Chapter Warnings:

Brief mentions of: death, murder, emotional manipulation, torn limbs

This is a rather short one, I am sorry I hope you'll enjoy it nonetheless

Parallels

Sascha stared up into the night sky, lying on her back on the roof, arms crossed behind her head. She had went there a couple hours before, not too long after her phone call with her father. She needed some time alone. The sounds and smell from the woods around masked the sensations from inside the house. Even if only a little. Inside, she had felt like she was about to suffocate.

Everyone had treated her carefully and kindly. Even Emmett had toned down the jokes and teasing. But she had been too aware of everything despite their effort. Too aware of their glances, too aware of the hushed whispers behind closed doors. Even if they weren't judging, Sascha didn't feel like she had the capacity to deal with it at the time being.

There had been exactly two times when Sascha had seen her father cry. When their dog had died ten years prior. When his mother - her grandmother - had passed only 2 years after and now, that Saturday made number three. It was eating her up alive. To know there must have been many other times he cried while she was gone, vanished without a trace. Thinking she was dead now too.

She couldn't bare thought of what her friends and grandparents were going through.

And she still didn't know why she and her family had to suffer that. Why most of her dearest people still had to suffer. And to top it all off, this suffering was the lesser of two evil. Her jaw locked. If she ever got her hands on whoever was responsible for this, she'd-

„Sascha, are you up there?", Jasper's drawl interrupted her thoughts.

Sascha only hummed in acknowledgement. She knew he could hear her. A soft thud sounded somewhere close to her, Jasper had jumped from his room's balcony up to the roof.

„Not to bother you, but Alice and I wanted to go hunt. You should join, it's our turn for standin' watch soon", he explained, but the short silence that followed made her suspect that there was more.

Sascha sat up. „Okay, thanks for asking." She looked at him curiously. „Is there something else?"

Jasper stood, rigid as ever, arms crossed behind his back. When her eyes found his, he loosened a little. He turned to look at the woods before he spoke. „Your emotions seemed… suffocating to-"

„-I'm sorry. I didn't want to cause you discomfort."

„No, no. You didn't", Jasper took a seat next to her, keeping some distance, „I just wondered what was going on. It felt a little like there started to grow an emotional… vacuum around you."

Sascha looked at him again, a confused frown tugging at her brows. „A vacuum?"

„They were getting muffled. Like how sounds are muffled underwater."

„Oh", Sascha muttered. „Yeah I think my thoughts were getting kinda dark there."

Jasper shook his head a little. „It's not that. It seemed more like you were starting to suppress them. Not entirely so, but I can feel that there's a wall around them."

Sascha sighed and dropped her chin to her knees. „I know. I'm working on it."

„Are you?"

A dry laugh escaped her. „I will work on it." She glanced at Jasper. „It's just a lot."

Jasper hummed.

„I mean, we both got turned for similar reasons, right? How… did you get over all that? Over this anger?"

„For a long time I didn't. I let it fuel me. Used it to ignore all other things, until it got too much", he admitted, teeth barely parting, a tick in his jaw. „I committed horrible things back then."

Sascha hesitated for a moment. „Do you… would you tell me about that?"

„Are you sure you want to hear it?"

She considered it for a moment, then nodded.

„Maria, the vampire who turned me, made me her second in command. I was to train all the ‚recruits'", he looked at her darkly, shame in his eyes, „and to kill them after Maria had lost use of them. She never let them live longer than their first year. She only kept me in her ranks for my ability. I could tell when someone was scheming to turn on her. Could keep them in line."

Jasper waited a moment for Sascha's reaction. But she just listened intently, a deep frown tugging at her brows.

„She made me think we were soulmates. I was still young and naive. She faked her emotions so well, I thought they were my own. So I did everything she told me. Believed that everyone was the enemy and the reason for our- my suffering. So I trained, and killed. And I could feel everything they felt while I did it."

Sascha breathed out heavily. „I don't even know what to say." Her voice was barely a whisper. The gravity of his story pulling at her.

The parallels between both her and his stories were eerie. Looming over her shoulder like a dark, shapeless beast, whispering threats of what could have been. Riley had used his charms as well to keep some of the others in line. He had tried it on her as well, growing particularly violent when it didn't work on her. Her left arm twitched at the buried memory of the first time it had been ripped off.

„I never dealt with any of those emotions for a long time." Jasper's eyes seemed almost glassy when he met her gaze again. „You really shouldn't make the same mistakes as I."

„How were you able to get out of there?"

„I ran. I had two friends living further north, so I joined them. But I only really started getting better after meeting Alice, 10 years later, and joined this family with her. Adapting to their lifestyle, it's still hard, but it was a necessary step I needed to take."

It took Sascha a few seconds before she realised. „Oh… when you still fed on humans, you probably could feel everything then as well, right?"

Jasper nodded grimly.

„God, I'm so sorry you had to go through all that."

„That I had to go through that?"

Sascha's voice was low. „You don't need anyone, at the very least me, to tell you that what you did was wrong. I can see that you still feel horrible for it. But you were also obviously manipulated to do those things. It was the only thing you knew at the time… surviving…", she paused for a moment and averted her gaze. „Bad people can make good people do bad things."

Silence filled the space between them for a while. Both thinking on the other's words.

„I guess the moral of the story is to listen to Alice, huh?"

Jasper laughed in surprise, which brought a smile to Sascha's face as well. „I guess."

„And to you, by proxy."

She got a small, lopsided smile in return.

„I'll do my best to not let this shit consume me, I promise", she said, lowering her knees to sit cross-legged instead. „I just feel I need closure with this whole situation first."

„Seems fair."

„So", Sascha clapped her hands on her own legs. „What was it you said about hunting?"

„Is this becoming a routine now? Sharing stories and then going for a hunt?"

„Do I hear complaining there?" Sascha pushed herself to her feet and held a hand out to him. She knew it was unnecessary, but hadn't it always been more for the gesture?

Jasper chuckled at her mannerism but took her hand nonetheless and let her pull him to his feet. „Not at all, ma'am."

End Notes:

Some more backstory filling for what happened to Sascha, more understanding for her what happened to Jasper, and some bonding for the two of them. I hope you liked it
Leave me some thoughts in the comments heheh

Posted: 03.02.23

Last Edit: 03.02.23