Two weeks have passed. Jasper has exclusively been consuming processed blood, and so far not experienced any adverse effects. On the contrary, his bloodlust has receded into almost non-existence. He still gets thirsty, but in a more humanlike parched mouth way, rather than a burning way with a side of 'I want to kill people'. The thirst is easily quenched by mixing up what Emmett and I have started to call a 'blood-shake' : some of the processed blood powder rehydrated with water. We quickly found that you do not need to add the original amount of water back, it is possible to make a much more concentrated drink that is far more satisfying.
Jasper has been enjoying his reduced thirst, but still not really dared to go out in the town without Alice looking out for his future. And Alice has been refusing to do so. As he, Emmett and Rosalie graduated last year he is supposed to be away at college, so he has been able to get away with hiding out in the house.
Today this is about to change. Emmett and Rosalie are ostensibly visiting from college for a week, and we have coerced Jasper into pretending that he is too. We are making him run some errands in the town center, and he has offered to drop me off at school on the way.
As the weather is particularly bad today I am not surprised to see him ride into the driveway in Emmett's monstrously large jeep.
He came early, so I had still been cooking breakfast when he walked in. While I am not normally a large breakfast type of person, this morning I suddenly felt like frying up some eggs and bacon. To my surprise Jasper sniffs the air appreciatively.
"This smells weirdly not disgusting for human food.", he remarks.
"Thanks for the compliment on my culinary skills.", I remark drily.
I notice he keeps staring curiously at the pan of fried goods. "You are welcome to try you know."
He hesitates. I remember that while vampires can eat human food, it tastes disgusting to them and they have to throw it up afterwards. I smirk. "I dare you."
"You have been spending too much time with Emmett." Jasper looks affronted. He grabs a fork though, and reaches for the pan while maintaining tight eye contact. "I spend a lot of time with Emmett too, though, and he will never let me live it down if I back down from a dare."
He chews thoughtfully on a mouthful of bacon. "This actually tastes edible. It must be another side effect of the experiment."
I smile and crack a few more eggs into the pan while he grabs his phone and starts texting, presumably to Carlisle.
"Does it taste as good as blood?", I wonder.
"Not quite.", he answers. "But it is a small miracle that I can actually eat human food. I do not feel any urge to throw it up at all. And my sense of taste might change further. At present I still have some regular blood in my system rather than just processed blood after all."
We finish all the food, with Jasper eating nearly a full portion. It is time to leave for school then, and we drive quietly, contemplating the revelations of this breakfast.
In the school parking lot, he hands me my bag as I jump down from the jeep. His head shoots up, and a second later I too register what he heard more quickly with his vampire senses. The awful screeching of an out of control car. A familiar car, on a familiar stretch of road. Only now there is someone else standing at the end of it.
Oh deary. There is ice on the road, and Tyler Crowley's driving has not improved.
Tyler's poorly repaired van comes careening around the bend, in the direction of his on-off girlfriend Lauren Mallory. The angle is not quite as bad as when I nearly got run over by him, but Lauren does not have a vampire lusting after her to save her with his super strength. She tries to jump out of the way, but is badly hit and blood splatters everywhere.
The world seems to freeze. Blood rushes to my head and I feel myself begin to faint. Thus I must helplessly watch as Jasper makes to run over to the crash scene. He suddenly backtracks to open the back of the jeep. What is he doing? He has grabbed a large first aid kit from the trunk, and is now running to the crash scene again. At human speed. He has been moving at human speed all this time, remaining inconspicuous. There is so much blood, how is he not feasting on it?
"Call an ambulance!", he commandeers. I vaguely knew he had been a soldier at some point in his existence. Having only seen him wear the designer clothes Alice puts him in, I was never quite able to picture him in a military uniform, commandeering troops. Now I can though, as I hear him yell orders. "Yorkie, for fucks sake call an ambulance now and Newton go fetch the school nurse and some teachers!"
The boys spring into action as if Jasper controls them like a marionette. Eric stammers into his cellphone, Mike runs into the school. Meanwhile Jasper has taken off his shirt and holds the fabric pressed to a large wound in Lauren's side. That seems to be the worst source of blood, and the worst of her wounds other than a clearly broken leg that is bent at an unnatural angle. Jasper rummages around in the first aid kit and produces several items that he begins to patch up the large wound with. By the time Mike returns with the teachers he is splinting the leg, and moments later an ambulance drives into the parking lot, sirens blaring.
When Lauren is carted off, attention turns to Tyler who again gets away with superficial scrapes. Soon he is taken away in a second ambulance.
Crash victims under control, Jasper now comes to check on me. Probably I look at present as pale as a vampire and seconds away from fainting.
"Are you alright darlin'?", he asks, worry evident in his voice.
"Please just get me out of here and I will be fine.", I grit through my teeth.
Between the upheaval and my presumably frightful appearance it is not hard to get me excused from class for the day, and Jasper takes me back home. The short drive is very uncomfortable. With Jasper's shirt thoroughly ruined during his heroics, he is now bare-chested as he sits next to me in the driver's seat. I awkwardly try not to stare at his well-sculpted form.
Previously I had thought that Edward was the perfect male specimen, but I had been wrong. His lanky boyish frame was appealing to be sure, but with reference material available for comparison it is easier to see through the facade of the standard vampire beauty. That skinny build would have been scrawny on a human, I suppose he must have lost a lot of weight while wasting away from the Spanish influenza before he was turned.
Jasper clearly hadn't been scrawny, he had been fit. Not Emmett level bulky, which was not to my taste regardless, but lean, functional muscle. His build was lithe but powerful, and I once more wonder what his human life had been like.
Edward so anxiously wanted to prevent me from finding out anything about Jasper's past that to this date I have only suspected that he came from the south because his accent sometimes slips. In my head I tend to imagine him as a cowboy, a theory which his physique seems to support. I briefly wonder what years of horse riding would have done for his legs, still hidden in designer jeans, and quickly have to abort the thought and stomp down my spiking lust before his empathy picks it up.
Alice and I may not be seeing eye to eye at the moment, but I shouldn't be thinking of someone else's man like that.
Both as a distraction and out of genuine consideration I ask Jasper to lend me his cellphone so I can call my dad. When he picks up it turns out the school had just gotten around to calling him about me taking off, and he is predictably worried sick. It takes the rest of the drive to reassure him that he does not need to come home. He eventually relents when he remembers that I called him from Jasper's phone, and hears that Jasper will be happy to keep an eye on me.
When we enter the house I dash upstairs to grab one of my dad's shirts for him. He smirks slightly when I look away while he deftly buttons up the checkered flannel. Surprisingly it is roughly the correct size. However, where on Charlie this shirt pulls a little at his belly, on Jasper it strains at his broad shoulders.
We are thankfully interrupted by Emmett and Rosalie, who had heard about the commotion and run over to join us at my house. We are congregated at the kitchen table, with them attentively listening to our story.
All three of us are very proud of Jasper.
"Look at our little brother! He went from all 'let's eat Bella over a papercut' to 'look at me stitch up a human like I'm Carlisle fucking Cullen!'" Emmett affectionately holds him in a bear hug and raps his knuckles on his head. Jasper only half-heartedly tries to push him off.
Eventually Rosalie calls him off so she can hug Jasper as well.
"Were you not tempted by the blood at all?", she wonders.
"It is so odd. I barely felt bloodlust. Even when I was directly touching Lauren's blood while patching up her wounds." He hesitates. "I do feel sort of sick now, like there is a really strong pressure on my stomach. It has been getting worse and worse. Almost like there is something inside me that should not be there."
I become thoughtful.
"Jasper, I think you need to go to the toilet.", I tell him. He looks confused and vaguely spooked.
"You ate a human meal this morning, several hours passed, you have now probably digested it."
"Wait what.", Rosalie interrupts. "He ate human food? And didn't throw it up?"
"Yes. Some eggs and bacon, nearly a full portion. He said it didn't taste bad."
"Wow, and he really didn't even feel the need to throw it up?", she asks again.
"No, that's why I think he needs to expel the waste another way. You know, the regular human way."
"I think you are right.", Rosalie concedes.
The men's reactions are opposite. Emmett obviously thinks this theory hilarious, but Jasper panics.
"I haven't taken a shit in a century and a half!", he says, accidentally projecting his panic to us.
Emmett loudly guffaws. "Don't think the mechanics have changed much in that time.", he smirks.
"Door to the left in the hallway. Don't forget to wipe and wash your hands.", I tell him sternly. "Yell for us if you need help."
He looks at me in consternation, particularly at that last part.
Like a dead man walking he absconds to the toilet and sequesters himself there for about fifteen minutes. Out of politeness I start loudly washing and rearranging the dishes in the kitchen, which blocks at least my inferior human hearing. Emmett however listens attentively at the door with barely contained mirth. The noise I make does not drown out the toilet flushing or the tap running either.
The glare Jasper gives Emmett when emerging from the toilet is positively deadly.
"What...", I trail off, looking for a not-awkward way to phrase the obvious question.
"It went how I think it is supposed to go.", he mutters. "Don't tell Carlisle anything. I don't want this going into his bloody notebooks."
Emmett is still laughing his head off, Rosalie and I glare at him.
"Jasper.", Rosalie grabs his hand. "Think what this means. You ate real food. You are becoming more human."
"And you saved a life today.", I add. "There was so much fresh blood, but you didn't even seem tempted to drink any of it."
He doesn't say anything, but I never felt anything as beautiful as the quiet spark of hope radiating off of him.