Good evening. A short message tonight because I need immediate sleep. Tonight is Feral Jasper and Mary-Alice, with a few hints at the actual plot (other than Jasper lures Mary-Alice into a loving relationship). A few different scenes from throughout the fic, from beginning to middle.
Any bonus thoughts will occur tomorrow <3 I hope you enjoy!
Meeting him is… different than Mary-Alice anticipated.
Jasper is… very wounded. The kind of wounds that Maria wouldn't have even bothered to treat. She would have made Mary-Alice dispose of him. It's not Mary-Alice being traumatised or dramatic, she's done it dozens of times. Sometimes it's just not worth saving someone. It was just how things worked in the south.
Mary-Alice can't see the heart wound where he was stabbed and she's knows better than to ask him to take his shirt off the very first time they meet. That implies things, and she's not in the mood to have to … correct him.
But there are so many other injuries; cracks and fresh scars overlaying much older ones. He limps, unsteady on his feet, There's no way he could run or fight. And the Cullens have left him to walk around, unguarded and unaccompanied.
She didn't want an audience when they met, but she hated that he was left alone more. It was stupid and careless.
Mary-Alice has no idea why she cares so much. She's prided herself on only ever caring about one thing: survival. Everything else was background noise. Half the time, she didn't even bother to learn the newborns' names. There were only a handful of exceptions to the rule. Maria, obviously. Rosa. Peter - and Charlotte. The rest of them… they didn't matter. She had no illusions that she mattered to them. It was just how things worked.
But her visions had pointed her to him for a reason, and there was a sense of duty that she see them through; and guilt that she hadn't been the one to figure out where he was trapped, and free him. She might have been a lot of terrible things, but Mary-Alice wouldn't leave any creature to suffer like that.
She watches him - and the coven - for a few days before she makes herself known.
"Hello Jasper."
He flinches when she unfolds herself from the tree and it's very strange seeing a vampire who was clearly a strong warrior, a deadly fighter, almost shrink back at her appearance.
"Are you a friend of the Cullens?' His voice is like an open wound, like glass in flesh. It hurts to hear.
"No." There's no point lying. It'll just create a bigger mess. "I'm going to be yours." She doesn't even know how to be a friend.
He stares at her for a second, almost waiting her out.
//
"How did that happen?"
His voice is low and rough as she swims out to the middle of the lake. There's only a small area in the very center that is more than seven feet deep, but she likes the act of swimming. It's not something that she ever got to do in the south.
"How'd what happen?" Mary-Alice treads water. Jasper is sitting on the shore, holding her dress. It's been a while since her last wash, and her last hunt in town had come up with a brand new dress, so it felt right to clean up before she got changed. Her old dress will need to be washed too - it's covered in blood.
"Your back. When you dived in…" Jasper shifts; he's having trouble with his left leg again. Mary-Alice isn't entirely certain that the Cullens set it right when they freed him but she doesn't want to suggest resetting it.
"Oh," she submerges for a second to wash out her hair. When she resurfaces, she lazily swims back to shore. "Another battle. It healed bad." It doesn't pull anymore; or she doesn't notice if it does. Maria always said that the most important thing to do was keep moving. The vampiric body was designed to move and would adapt quickly, even with scar tissue.
He looks away as she lounges in the shallows. "You have a lot of scars," he says finally.
"So do you." She hears what he's saying; that they are alike. That whatever Jasper had before being walled up with a stake through his chest might have been like her life. He was a fighter, a warrior. It was written all over him. But what that looked like eluded him - pieces were slowly coming back, but nothing helpful. Nothing pointed him in the direction of how he had been locked away and forgotten. If he had a coven or … anything. Just fragments. But the Cullens were confident more would come back as he healed.
"We're both survivors." She stops to scrub some blood and dirt off her shoulder before she emerges and reaches for her new dress. It's got long sleeves and pockets, which is a nice change. Mary-Alice stole it off a washing line instead of off a body, so it's clean and it's in good condition.
If she could feel warm, it would be in this dress. She wraps her arms around herself and sits next to Jasper.
"Have you hunted?" she asks. His eyes are a muddy colour as his body heals. She doubts a human meal would be noticable but Jasper is reluctant to go against the Cullens when they've done so much for him. Especially since they are his only chance of survival when he is still weak. If they were to cast him out… well, he's got Mary-Alice, so he'd be just fine. But maybe he doesn't know that, hasn't counted on that, and thinks he'll be alone and vulnerable and easy prey for another coven or some nomads.
//
Half the time, Jasper feels disconnected from everything. Like he lost his mind in the dark many decades ago, and this is all just another moment of insanity.
And then he meets Mary-Alice. It doesn't happen all at once, but meeting her brings him back to life. It brings things back into focus.
Even the things that he doesn't want to think about. All those years of pain and nothing in the dark. Of being starved and wounded, and everything just getting worse and worse with no help. Before that, there's very little. Flashes. Dirt and blood and light in his face.
Mary-Alice makes it worth it, though. It's been months, and he's still taken by how goddamn beautiful she is every time he sees her. Even when she's blank-faced and bloody-eyed, she's gorgeous. And he knows from his gift that she doesn't think much of herself. She's good at holding all her emotions back but enough of it slips through.
It's winter, and she's slipping on the ice trying to 'skate' barefoot. There's joy and light inside of her then, even when she's frowning and trying to keep her balance. Ice and snow are new textures, and she's still figuring them out. That's when he realises he loves her. Not like a best friend, a companion, a savior. In a way that he wants to kiss her and love her and keep her forever. In a way that has her in the Cullen house with him, lying on the couch in his room in a clean sweater, grinning at him.
(Jasper's being an idiot and a coward. He wants more than that. He wants her wearing his sweater, curling up against him. He wants to know every story, every scar, every nightmare and daydream Mary-Alice has ever had. He wants to take care of her, and protect her. He wants her to love him the same.)
//
"I love you."
Jasper's voice is almost pitiful as he says that, staring at her like … like she knows the meaning of life. His eyes are all soft, and for a moment, Mary-Alice sees him. Not as the broken wreck she came to save, or as the useless companion she's lingered with. But as himself, as Jasper. They stare at each other like - just for one moment - they have no baggage. Not complicated lives or hurts. Just two people with a choice.
Mary-Alice shakes her head, and for a second he thinks she's leaving. She doesn't want him, and now she has to go. It makes his chest feel tight, and he wants to stop her, to beg her to give him another chance. He'll never mention it again. They can pretend it never happened.
//
Touch is still a loaded gun for her. She won't deny that. Most of the physical contact she's known in her life has been violent. Bites, scratches and cracks… And then all the people she's dismembered - soldiers, newborns, spies. The humans she's devoured…
Even the people she fucked, there was no tenderness or affection. Nothing gentle, just utilitarian. It sounds cold, and it was. She never blinked an eye when one of them didn't come back from a battle or a pyre. Hell, she never thought of them again. It was just how things were.
And then there was Jasper. Jasper, who looked at her like she was light. Like she was good and sweet. Jasper who touched her so gently, like she could break or bruise. Jasper, who always gave her space and treated her like what she wanted mattered.
It felt like a divine comedy that she had gone and found him, and he was professing love to her. Ragged and torn up and mean, but Jasper had imprinted on her like some kind of baby duck. It made her feel sad for him, like he was taking a consolation prize for a contest that he'd won. He could do better than her and he probably would one day.
But she finds it utterly impossible to say 'no' to him. Perhaps she could have gotten Emmett to do her dirty work, to encourage him in another direction, but it was easier this way. Mary-Alice might be incapable of love, but she treasured Jasper. She was willing to try for him, even if she would never be able to say those words.
It was harder than she thought it would be.
Jasper's touches burn her, honestly. The way he touched her - hands, and face, and waist - was so unfamiliar it felt wrong to her. She has no idea how to touch him in kind. She's rigid in his grasp, not sure where to put her hands or how to use them. It's easier to lean against him, to rest her head on his knee. To straighten his clothing. Keeping her hands on his clothing is easier. And that means he'll do the hard stuff; the arm around her shoulders, the fingers laced together. He'll get it right so that she doesn't have to.
It still feels incorrect and awkward, like her pieces don't quite line up with his right. No matter how many visions she calls up, she can't figure it out. Sometimes it's too hard and frustrating to work out. So she just pretends this is her normal; going stiff when he holds her, pretending she doesn't see his confusion and disappointment when she turns away from his grasp, pillows her head on his leg and hopes he can feel that this is all she knows how to be.
(Some days Mary-Alice wishes he had just asked to fuck her, without love or feelings. That she could and would have done happily. It would have done him good. But this? This is too big and too fragile for her to manage. She'd eviscerate anyone who broke Jasper's heart, and she'd be a hypocrite and a coward if she didn't include herself in that number.)
Today isn't as bad as the others. She's in Jasper's lap, still fully-clothed, and he's kissing her like she'll sustain him through life. His hand has slid up the back of her sweater, but it's a firmer touch than usual, which is good. Safe. She's trying to touch him softly, trying to keep this slow and steady. She's not used to the idea of a lingering encounter, of savouring a moment. But she's trying.
//
The nomads emerge from the forest, and Mary-Alice resists biting Carlisle's hand heavy on her shoulder. None of them want a repeat of the last trio that crossed onto Cullen land, as if Mary-Alice hadn't double-checked her visions to confirm the futility of negotiation. Edward's still got his right hand, and Rosalie her left check because Mary-Alice decided execuation was a priority over negotiation.
Instead, to the surprise of everyone, she smiles and moves forward to greet them - only mildly amused by Carlisle's lack of resistance as she pulled away. Jasper looks at her curiously and she squeezes his hand before she lets go to greet the pair.
"Peter, Charlotte."
Peter is an old friend - in the loosest possible term, because she doesn't have friends. She has allies and compariots and people she fought with. Peter had always been a good fighter, an asset to Maria, and she'd both been sorry to see him go and turned a blind-eye when his plans to leave began to filter through her visions. Charlotte, Mary-Alice barely knew. Just another newborn she'd trained - Charlotte had been totally out of her depth, but determined to survive - for love of Peter, presumably.
Another person seemed like a pretty shit thing to peg all hopes of survival on, but whatever worked.
Mary=Alice couldn't hold a grudge against them; she'd up and left too, and she wasn't at risk of imminent decapitation at the time like Charlotte had been. If she was a different sort of girl, Peter and Charlotte taking off together would almost seem romantic. But mostly, it had been a pain in the ass for her, trying to cover up the gaps and spaces they left behind so that they weren't caught and executed.
Peter might not know it, but he owed her. Big.
"Mary-Alice." Peter is genuinely surprised to see her, and Charlotte is flat-out staring. "You got out."
"I left," she says primly. There were no gaps in her plan.
"You left," Peter echoes and shakes his head. "Never change, little miss. Who have you taken up with?"
"The Cullens," she gestures to them. "Carlisle allowed me to stay with them for a time. It's a long story." Emmett snorts in the background, but Mary-Alice is suddenly aware of a creeping sense of unease.
"Jasper?" she turns to look at him, but Jasper's gaze is firmly on Peter and Charlotte. He looks strange, distant, and she doesn't like that expression.
Peter follows her gaze and his mouth falls open. Silence, a shuddering breath. And then...
my cat is named hermione, but i call her squishy. last night i was reading hp fanfic really late and almost commented “love that squishy did that!” smh
If I were Alice Cullen, I’d 100% have a little side hustle in the girls’ bathroom reading palms and giving chaotic predictions just for shit and gigs. I mean, they’ve gotta make going to school for the hundredth time at least somehow fun.
twilight's writing is almost universally bad EXCEPT for at the end of the second movie when edward is about to show himself to the humans and bella knocks him backwards and as he's holding her he says "heaven"..... like what do you want me to say. he thinks he's damned. he does not believe he has a soul. he truly does not believe that he can reach heaven. but for just a moment before he understands what's happening, he thinks against hope that he has died and received salvation. because she is there. am i not supposed to think that fucks?? am i not supposed to say that they genuinely popped off with that???? be so serious
yousharknotpass
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