Carlisle had explained to the others what Jasper had told him. All so as to avoid misunderstandings and conflict among his children.
He had called Eleazar but not for the first time Eleazar had been as clueless as him.
And in over the thousand books he had, nothing of the sorts was in them.
It felt like Bella's pregnancy all over again.
Just less erratic since Jasper's life wasn't in danger.
At least not that they knew of. Carlisle had no idea what was happening to his son.
And if things couldn't get worse Alice had confessed that her visions about Jasper were glitches. Glimpses. Spontaneous. She couldn't seek him out for her gift didn't work on him like that. She had to wait for the visions to come to her.
Would explain how she didn't see the birthday party incident.
For a moment it had crossed Carlisle's thoughts that Jasper was similar to Renesmee. But that thought had been quickly shut down due obvious reasons.
So far Jasper had been fine aside from a few headaches. Carlisle had made him inform him whenever he felt discomfort and for how long. He wanted to keep track of it for future reference.
Part of him couldn't help but feel like there was something oddly familiar about a few things, just not on the same context. But he couldn't for the life of him figure out what it was.
There was also the "blood" and venom sample he had taken from Jasper.
His venom looked nothing like theirs. He had tested its reaction to human blood and his own venom. Human blood didn't react at all to it.
The same couldn't be said from his venom.
A single drop of his venom on Jasper's had acquired quite the unexpected reaction. Jasper's venom had attacked Carlisle's and in less than five hours it had completely destroyed it.
It kind of reminded Carlisle of white cells attacking bacteria, but more aggressive.
His blood on the other hand...
Carlisle had made quite the unique findings with that one. There were human blood cells merged in quite the unnatural fashion with venom. Like a harmonious fusion of some kind. But even then the human blood cells didn't seem quite human. He had nothing to compare them with but he was certain that those weren't 100% human. More like an odd mutation of some kind.
Jasper's blood, Carlisle had found, served to deter his venom's effects on Carlisle's venom. Kind of like a cure of some kind. His bite was the poison and his blood the antidote. It was quite the fascinating thing if he was being honest.
But as fascinating as all of that was, none of that gave him a single answer to what was happening to Jasper.
At least the bullet wound had healed.
~~~~~~~~~~
Rosalie despite popular belief didn't hate Jasper. There was a reason he possed as her twin and wore her last name.
Hearing Carlisle's words about Jasper's... "ailment" was odd.
The idea that he could bleed. Sleep... Those were human traits. But Carlisle had left clear that he wasn't reverting back to human. That wasn't possible.
Still.
As much as she knew about this new detail about her brother not even in a thousand years had she ever expected to come across a scenario pulled out of a slaughterhouse.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Jasper was sitting in his studio reading when his attention from the book went out of the window and was replaced with an odd pressure in his stomach. A heat in his throat. Venom accumulating in his mouth.
And while he tried to ignore it it became too overwhelming to do so at some point.
He got up as his vision blurred. Mouth aching as he left his studio. It felt as if he was floating. Riding in the backseat of his own body. Before he knew it he was in the kitchen tearing the door of the fridge open.
He snatched the ground beef and tore the package open. Half of it fell on the ground while his fingers grabbed the rest. The meat was still warm for Esme had done the groceries earlier.
The taste of the raw meat was glorious and familiar. Blood dripping down his arms and chin as he tore and ripped through it. It lessened the ache in his mouth and stomach. He chewed at the speed of light and swallowed.
And when the ground beef was gone he grabbed the steak. Tearing the package with more force than necessary, blood sprayed everywhere but he didn't care for right now what he needed most was meat. Meat. He was starving.
He kept ravaging the fridge for meat.meatmeatmeatmeatredbloodmeat.
More steak. Pork chop. Chicken. Ground beef. Sausages. Beef. Deer. Lamb.
All that came within reach.
He tore at each package and ate whatever meat he could get his hands onto. It reached a point where it felt like his stomach was being ripped open with acid but he kept eating. The more he ate the more desperate he became. The more frantic he became. Less lucid. Less coherent. Food. Meat. Blood.
Meat dropped on the ground under his uncoordinated movements. Frantic. Erratic.
He needed meat. Meat. Glorious wonderful meat.
And when no more was in the fridge he sank on his knees to get it from the floor. He was biting through a chicken leg when he felt a presence behind him. A growl caught at the back of his throat as he leveled the intruder with a glare over his shoulder.
Blonde hair. Golden eyes. Who? Intruder. No. Not. Who was it? He couldn't remember who was it. Who was it? Surprise. Shock. Wariness. Whose was it? He knew this smell. Who did it belong to? Who? Who? It took him an agonizing moment before his brain seemed to connect back to the real world.
Rosalie.
Ah.
And with the awakening of his brain he came to the realization of a few things.
The state of the kitchen that for starters.
And the horrible discomfort in his stomach.
Esme was gonna skin him alive.
He flinched when he felt hands grabbing his shoulders and forcing him to turn around quite roughly. A grip of steel on his jaw forcing him to look up and meet blazing gold. His hands flew up on reflex as he grabbed her wrists.
-Rosalie what-
-They are glowing.
Her words made confusion seize his chest.
-What?
-Your eyes... They are glowing.- She sounded as confused as Jasper felt. What?
Rosalie pulled out her phone and showed him his own reflection on the camera.
She was right.
His eyes were glowing and rather than the light orange they had been earlier an unnaturally bright yellow was their shade.
Yellow.
Glowing.
But how? He was a vampire. It made no sense for that color to be there. It shouldn't be there. He watched the glowing yellow fade back into familiar orange at the same time he became uncomfortably aware of the food sitting in his stomach.
He fred himself from Rosalie's hold in time to lung for the trashcan as the meat came back up. The fire split his throat apart from the inside out and his stomach felt almost at the verge of collapse. Pain radiating from his stomach up to his chest and throat.
He wasn't sure how long he spent there vomiting his insides but when he was done he could do nothing but pant in a failed attempt at cooling his throat down. Rosalie was at his side rubbing soft circles around his back.
-Jasper?
-I'm fine.- He muttered after a moment before pulling back from the trashcan and tugging at the neck of his shirt. He felt... funny.
-Come on.- Rosalie called grabbing his arms and forcing him to get up.
-Where?
-Bedroom. You need to take a shower.- She told him as a statement of fact. Disgust clear in both her voice and emotions.
-I need to clean the kitchen. Esme's not gonna like it.- He mumbled. A headache was starting to brew at the back of his head.
-I will clean the kitchen.
-We both know you don't like that idea.- Jasper told matter of fact, still allowing Rosalie to start dragging him to his room.
-I don't. But I won't let my brother do anything else when he looks at the verge of fainting.
-Aw, you do care.- His answer was a scoff. Soon enough Rosalie was forcing him into the bathroom.
-I'm not helping you take your clothes off, you either do it yourself or you sit in that bathtub fully clothed until Alice comes back.- Rosalie told as a statement of fact. She could love her brother dearly and be willing to get her hands dirty for him but helping him out of his clothes is where she drew the line.
But she wouldn't let him go anywhere else than the bathtub, he was covered in blood and he stank, she wouldn't let him get it all over the bed. She wanted to spare him Alice's wrath.
-I'm not weak. I can take perfect care of myself.- Jasper felt the need to point out. Rosalie gave him a look but said nothing.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Rosalie cleaned the kitchen at vampire speed for unlike Esme she didn't find soothing at all having to clean stuff.
She was done with it in less than an hour. Had to make sure the stench of raw meat was also gone. Both for the human nose comfort and for her own. Raw meat could smell hideous. Like a rotting dead animal.
And since she still had time and there was that nagging feeling at the back of her head she went to check on her brother to make sure he hadn't drowned in the bathtub. Yeah. Vampires couldn't drown but with how things had been with him lately she wouldn't put it past him to be able to drown.
He was no longer in the bathroom though. In fact. He was on the bed. Sleeping. He was missing his shirt. Black veins littered his whole left arm and hand which hung off the bed.
And if she focused hard enough she could swear upon her soul that she could hear... something flowing inside him. His scent was... off. Bitter. Acid. Wrong.
She wondered if Carlisle's theories were right. Was this some kind of late rejection of his body towards the venom in his veins? If so. What was she suppose to do with the idea of him dying? Jasper was...
He was her friend. The one who knew more about her than most people. He who knew her pain and rather than give apologies over it sat in silence with her. Because he understood. Who would sit with her and speak about senseless stuff when she needed to clear her mind? Who would watch movies with her when Emmett was too far for comfort? Who would put up with her moods and get a raise out of her just for fun and not because he was just being a dick?
She couldn't lose him. If having him leave without a word for weeks during the Volturi's threat had torn her what would it be like to lose him forever?
He was her friend. Her brother. Her twin. She needed him in her life as much as she needed Emmett.
She came to sit at the edge of the bed. Her hand resting on his still damp hair.
She can still remember when he first arrived with Alice. It was hard to even notice him being in the same room as one for how quiet and still he was. He would follow Alice all over the place and cling to her with a near obsessive behavior.
It had been rather unsettling.
Much like his cryptic aura.
He had gotten less intense with time, thankfully.
She remembers wishing that he would be gone. She had hated him with each fiber in her being and had made sure to make it known to him in every single way possible.
All because of the scars.
Those horrible scars that meant nothing at the end. Nothing but the fact that he had survived that hell of a place.
She sighed.
If the idiot had told them sooner, would there had been more time to fix it?
But even if she wondered that she also knew that it wouldn't matter for at the end no one knew what was wrong with him to begin with.
-Jasper you idiot.
She pinched the white strand of hair between her fingers and frowned. The white had spread quite a lot compared to the little bit from before. At this rate it wasn't impossible to theorize that he may end up with white hair.
And that was quite the odd occurrence. She knew that as a human his hair had been brown. When Maria turned him it turned gold.
Now it was turning white and that for some reason made her feel uneasy.
It felt like something bad was coming. Something that could put to test a lot of things.