Foreward : This will be a series of One-Shots centered on Jasper's past. They are connected to the fanfiction "Waiting for Rain" but were not easily integrable into the main storyline of the story either because they were too violent to fit the tone I want to give to the fic, or because they would have led to too long passages in flashback mode. There will be at least 5 of them and they will come chronologically out of order. Enjoy the read ;)

August 21, 1865 - Monterrey

« I tell myself that the earth has extinguished, although I have never seen it lit. When I fall, I will cry tears of happiness. » Endgame - Samuel Beckett.

3…

Sometimes Jasper thinks that Maria is his punishment, that he truly died the day he met her on the outskirts of Galveston and that everything that has followed since then is nothing but an endless delirium and an interminable wandering through the circle of some random hell where he landed.

Every time he feeds, he has the suffocating feeling that it is he who is dying. It happens systematically: no matter the amount of his power he uses to try to calm his victims, to try to make them as serene and lethargic as possible, he fails in the final moments to make their death gentle. Perhaps because there are limits to what his power can do and the survival instinct of his victims manifests itself at the crucial moment of their death to prevent them from slipping into lethargy without a minimum of struggle. Perhaps because his power and the artificial calm he sends disappear at the precise moment when he loses control of himself and when the predator truly resurfaces to sink its teeth into the throat of its victim.

Regardless of the reason, the result is the same. In every way... death for all and at every moment, it is all he can still bring on this earth where he failed to return to dust. And he feels like it's him who is dying, and each time, it breaks him a little more; but he cannot die of hunger or indefinitely delay his meals. So, he gives in, and every time he gives in, he tells himself that he will simply go mad, that he cannot indefinitely continue like this, and that he should just stop the game. Stop struggling and let himself fall in battle. Yet, in every battle, something holds him back. An obstinacy to survive keeps him standing. And as he tears apart the bodies of the enemy newborns and feels struck by overwhelming pain as he watches their limbs turn to ashes in the fire, he postpones the deadline for another time. He will fall another time, he will stop feeding another time.

7…

And he accepts the price of his victory and kills without great remorse the innocent humans offered by Maria, hoping that - just once - his empathic abilities leave him in peace. Blood flows in his mouth and it is delicious, wonderful, exhilarating for a second. He doesn't even have time to savor the feeling of fullness, not the time to be satisfied with the joy and sudden disappearance of the burning sensation in the back of his throat before the backlash hits him: agony, despair, terror. It consumes him. Every time he ends a life, he feels like the one being finished off. It only lasts a few fractions of a second, but it is a phenomenon that repeats itself endlessly in his immortal memory, poisoning him. Jasper was not a very devout man, even in his time as a human, but he thinks there is the imprint of some kind of divine punishment there: one cannot indefinitely run on earth pretending that all actions are justifiable, wandering forever drowning in blood and accumulating corpses, pretending that one life is worth thousands of others.

The only thing he does not understand is why he is the only one punished in this way. Why Maria and the other newborns do not feel pain when they feed or dispose of defeated enemies? But as soon as he asks himself the question, he cannot help but plunge into the emotions of his comrades and the leader of his clan to analyze them, and he retains a joyless smile: he can feel the fear and sadness of his fellow soldiers rise as soon as they stop gorging, Maria's bitterness and rage swell in waves as there is a moment of emptiness where there is nothing to conquer or reduce to nothingness. They are all damned in their own way.

The only remaining semblance of what they were as humans is perhaps their refusal to surrender. Their thirst for something, whether it be the immediate satisfaction of impulses or the vague pursuit of a purpose that keeps them alive: the newborns lose themselves in the endless and bottomless pleasure brought by blood, accepting to surpass the anger, despair, and fear brought by their nature in exchange for the promise of always a little more... ready to engage in all battles eagerly looking forward to obtaining one more drop. Almost permanent agony against a few moments of additional satisfaction.

Maria herself seems driven by an insatiable thirst for power; an appetite for domination that will never stop. Now that he has been around her for more than two years, Jasper can feel this truth inscribed into his bones: Maria could conquer the entire Mexico and keep it under her yoke indefinitely and it still wouldn't be enough. Nothing will ever be enough, there will always be a need for more territories to rule over, more battles to plan. An eternity of conquest and slaughter to fight against the sensation of emptiness.

13...

When Maria had told him with her sweet and crystalline voice that she had a new mission for him, he felt his guts unpleasantly knotting for a moment. There was a hint of doubt and malicious excitement in his creator's emotions. No matter what she was about to ask of him, she felt he would be reluctant, and the prospect of a possible argument to come put her on alert.

She was mistaken about his repugnance for the task she had entrusted to him, mistaken about his ability to stand up to her in an attempt to protect himself. There had been no argument or fight: Maria didn't ask, she demanded. And Jasper, from the first day he opened his eyes to this new world, had sworn obedience to her. He had never faltered in his commitments since then, diligently accepting her commandments without questioning; this time would be no exception. He wasn't going to start now to break his oaths: if nothing else, he had always been a loyal soldier.

He was aware of what he owed her. She had let him live when she had destroyed all his previous creations at the end of July of the previous year; she had explained to him that newborns lost their usefulness after a year and couldn't be left alive lest the Volturi - the guarantors of vampire law - intervene. Killing soldiers who had lost their strength was of unparalleled cruelty and cynicism. In his time as a human, as a ranked military officer, he would have been outraged by the prospect and found the idea abhorrent; when she had presented the notion to him, he had barely been surprised. Abhorrent: this is now the world he lives in.

Maria had made an exception for him because of his gift and his value as her second: he excelled in combat, but it was his gift more than anything that made him essential to their clan. His talent, which seemed like a curse to a vampire, made him unique and meant that even with his diminished strength and speed, he remained useful to his creator. He was not really surprised by the request, he had sensed it coming. He was now in charge of executions. It was just another power play for her: to see how devoted he was to her and if he was willing to follow her orders despite the pain it caused him. To see if the empath could be an executioner. For that, as for the rest, it made little difference. He had simply nodded and gone to carry out his task.

The emotions of the executed newborns seem even more violent and overwhelming than those of the humans he has to feed on. Perhaps because he is of the same species? Perhaps because they are not anonymous faces and he feels the weight of his own betrayal as he tears them apart? He's just doing his duty. He tries to drown them in waves of calm and contentment to make it less painful - for them as well as for himself - but, as with humans, it spectacularly fails in the final moments. Despair, terror, rage, regrets. Defeat. It makes him grit his teeth and want to collapse. It doesn't matter, they're all already dead. He should have been since February 63. Often, he thinks he would like to be.

The pain overwhelms him but he remains standing and the broken bodies continue to accumulate, falling one by one into dust in the heart of the blaze.

18...

It was the last newborn of their army. The 1865 herd is done with. He contemplates the pyre for long minutes, the heat of the flames electrifying something as it caresses his cold, stony skin. He plays for a few seconds with the idea of his own death like a teenager walking along the edge of a precipice, feeling both immortal and on the brink of the abyss. It would be so easy.

Tomorrow Maria will create new immortals: new soldiers to train and lead into battle until they are defeated or lose their usefulness. And in 66, it will start again, if he hasn't fallen in battle by then, he will execute them and a new cycle will begin. Again and again. Until the end of time or until he dies or loses his own usefulness. Until the end of the game.

The newborns thirst for blood, Maria thirsts for power. And him, what does he thirst for? What is he searching for? His stubborn refusal to die doesn't make much sense, less now than ever. Yet he cannot, his whole being rebels at the prospect of ending it. In those moments, he remembers two very different teenagers swinging at the end of a rope; the memories awaken as much anger as horror in him. Never. He would rather live decades in hell than admit defeat. So he closes his eyes and tells himself he can still hold on. He turns away from the fire, ignores the pain threatening to pin him to the ground, and returns to Maria's side.

Jasper sometimes thinks she is his punishment but also his salvation. The emotions she feels are the only things that still keep him functional, in working order. As beautiful and deadly as on the first day, cruel, proud, and exhilarated. He is lulled by her satisfaction: she is pleased with him, happy that he executed her orders without hesitation. She knows he is in her power and will refuse her nothing, it makes her almost as ecstatic as when they take new territories.

She strokes his hair and talks enthusiastically about the humans she has spotted and will transform in the days to come. Three are already in transition in a hangar a few hundred meters from the base. She talks about the upcoming battles. The San Fernando clan has been gaining influence in recent weeks, they will have to show them who rules the region. Crush them. Maria's warrior joy galvanizes him, and he finds himself smiling when contentment and the thirst for conquest turn into desire and she presses her body against his. A reward for the 18 newborns he just executed? What does it matter? He surrenders to the sensation and revels in these bursts of joy and lust, even if it's almost as empty as the rest. It certainly isn't happiness but it's the closest he can hope for.

For a while longer, it will be enough. He is on earth, there's no cure for that*.

Ending notes : there you have it. I hope you enjoyed this first one-shot centered on the first time Maria asked Jasper to destroy the "useless" newborns. I plan to write at least two more one-shots about his time in Maria's army (one concerning the punishment he received for letting Peter and Charlotte escape and another about his awakening as a vampire), one about his time as a human during the Civil War (with the lynching mentioned in Chapter 4 of Waiting for Rain) and one about his meeting with Alice.

The chapter title is of course a reference to Samuel Beckett's "Endgame," "we are on earth, there's no cure for that" is a phrase borrowed from this play. « The Unnamed » who gives its name to the collection is another work by Beckett.

See you soon for the next installment!;)