubi," having too soft hearts to continue eating the men they could love, and Irina felt for every human Laurent must have devoured. Edward almost wished he hadn't told the whole coven about the werewolves, since otherwise the odds might have been against Laurent. But of course, then Irina would have been far more upset than she was now. It was just the way vampires were - most didn't even care about humans, but all cared about their mates.
The other two and Jasper were finally taking a break for a snack, Edward noticed, and told the rest of them. They all stared at him in amazement, until Eleazar began laughing.
"Your power. You can detect minds you are more familiar with, yes?"
"Well, I did detect Jasper first. I can read his mind up to maybe ten miles away? Most people only one or two, I suppose."
Eleazar nodded. "That makes sense. And it's harder for you to ignore Jasper especially."
"Unless he's trying to distract me, that's correct."
"How would someone distract you?"
"Carlisle used to recite Latin scripture. Jasper usually just sings. He knows lots of songs," said Edward, fondly exasperated.
"Why not? You only hear surface thoughts, yes?"
"I'm nothing like Aro, that's right."
Eleazar clicked his tongue. "Nothing at all like Aro! He has to touch someone, and he gets the whole package, yes? But he then only looks at the surface thoughts!" He was still laughing as Jasper, Kate and Tanya loped up to them.
"We miss somethin' funny?" asked Jasper.
"Not really," Edward informed them. "Telepathy joke."
"Uh, ok. So did you save some grizzly for me?"
"Actually, we were talking about trying for sea life next," said Irina, with Edward and Carmen nodding. "It has a flavor better than anything we've tried up here."
Laurent's thoughts were adding in that one exception, so Edward gave him a nasty glare, and said, "Hey! Remember guys, I can read your minds! It's nothing I can control!"
Tanya and Kate were almost as startled as Laurent, although they were thinking of an entirely different flavor than human blood.
As they all ran to the coast, Jasper went off a little separately with Edward, and asked mentally, Who was thinking something rude?
"Did you see his eyes," murmured Edward as softly as he could, just loudly enough for Jasper only to hear. "Irina is not happy about it."
If you want to stay, I could provide emotional feedback against it, so he feels what they feel when he kills them.
"Maybe later. I want to go back to Forks."
Maybe you'll change your mind after you have some killer whale, he joked. Maybe it's better than Bella Swan.
"Really don't appreciate murder jokes like that."
Jasper actually full-stopped in his run. Edward turned around to go back to him, but even the mile between them wasn't enough to prevent Jasper from projecting his shock. Since when do you not appreciate a good murder joke?
"Since they were about an innocent girl."
This time he spoke, so surprised was he. "You want to go back to Forks so you can do that thing Carlisle said, and become the first vampire to actually not ever eat his singer?"
"What the hell? Of course not! Do you really think I'm that self-righteous of a prig?"
Jasper tried hard not to laugh aloud, but he failed, and Edward broke down as well.
"OK, OK, I have been a bit of a prig in the past. I've been proud of the fact that I never ate a human unless I made a choice to. And those people... ugh." He pretended to shudder. "And I choose not to eat her either."
Jasper nodded slowly, and as he began to run again, lyrics covered his real thoughts. Help yourself don't think, help yourself don't speak, help yourself don't say a thing at all...
Edward wanted to hit him, but instead followed him to the coast. He had still preferred mountain lion to everything else he'd eaten, but it was definitely true that he compared everything to the Swan girl, and it came up short. Even the killer whale he shared with Tanya (who really compared every single thing to sex!), one of the most delicious animals ever, had nothing against her.
He was curious how they stopped eating men. Irina had given the basics - "if we stopped killing them, we could keep screwing them" - but Tanya gave a few more details on the run home.
"It was gradual," she admitted. "I was the first to stop completely. It was just a test, to see if I could. My sisters were worried I'd gone crazy. But then it was clear that I was smarter. And more – the more I stuck to animals, the more I wanted to only eat them, you see? There was – like Jasper. Empathy."
She didn't mean exactly like Jasper, obviously. "Yes, empathy does help. Yours was natural, not a witch power, but it still helped."
"Yes, yes. Even those you eat want to live. They have parents, brothers, sisters. You should not be judge and executioner if you do not wish it." His legs are so fast, what else can they do?
OK, that's it. "Jasper, we are going home in twenty minutes!"
