Bubz's 12 Days of Ficmas: Day 12 Christmas Eve (Otis Driftwood)
Here we are! The final day of Ficmas 2023!. I hope you all have a Merry Christmas, Happy holidays or if you don't celebrate anything have an amazing next couple days <3
Notes: Minors DNI, SFW, Fluffy, No specific descriptions or pronouns used for reader.
The firefly house was abuzz with the energy and festivities from the impending holiday. The fireflies loved Halloween sure, but since her babies were kids Mama firefly had also wanted to ensure that no matter what her babies had the most "normal" Christmas they could manage.
Even a family of psychopathic murderers deserved to have magical moments during the holidays, she had once said when Spaulding had bitched about going and getting a tree.
You were in the kitchen helping mama make some of the Christmas dinner dishes early so the workload for tomorrow would be a lot less. Mama adored you from the moment Otis had found you and brought you home. You were easily enveloped into the family dynamic were just as much one of her babies as everyone else was.
"Sweetie can you go get Otis to go get me more firewood? We're supposed to get a freeze tonight and I wanna be sure we have enough in case the pipes go"
"Yeah mama"
You replied with a smile before wiping off your hands and heading upstairs to the room you shared with Otis. Hoping to just find him there and that he wasn't already out.
"Otis? you in there?"
You called coming to a halt outside the door. Even though it was your bedroom too, you had learned very quickly to always let Otis know you were coming in. You had made the mistake of not letting him know just once, and he ended up nearly taking your head off.
"Yeah"
You heard him grumble from the other side of the door. Otis never had liked Christmas, no matter how hard Mama tried to keep everyone included in the Christmas spirit. It was always too cheery for him.
You opened the door to the bedroom and poked your head in. You noticed him sitting on the side of the shared bed and fiddling with some sort of wood that was for a future project.
"Mama wants you to go and get some more firewood. There's gonna be a freeze tonight and she wants to make sure we have backup in case any of the pipes bust"
Otis sighed and looked up at you from what he was working on.
"I mean hey out of all the Christmas stuff, going to get firewood is like the least Christmas thing you could do. Would you rather help baby finish decorating?"
His eyes widened and then he rolled them at you.
"Very funny, C'mon"
He said motioning for you to follow him as he got up. You followed him down the stairs and out of the house. If he had to collect firewood you were going to at least help him do so.
"Ya know it would make Mama real happy if you at least, tried to act happy during the holidays"
"Yeah and it would make me happy to get left the fuck alone. But that's not gonna happen is it?"
He simply said with not a hint of attitude in his voice. You gave him a small smile as the two of you approached the wood pile.
"Well it's just she tries so hard to make this a happy time for everyone, it wouldn't hurt you to at least try"
"Christmas just isn't my thing. Never has been, never will be. It's too goddamn happy and bright"
"Not everyday can be Halloween Otis. People gotta be "Happy and bright" sometime during the year"
"Sugar, Halloween makes me perfectly merry and bright"
You gave him a smile as he placed a few pieces on firewood into your arms. Once your arms were full he picked up an armful himself before the two of you began heading back to the house.
"Yeah and Halloween is why we still have that human spine in our fucking bedroom "
Otis laughed at this.
"I didn't have anywhere else to put it sugar"
"Yeah well you didn't have to hang it over our bed as if its tinsel"
"You said you wanted me to decorate our bedroom and make it more "festive" that's exactly what I did"
You rolled your eyes at him.
"You know that's not the type of decorating I meant Otis"
"Well when your with Otis Driftwood, It's the type of decorating you get"
He shot you a big smile as he opened the back door for the two of you to make your way back inside.
"Here's the firewood Mama"
You said rounding the corner to the living room to set it down by the fireplace. The tree Baby decorated was standing tall in the corner of the room adorned with all sorts of mismatch ornaments and garland. Once you set the firewood into the holder by the fireplace you turned to fully take in the tree.
"It looks like Baby just took all the junk out of her room and slapped it on there"
Otis said from behind you, you laughed at his comment.
"Be nice Otis, Baby was up nearly all night decorating this tree"
"That was nice, i could've said it looked like shit"
You smiled and scanned the tree until your eye caught one ornament in particular. The ornament in question was a little picture frame that you could slide a small photo into and hang it on the tree.
The photo that Mama had carefully slid into the small frame ornament was a photo of you and Otis. It was taken a few months after you had been fully accepted as a member of the family by Baby in the kitchen.
Baby had always told you how you somehow managed to melt her brother's cold dead heart and make him actually care about something besides himself but you never fully knew what she meant until she snapped the picture and showed it to you.
There you were, in the middle of Mama's kitchen, making dinner for the family. Otis had his arms wrapped around your waist from behind as you stood at the stove as he thought the two of you were the only two around to see it, not knowing Baby was there with the camera.
Most people would argue that a simple cuddle from behind didn't show anything to do with a person changing. But the fireflies would all know that Otis showing any kind of affection at all wasn't something to just scoff at. Otis showing any emotion other then just plain mean to anyone was almost miraculous. When you had announced you and the white haired killer were "going steady" as Mama put it, you could've sworn half the family almost fell out at the prospect that Otis Driftwood had managed to find himself a partner.
"Why do they still have that fuckin picture?"
Otis said from behind you, snapping you out of your thoughts while you still gazed at the photo.
"I think it's adorable. It's my favorite picture of us to be honest"
You told him truthfully. You adored the photo and were so happy Mama did too, enough to put it in a little ornament for Christmas.
You heard Otis huff behind you, before one of his lanky arms wrapped itself around your shoulders. You allowed him to bring you into his side as you wrapped your arms around his torso as the two of you stood there in front of the tree.
"I really gave you hell the first few months I was here didn't I?"
Otis snorted
"Yeah you and Baby were one in the same, no wonder the two of you were friends before she even brought you here"
A few beats of silence fell between the two of you before you spoke again.
Tonight we're opting for some Mary-Alice & Feral Jasper because @sonyawix deserves nice things, and these two are so cute to write. It's a soft and gentle little fic where they get to be cute and awkward together.
This is a bit of a patchwork of bits and pieces from throughout the fic, and kind of establishes some of the dynamic.
I am off to sleep for eight hours and procrastinate over tomorrow's post! I hope you enjoy this!
She watches him from the bower of the tree, as he picks his path away from his coven. She’s lucky she’s downwind; her visions show her that they won’t scent her from this perch.
And she finally gets to see him in person.
He’s very tall and lean, but he walks slightly stooped and she wonders why. He looks like he’s waiting for a blow to fall, and she doesn’t like that at all. His hair looks clean and is pulled back from his face, and his clothes are … better than hers, at least. She had to rip up a shirt into strips and knot them tightly into a belt to make her dress sit a little better, and it was filthy and torn. His are ill-fitting and worn, but they aren’t dirty.
His eyes are still black, and that worries her. She cannot think of any vampire whose eyes have remained black for so long, not even when Maria was holding hostages to get more information.
But she doesn’t know how long he was locked away, and she knows nothing about torpor. Mary-Alice has never been around a vampire that wasn’t healed up in a day or two. Or rather, they’d never kept any soldier that wasn’t healed that fast unless they had a special reason to keep them. This kind of injury is entirely foreign to her.
//
The girl appears from the trees in a split second, as if she’s materialised from thin air, and there’s enormous relief that he’s not imagining her, like the Cullens think, and he’s not going mad. There was someone watching him
He stares at her with unbridled fascination.
She’s so … beautiful. Wide red eyes, a pale face framed in uneven black hair with hopeful little curls. She’s tiny, she doesn’t come up to the middle of his chest, and as thin as a dancer. Her clothing is shredded and filthy, there’s blood and mud on her dress indiscriminately. She’s a new kind of vampire, not like the Cullens, and not like the kinds that he can vaguely remember from his past. There’s something wild about her, like she’s just been formed out of the trees and dirt around them, and he likes that.
The scars take a moment for him to notice. They are littering her bare arms and legs, some of them faded and worn into the fabric of her skin, some of them fresher. There’s a nasty one over her eye, and he’s suddenly intensely aware of his own scars. He remembers the pain that came with them, the suffering, and he hopes this girl hasn’t fallen victim to the same misery he only remembers in fragments of agony and rage and fear.
“Hello?” His voice is still more of a rasp; his healing is slow, and it’s embarrassing to show such weakness to her. He’s also not the one who usually speaks first, and he wonders if he should have waited. He doesn’t know. Usually, the Cullens correct him if he makes a mistake, but they aren’t here.
It took him weeks to convince them that he was well enough to go on walks alone. He’s grateful that Emmett took his side. He’s got nowhere to run to; he doesn’t understand this world and how it works, and he knows that until he heals, he probably wouldn’t survive long.
But Esme worried so much, as if the foxes and deer in the woods might be the thing that carried him off.
He’s rather tickled that only his second time out alone, and he’s found… her. Except, she just studies him with a blank look; not anger but no pleasure or joy. Just quiet consideration, and he wonders too late if she’s planning to attack him.
//
He looks better.
She likes that.
He’s clean and wearing new clothing, and not stooping any longer. His eyes are a funny gold-tinted colour but he’s been feeding - they’re lighter and they’re clearer now, no longer clouded over. Good, that’s good; she’s oddly grateful that the Cullens know how to help him because she had asked Maria casually about some of the injuries he’d bore, and Maria had not had the faintest clue about what she spoke of. It had made her suspicious, which had slowed down her escape exponentially.
She might still be annoyed about that. She could have been here weeks ago if Maria hadn’t decided to be difficult.
Jasper seems calm and curious as he moves closer to her; but he’s still limping. And it does frustrate her that the Cullens have let him out to roam the forest without warnings that he shouldn’t be approaching strange vampires. Anyone else might have taken his head before he realised they were even there.
Something else she’ll have to explain to him then. She’s got a mental list of things already, and she wasn’t expecting to stay that long, truly - just long enough to make sure that he was okay and safe. Then she was going to go and see what snow was like.
It looked nice in the pictures she’d seen.
He’s getting worried now, at the silence since he greeted her, and that’s her fault. She’s not used to having people to talk to - unless she was fucking them or they had a particular gift (well, at least, one that was common knowledge), Maria liked her soldiers silent.
“They’re taking good care of you,” she says abruptly and wonders when she lost the ability to converse with others normally, and not like a soldier.
“Who? The Cullens?” He stops and gives her a strange look. “Do you… know the Cullens?” The words rasp and catch in his throat, and he struggles to form the entire sentence, as if he’s trying to find and catch each word. Definitely still healing, and it sounds painful and dry when he speaks.
Perhaps she can convince him to hunt more often to try and speed up the process. There’s a town less than an hour’s run from this place, it wouldn’t be hard for him to slip away and return before the family even knew.
“Mmm. I wanted to … I wanted to make sure you were safe.” Her words are flat and short, and she can see his uncertainty.
//
Emmett recognises the longing in Jasper’s eyes as he stares after the small girl wading in the lake. It’s pretty much the same look that Emmett had on his own face when he woke up and saw Rosalie - properly saw her - for the first time.
Mary-Alice is really strange, but it doesn’t take rocket science to realize she’s had a bad time - even just the overlapping scars on her arms tell a story of violence and fear, but it’s in every part of her - by the way she moves, the way that she watches and stares, the way she speaks in the flat, even voice devoid of emotion, in short sentences. Wherever she came from, it wasn’t a good place, and Emmett’s oddly pleased that she’d found them - even if she was only hanging around because of Jasper like a stray cat, a thought that made him chuckle to himself - and had looked vaguely disgusted with the idea of spending time with the rest of the family.
Of course, the rest of the family still thought Mary-Alice was some kind of imaginary coping-mechanism for Jasper that they were tentatively ignoring, so maybe she was offended.
He should be grateful, actually. It’s taken a few weeks for Mary-Alice to stop glaring at him, to stop prowling around like some kind of jungle cat and freeze up, the second he appears. She’s still distant and rigid whenever Emmett appears, but she doesn’t treat him like he’s a danger anymore. And maybe he’d believe that this was trust and the path to friendship, except he’s seen her with Jasper.
When she’s focused on Jasper, there’s a gentleness in every aspect of her. She’s softer with him, patient and sweet. And she revolves around him like she’s his bodyguard against the world. She almost fusses over him, demanding to know when he’s hunted and how he’s healing. Emmett’s nearly certain he’s caught her smelling Jasper’s hair and clothing - perhaps to make sure he’s clean? Mary-Alice doesn’t seem to give much thought to her own state of cleanliness or her clothing, but Jasper’s are clearly important to her. And the way she stares up at Jasper - Mary-Alice has to be the tiniest vampire that Emmett’s ever seen, and Jasper’s only a few centimetres shorter than him - with this look that he suspects might have human feelings behind them.
Jasper would know better than him, though. But on the few attempts Emmett’s made to ask about that, Jasper’s given him a flat, stubborn look and refused to speak.
So the longing is probably reciprocated - maybe. Alice just hides it better, behind a wall of protectiveness and anti-social personality traits. Emmett honestly can’t work out why she’d be caring and smelling and fussing over his brother if she didn’t care.
But Emmett also worries; Jasper was walled up alone for so long that they’ve practically had to resocialize him. He remembered so little of human interaction that it had been a war zone at home for a while. Even now, he still had so many behaviours that Esme politely referred to as ‘quirks’ that they had to correct every day (and now Emmett’s wondering how many of the newer ‘quirks’ had been introduced or encouraged by Mary-Alice, who is practically a wild animal). The idea that Jasper is pining for a girl and all that a relationship entails…
Emmett really, really doesn’t want to have to give his new brother the sex talk. And he knows if he tries to convince either Edward or Carlisle to step in and have the world’s most uncomfortable conversation, they’re going to want toknow why and then remind Emmett that they aren’t encouraging the idea that Mary-Alice is real. And if Mary-Alice isn’t real, then Jasper doesn’t need to suffer through the indignity of a sex-talk.
It’s a mess. And Emmett’s relieved that Carlisle has decided not to introduce Jasper to the cousins yet because they all know that the sisters are incorrigible flirts, and he’s got a fifty on Jasper (and Mary-Alice) being utterly humourless about that kind of behaviour.
Emmett also knows that if he tries to push Jasper into introducing Mary-Alice to the rest of the family, it will be a complete disaster. She’ll refuse point blank and then he will be persona non grata around her and … he doesn’t want to piss her off, and he doesn’t want to piss Jasper off.
He also doesn’t want to have to refresh his brother’s memory on the mechanics of sex and why waiting to be fully healed might be the best choice …
He’s overthinking this. He should really stay out of it entirely. The thing is, he really wants this to work out for Jasper. He’s a good guy, if weird as fuck, and he deserves to have a nice home and a girlfriend that he’s madly in love with - even if the girl happens to be some scary little traumatized gremlin who Emmett can’t imagine smiling let alone being in love with someone.
Event starts December 12th and runs until December 23rd!
You can, however, take your time with this (it is meant to be for fun after all) and I will still reblog and add fics to the AO3 collection until January 1st!
Tags to use so I see your wonderful stuff
#ficmas2023
#ficmas23
#12daysficmas
More info below the cut
If you have any other questions feel free to send an ask!
I will be adding links in the prompt list so you can see the posts in a chronological version as the event days come up (can’t link to something that doesn’t exist)
Also, the font I used for the calendar is called Frosty and you can find it here
TwiFicMas23 Day 1: lead & follow (Jessamine/Mary-Alice)
Another year, another round of Ficmas!
We'll open this year with a fic that I started for Pride and just couldn't get right - I think the end section will be reworked before it's archived on AO3.
So this was kind of a thought experiment about how STL would have gone for Jessamine and Alice; how things went differently, how different choices were made, and what that looked like.
I hope you enjoy it!
lead & follow.
Open my chest and colour my spine
I'm giving you all
Swallow my breath
And take what is mine
(Of Monsters & Men)
---
Like everything that has ever happened to one Miss Jessamine Whitlock, formerly of San Antonio, everything changes because of one small detail. One details that is so easily dismissed and forgotten, never something that seems like it’s meant to become something bigger or even slightly important in the long run.
And that's how it begins.
Jessamine finds her in a swampy clearing somewhere in Mississippi - it’s not important where, and Jessamine doesn’t care. She’s just standing there, staring off into space; with bright red eyes, and the kind of glow to her that only newborns have, half-covered in mud.
Experience has told her that no good comes from a solitary newborn - and there are no others around them, not that Jessamine can sense.
So she goes to take the newborn’s head off.
At least, that’s the plan.
Instead, the first blow has the newborn cowering, not even trying to fight back; her terrified face bisected by a crack, her thin hands holding it together as it heals. When Jessamine gets closer, the newborn lets out a whine and shuffles backward to nestle at the foot of a tree, surrounded by bushes and undergrowth.
(Her eyes are so big, it almost looks like they take up her entire face. The kind of eyes someone could drown in. Her black hair, uneven and wild, is pasted down to her face with a mixture of dried blood - her own - and mud. She is astoundingly pretty - if uncomfortably thin - which is probably the reason she was turned… if her change was intentional.)
She doesn’t look like much more than a child. But Jessamine’s known Immortal Children, and their aggression, their lure, is something that this girl doesn’t have. She’s small, but she’s above the legal age.
So she decides to take one Mary-Alice (the name scrawled on the back of her garment, the surname blurred out and indecipherable) back to Maria.
If she’s a spy, she’ll be tortured for information and destroyed. If she’s a foundling, she’s another body on the battlefield. Either way, Maria gets something out of Jessamine bringing her back to Monterrey.
So she does.
—
Forks is turning out to be memorable.
That sounds stupid. Vampire memories are good enough that, by definition, all places are memorable. Except after decades of moving every five years from one large, remote house in a small town to another large, remote house in a small town, it all blurs together. Carlisle works in a hospital, Esme does charity work, and the rest of them go to school - dented lockers, the old-soup smell of the cafeteria, and computers that only work fifty percent of the time.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. It was like statis, in some ways, because it was always the same. Hell, in some of those underfunded shithole public schools, they were even the same textbooks a decade apart.
That’s why they were allowed to stay in Alaska for the full decade - after a round in Juneau playing the part. They had to earn their retreat into the lodge outside of the Denali National Park.
(Well, the screaming argument that she had with Rosalie might have indicated to Carlisle and Esme that they were all burnt out with keeping up the act. It hadn’t been one of her finest moments, but Rosalie had insisted on using her actual full name at their last three schools and Jess had put her foot down in Juneau. They were inviting trouble with the internet becoming more and more accessible. She’d won that argument, which was rare enough that it was notable, and they’d attended school as Rose and Jess Platt. It was more than fifteen years ago, and she wasn’t entirely certain Rosalie had forgiven her yet.)
It had been nice. Nice to exist as who she was, and not have to remember all the details that went along with their cover story; not to have to second guess everything she said or did or wore because she was supposed to be an ordinary teenage girl. Nice to be able to venture into the woods for days on end and not have to be anywhere. Nice to run bare foot through the snow, because that was a feeling she still savoured as a novelty more than sixty years later.
And then Carlisle had taken them to Forks, and pushed them back onto centre stage; the maladjusted Cullens (and Hales, again. She is fighting a losing battle over that.)
(She’s getting too old for this.)
She wasn’t expecting Forks to be anything. Just another black pin on the map in her study of all the places they’ve found themselves in - there’s a red pin in Monterrey for obvious reasons. There’s a silver one in Nebraska, the place where the Cullens found her (not her most dignified moment, honestly.)
There’s a silver one in Mississippi too. One that she worries at, takes out and puts back in, because she hates that she’s so damn obvious. That she’s giving away her secrets - especially the secrets that she refuses to confess to herself half of the time. But she’s on a new kick, a new lifestyle of being honest with herself and with others. That rewriting history does no one any favours, so it’s better just to be straight forward and tell the truth.
(Eventually she’ll feel at home as this new person, this honest girl who owns her failures and her weaknesses. It’s been sixty years, it’ll stick soon.)
She digresses.
Forks… well, Edward and Bella certainly made it distinctive.
She wasn’t going to lie and say that it didn’t feel good to fight again, to destroy. That James went down realising he made a terrible mistake and picked the wrong fight on the wrong day, and that she was very thorough, and took great pride in her work. That Jessamine Whitlock had a reputation to uphold. She likens it to stretching out muscles that have been in recline too long - a runner getting back into training after sitting out of the race.
(She might have been too enthusiastic, because Emmett was kind of slack jawed when James was finally ash. But it’s good to know that she’s still got it - that sixty years of domesticity hasn’t dulled her too much.)
Jess has zero idea of where Edward and Bella are going to end up - probably with Bella dead, if she’s honest. (If Esme hadn’t intervened, she and Rose would have already dealt with Bella and probably Chief Swan at the same time. But she just cannot go against Esme’s politely-worded requests. No one is murdering the Chief of Police and his daughter. She just made it sound so reasonable.) With all the moving parts, with Edward and his hang-ups, and Bella’s impressive ability to attract trouble, she cannot see this having a happy ending. And really, however this pans out, Bella is going to lose her life.
But she keeps her thoughts to herself.
Victoria is still in the wind and, despite Carlisle’s faith in the goodness of people, Jess knows that without sufficient motivation - like having a debilitating gift that cripples you emotionally to the point of physical pain if you hunt humans - there is no meaningful chance that Laurent will remain a vegetarian with the Denali clan. They’re living on borrowed time.
But for all her bitching, at least Bella and Edward had made this more interesting than another mediocre high school eduction.
Speaking of which, her current class is coming to an end, and she has the overwhelming urge to stretch. The others don’t get that urge like she does, and Carlisle blames it on their human lifestyle. That Jess had the opportunity to run and fight and move on a scale none of the Cullens have really ever had. The others find it odd that she paces, stretches, twists and turns when they are content simply sitting or standing.
Some days she just runs loops up to Canada and back down to Forks, to burn the energy and the itch. Edward might join her for a couple, Emmett too, but no one likes to run as much as she does. No one else feels like instinct to move like Jess.
The bell rings, and she’s quick to sweep her books into her bag. Maybe she’ll ask Rose to do her homework for her, and go running tonight. Go running and hunting, and tell Carlisle she’s keeping an eye for Victoria so no one looks at her like she’s going feral again. Maybe even wear shoes and one of those fancy outdoor jackets that Esme buys her, to help her look the part even when she’s running faster than the human eye in the depths of the wilderness, with blood on her face.
“Jess?”
She jerks to the side - not surprised, really, but having anyone address her is unexpected. She and Rose are not known for their warm personalities.
But Angela Weber is one of the few classmates that she tolerates. Mostly because Angela is polite, respects boundaries, and doesn’t ask stupid questions. Jessica Stanley, who is hovering nearby, is lower on Jess’s list of ‘people she should tolerate’, mostly because of the sheer amount of questions Jessica likes to ask.
Which is possibly why she’s keeping her distance.
(She blames Rose, honestly, that they’re approaching her at all - she’d been practicing braids in Jess’s hair that morning and she’d left them in for school. Apparently it made her look friendly enough to talk to.)
“Hmm?”
“It’s about Rosalie’s car…”
Angela has her full attention immediately; nothing causes a Rosalie Hale meltdown quite like the great-unwashed interfering with one of her cars. There had been an incident about a month after they started at Forks High, and whilst Rosalie had been contained quickly, it wasn’t forgotten by the student body.
“There's some junkie girl sitting on it,” Jessica announces and Angela winces at her friend’s bluntness.
Jess groans, and shoulders her bag, pushing past both girls without acknowledging them. This was going to be bad, and she was sure Angela would overlook her rudeness if it meant beating Rosalie out to the parking lot and removing whatever poor soul had a death wish by touching the BMW.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
—
Mary-Alice is an enigma.
Maria is equal parts exasperated and fascinated by her.
She claims to have no memories before waking up in the woods.
She doesn’t know her maker. She doesn’t remember being human or how old she is or where she is from. The only reason she knows her name is because it was written on her garment and Jessamine gave it back to her. She tells them all of that the second they get back to camp.
Maria doesn’t believe her. Not that it matters, because whatever her answer was, Maria has a very specific process for foundlings brought to her in Monterrey.
Maybe Jessamine should have warned the poor girl.
She’s mostly confused by the torture; it’s light, for Maria - the cracking and removal of a limb or two has the girl telling them everything. She sobs enough that venom gathers under her eyes and clings to her eyelashes. When Maria finally decides to release her, Mary-Alice doesn’t lash out like others before her have; instead, she goes over to the corner of the room to reattach her arm, to realign the joints in her legs, and shakes like a leaf when Jessamine approaches her, flinching away.
But Jessamine has to put her away, and nothing stops her from hauling Mary-Alice to her feet, her hand clamped around her good arm so she doesn’t try to run. She wouldn’t be the first.
The rolling horror of her emotions twists Jessamine’s stomach and makes her tighten her grip out of resentment as she escorts her to the barn with the rest of the newborns. She almost pities the little creature, still healing - her ankle is still knitting back to her leg, her limp like a little skip - and being thrown into the barn. But what goes on in there after dawn is a law unto itself, and something that Maria has never gotten involved in.
(Mary-Alice isn’t the first to be fed into the maw of the south, and she won’t be the last.)
Which is why it’s so fucking annoying that Jessamine can’t get the memory of her wide, venom-streaked eyes out of her head, even once she and Maria have retired to the house.
The next evening, Mary-Alice is quiet. She feels distant - that will become her trademark. That her emotions are as slight and ephemeral as her build. That for a long time, Jessamine will have to touch her to get a decent read on what she feels.
And after a while, even that yields nothing.
It doesn’t matter, though, because she settles well into training. Maria had named her as canon fodder - someone they’d lose early on, since she was evidently prone to hysterics and seemed too confused and innocent to really grasp what she was now a part of.
But… she’s fast and she’s a quick learner; a talented fighter. She catches on faster than Jessamine’s seen before; absolutely ruthless and precise. Her size is an asset, and does not reflect her strength. It’s been a while since Jessamine has been surprised by a newborn in training; she and Maria can measure up a soldier well enough by now. Mary-Alice, however, surprises both of them.
She’ll do nicely.
And she lives. One battle, two, six, twelve. She comes back from them all with insignificant injuries and nothing to report. Another success story for the Lady of Monterrey, and her unbeatable army.
Jessamine just tries to not to notice how haunted those big eyes have become, so quickly. How quiet and small she makes herself.
It's just how things are in the south.
She’d best get used to it.
—
With the imminent arrival of another patented Rosalie meltdown, Jess is cursing a lot of things - of course her class today is in H block at the back of the school. Of course today is the day the goddamn middle schoolers are using the library, and one of the sports teams is packing for a game. There are too many people crammed into the hallway, and Rosalie’s temper is the only thing distracting Jess from how good everyone smells.
She manages to intercept Edward, helping Bella navigate the corridors in that unwieldy cast, to warn him of their predicament and to hopefully distract Rose long enough for Jess to intervene and banish whomever thought it was a good idea to touch Rosalie Hale’s car. Edward looks irritated - mostly at Rose, but that’s just an ordinary Wednesday - and agrees that this needs to be handled fast and efficiently. Leave Emmett to be the one to manage Rose.
But of course, as they push through the crowds, her bag - the beat-up army-surplus messenger bag that Emmett gave her back in the 90s as a punchline to a joke, dotted with anti-war patches Emmett hunts for on eBay - decides to break, the buckle snapping up to hit her in the head and sending her shit tumbling to the floor.
She’s going to murder someone, but at least Carlisle will be pleased it wasn’t because she was thirsty, but because she was continually inconvenienced. Waving Edward and Bella on, she stops to scoop up her detritus - pens and pencils, her notes, her phone, all scattered along the floor - as other students ignore her and keep moving forward.
“You think they’ll call the cops?”
“She’s definitely a junkie. Mom says there’s a real problem out at the Res, and that Swan won’t do anything about it because he’s all buddy-buddy with a bunch of them.”
“She’s pretty obviously white, Ashley.”
“They’re probably selling shit to her.”
“Don’t be such a fucking racist."
“Banner went out to talk to her, and she says she’s waiting for someone. Said she knows the Cullens.”
“She looks like a middle-schooler.”
The gossip around her, as she shovels papers and books and pens back into her bag - fixable, but irritating - seems to prick at her, and she sets it aside long enough to tie the broken strap together. She’s probably lost her chance at beating Ro…
Said she knows the Cullens.
She looks like a middle-schooler.
That makes her pause. It shouldn’t, but it does.
Immortal Children don’t live very long, with the Laws. And most people won’t change anyone who isn’t definitively and absolutely old enough. No one wants to be the one that creates an ambiguously young newborn in case it all goes to shit.
Maybe there’s always been a little shard of hope tucked behind her heart.
There’s only been one girl she’s known, of all the newborns and nomads and friends of Carlisle’s over the years, that could pass for being a ‘junkie middle-schooler.’
One girl who made her a promise a long time ago.
(It might have been sixty years, but she never stopped having faith in those parting words.)
—
Time passes, newborns fall in battle, or they live to see the year pass by until summer comes and the pyres are built. And slowly but steadily, Jessamine feeds each piece and part of those newborns into the fire whether they are body parts left behind on the battlefield, or Jessamine takes off their heads herself.
Mary-Alice isn’t amongst that number. No, she survives each battle, and is lucky and fast enough that Maria shrugs and leaves it up to Jessamine whether Mary-Alice gets to live or die.
So, she lives.
Jessamine tells herself that it’s because no one expects much from her on the battlefield, so she’s the perfect cuckoo in the nest. The skinny kid with the big eyes that can take down men three times her size before they even realise they’ve lost.
She convinces herself of that for a long time. That her interest in Mary-Alice is merely academic, strategic, and nothing more. Even when she’s unceremoniously ejected from Maria’s bed - a long time coming, and not something she’s that unhappy about - she’s still convinced Mary-Alice is just another warm body for the army. One of the few that gets to live past their newborn year - like Dante and Lily and Javier. She has a purpose. Jessamine Whitlock is not one for sentiment, and not one for indulgences. If Mary-Alice wasn’t useful, she wouldn’t have been given a stay of execution.
And for a while, that’s how they stay. A soldier and a major. Training and hunting and recruiting. Mary-Alice proves useful at map-drawing and recruiting, even if she is entirely illiterate and far too sympathetic to potential recruits. Her answers to Jessamine are always short, deeply respectful, and unemotional - she’s never told a lie, even fumbled the details, in the entire time that Jessamine’s known her.
Maria likes that Mary-Alice has no human memories; thinks it makes her more efficient and effective. She wonders about ways to wipe memories of the newborns as a blanket policy; sever them from their humanity entirely. Peter and Jessamine manage to talk her out of that; there’s already a roughly thirty percent chance of a newborn changing wrong and having to be destroyed on the spot. It’s just making their jobs harder, to try and find that sweet spot between utility and amnesia every single time. It leaves them weak, without a full army, if it all goes wrong at the same time.
(And maybe Jessamine sees the confused, sad look on Mary-Alice's face when she’s listening to a conversation the most recent batch of newborns have - about weddings and families and birthdays and all those little things that make up humans and newborns often want to hold tight to, at least for a little while. But all it tells her is that Mary-Alice might be useful the way she is, but she’s hardly content with her lot in life.)
It takes over a decade for Jessamine to admit to herself that Mary-Alice isn’t there just for utility - that she wants more. Those big red eyes that feel like they see too much; the odd little spells she has where she stares off into space. The very few but almost charmingly unexpected questions. The shape and movement of her thin body underneath oversized clothes…
She wants more. She wants Mary-Alice.
(It’s been a while. There were a couple of newborns after Maria, easily caught and easily forgotten - Peter’s fine with being the one that ends Jessamine’s lovers during the summer, because it’s too much for her to deal with and they learned that the hard way. She kept to herself after that, bored and irritable with the last few batches.)
The realisation is one that feels like she’s always known it but also like she’s been struck by lightning. It’s no easier to admit to herself in the privacy of her own mind than it is to put the words into the world, but it’s always been there, simmering: that Mary-Alice was something, a moment of potential that she just had to be ready to take.
Jessamine has never been patient when she makes a decision; and it’s not like Mary-Alice is going anywhere.
It’s as simple as cornering her in the house before dawn; of a hand on Mary-Alice’s cheek and a kiss that is taken more than offered. An understanding that is exchanged in a glance.
The room Maria gave Jessamine is narrow, with an ancient, rotting day bed and a hay mattress. The mattress is sunken in the middle, and she snapped the legs off the bed years ago, to make it more useable. There’s a desk that barely stands, piled with her books and ragged maps and a few bits of discarded clothing.
It’s not a room she’s spent a lot of time in - a space used for killing time more than as a sanctuary.
Mary-Alice pauses to consider the room for a second; that’s all Jessamine gives her before there is another kiss, deep and lingering, and she can taste Mary-Alice’s venom - a lemon-sugar tang that makes her groan.
(Jessamine makes it clear what she wants from Mary-Alice that first night. Both of them stripped and on that daybed; Mary-Alice has less scars, just a dusting. She’s still young. She’s just as tiny as Jessamine envisaged, her ribs leaving shadows on her skin, the soft swell of her breasts, the jutting bones of her hips… Jessamine doesn’t want to admit that she’s a daydream, a doll wrought just for her, because that makes this a complete disaster. She’s already ragged with emotion in this place, the last thing she needs to do is add in her own goddamn feelings.)
Mary-Alice has always been a good learner, a quick one, and Jessamine would be pleased with how willing she is if life didn’t feel like she was being hollowed out and left to rot most days. But there is some satisfaction in what they have, in being able to sink into each other. She knows every scar and freckle on Mary-Alice’s body, knows exactly how she moves, how she’s put together. It’s a feast and some days she wonders if those days lying sprawled naked on the hay mattress are what truly sustains her.
(Maria catches them together one afternoon and lets out a bark of laughter. “You really are trying to destroy that girl,” she informs Jessamine, clearly entertained by what she’s found. That comment, what Maria saw in them that day, eats away at Jessamine slowly but surely. She does nothing with it, but it just sits in her mind to rot and it makes her worse. It makes everything worse.)
But somehow, she keeps her. Mary-Alice doesn’t leave, Jessamine doesn’t send her away, and they both ignore the rot.
And maybe Jessamine feels safe enough to talk to Mary-Alice - to Alice. Really talk, like she hasn’t been able to in… a very long time. She whispers little things in her ear, asks her what she thinks, tells her things she’d rather never speak aloud.
Alice is a good listener, but not much of a talker. She makes reassuring sounds, plays with Jessamine’s hair, and never really has a definitive opinion about complicated things. She doesn’t confide in Jessamine the same; there are no whispered confessions, no hushed fears or worries. It hurts because Jessamine is cracking herself wide open for Alice, and getting nothing in return.
(It hurts because Jessamine knows she doesn’t deserve any part of what she expects, and Alice is right not to tell her a damn thing.)
“It must be nice not to have secrets,” Jessamine says pointedly to her one day, lying together; fucking came before dealing with the bites and wounds from the last battle and Alice’s mouth is on the bite around her bony arm, licking away foreign venom so it will knit again. She lets out a garbled noise when Jessamine says that.
“What makes you think that?” Alice asks, looking curious. Blank, curious, pissed off - those were the sole emotions Alice was capable of demonstrating. Her physical emotions were no more telling, and sometimes Jessamine wondered if that’s just who Miss Mary-Alice was, or if that’s what the South had done to her.
“You never have anything to tell me,” Jessamine replied, almost sulkily. Alice shrugs and lies straight, looking at her frankly.
“I’ve never known anything but you and life here,” Alice says in that even, flat voice she always uses. “That’s all I have; any hopes or dreams or beliefs or regrets I ever had, I left behind when I was changed. I think you really need those things to have secrets, Jessamine.”
She’s not wrong, but Jessamine is admittedly jealous that Alice won’t entrust some kind of something to her; to tuck a secret into Jessamine’s greedy palms. But it also must be nice not to feel like you’re on the edge of a knife, about to fall into the abyss. Most of the time, Jessamine feels like she’s about to implode from everything. That she’s stretched taunt, and something has to give.
And Alice is just there, steady as she goes.
It must be nice.
(It’ll be much, much later - too late - when Jessamine finally realises how grotesque and nightmarish Alice’s life was. Is. How she had handed Jessamine what she truly wanted, that intimacy of her truth - completely hopeless, with no expectation or knowledge of anything better than what she had. And Jessamine had missed it entirely.)
—
“I don’t care who the fuck she is, I’m going to kill her,” Rosalie announces through clenched teeth, sending a few horrified freshman skittering out of her way like rabbits as Jess finally finds her family. She’d given up beating Rosalie to the car park thanks to the fucking ridiculous layout of this stupid school and opted to just try and diffuse the situation at the source.
“How did she find us here?” Emmett wonders, looking downright confused. “Why not go straight to the house? Esme would love having someone show up to visit.”
“Scent, probably. No other way to track us down if they were coming from the South-East,” Edward says under his breath, so no passersby can hear anything odd. “Do we have any idea of who it is?”
“Jessica was saying she had dark hair,” Bella says meekly, withering under Rose’s scornful glance.
“That doesn’t narrow it much,” Emmett has his arm over Rosalie’s shoulders, probably holding her in place. Even with Jess’s gift, Rose’s rage is hot and wild, and Emmett is probably the only thing keeping her in check. “Mary, maybe?”
“Mary hasn’t left California in forty years; and she’s taller than Jess,” Edward corrects. “Everyone’s focusing on how small this girl is.”
“At least it isn’t Jane,” Emmett shrugs. “We’d have known about that pretty fast.”
It’s been decades since they met with the Volturi as ‘honored guests’ of Aro, and none of them held that visit fondly. Esme had quietly admitted later that the visit to Volterra had taken the shine off Italy entirely.
Jess nods along, trying to focus on muting Rosalie’s anger, and not to think too much. She feels oddly sick at the possibilities in front of them. She feels stupid for putting the pieces together in her mind in a very-certain way. (She promised.) She’s… hopeful, but sick with the possibility she’s wrong and she’s got her hopes up for nothing.
“It’s not Maria, Jess.” Edward sounds like he’s trying very hard to be reassuring. “You know Maria, and she wouldn’t be this brazen.”
It’s both reassuring and embarrassing that Edward would jump to that conclusion: that Maria’s sudden appearance would be at the front of Jess’s mind when it didn’t even occur to her that Maria might be the sitting pretty on Rose’s BMW (fuck, she really does have a type).
(Also, Maria would not be sitting on the BMW looking homeless. The last time Charlotte and Peter ran into Maria, she was apparently wearing Versace and driving a Lexus - a stolen Lexus, without any kind of license, but the woman had very particular taste.)
Jess can’t think of other possibilities at that moment. She doesn’t want Edward to know because… whatever the outcome is, she doesn’t want Edward to look at her in sympathy. She might be trying out this whole ‘honest and transparent’ lifestyle but there are some things that are too raw, too much of a condemnation of her, to think about.
So she just nods, hands tight on the strap of her bag and wondering what she’s really hoping for.
(It’s been more than sixty fucking years. Hope is a dead thing that’s rotted back into the ground, brittle bones ground to dust. Some promises are made to be broken, and it’s about time that she made peace with that.)
—
In the end, she goes with Peter.
Or rather, Peter shows up and grabs her arm and tells her to fucking run.
(The long story is that for a very long time, she hates Peter. More than she hates Charlotte, even. She hates him for leaving her to the never-ending abyss of the wars, for taking away the steadiest and kindest thing she ever had. She doesn’t want to kill him so much as she wants to beat the shit out of him and scream at him for letting her down. She tells Alice that once, her voice shaking, and Alice had stroked her cheek. “I think Peter will surprise you. And I think when he does, you should take what he offers.” Jessamine scoffed because she doesn’t expect to see him again - he’s already probably dead, Charlotte too.)
So she turns and runs. She doesn’t even look behind her, doesn’t think about the stuff she’s leaving behind, doesn’t think about how he’s still alive, where Charlotte is, or even where they are going.
They just run. It’s a blur of dust and haze and terror trapped inside her that they will be caught and she’ll get the one person she’s always trusted, always relied upon to fix things, killed.
At the Arizona border, they slow down and maybe Jess grabs Peter and hugs him so tight she probably cracks something and she sobs so hard she’s wheezing. Her great escape from the Southern Wars and from Maria of Monterrey ends not with a celebration, of laughter and joy, but with both of them sitting in the dirt, Jess shaking and crying, with Peter trying to soothe her, his arms tight around her.
That’s how Charlotte finds them, and later Jess is embarrassed and humbled by Charlotte’s compassion, her acceptance, and her keen relief that they both made it out in one piece. Charlotte’s a better person than Jessamine, but they already knew that.
For a while, she feels like spun glass - impossibly fragile and distant from all that goes on around her. Time lacks meaning, and she’s not sure how many days pass after Arizona. Peter and Charlotte are gentle with her, and Charlotte is quick to remind her that it takes all of them a while to realize that there is something outside of that ugly bubble of the Wars; that what they lived through is just the smallest view of the world.
Jess just needs to take a breathe and let time work its magic, Charlotte promises. It will be okay.
Except, it’s six states and two months later that she feels enough like herself again that her brain starts working, that she starts having thoughts beyond the moment, and she immediately thinks of Alice.
Alice. Alice whom she left behind and never thought of. Alice who probably waited for Jess in her room - their room - in the mansion, and Jess never showed up.
Alice, who is still in Monterrey with Maria alone to pay the price of Jess’s abandonment. That’s the realization that makes her vomit up the meal she ate only a few hours earlier. Alice alone, paying for Jessamine’s sins and selfishness.
(Maria was right. She really did want to destroy Alice.)
Peter is kind but unflinching when he deciphers her distress. If Jessamine was that close to Alice, Maria probably tortured the shit out of her for answers, and then destroyed her. If going back was a possibility - and it really, really isn’t - she wouldn’t be alive to save.
It says a lot about the place they’ve all come from that the idea Alice is dead and gone is immensely reassuring, that Alice is somewhere soft and quiet now, where nothing can get her.
Except…
The last night, the last battle, lingers in her head and she remembers giving Alice and the others their orders and Alice meeting her gaze and replying, “I’ll follow where you lead.”
Those words are probably meaningless; Alice always followed orders and acknowledged them to set a standard for the newborns. Her confidence and certainty in Jessamine and Maria’s leadership set a tone that made the newborns fall into line with relative ease.
Except they aren’t; they’re ominous and heavy and loaded… maybe even something to hold tight to, something to tuck away and hope for.
Alice is fast and she’s a quick learner; a talented fighter. She catches on faster than Jessamine’s seen before; absolutely ruthless and precise. Her size is an asset and does not reflect her strength. She’s been a reliable fighter for Maria for decades, and she’s never told a lie. Without Jessamine, Maria’s ability to wield a newborn army is crippled; it would be foolish to destroy one of her longest-serving soldiers when she’s already lost Jessamine. And Maria is no fool…
…Maybe.
(A little bit of hope is a powerful thing.)
—
The journey to the parking lot feels like the path to execution, and Jess is intimately aware of the fact that either way, her family is probably going to know more than she wants them to.
There are students clustered around the parking lot, talking and whispering, and enjoying the Cullens being a spectacle again. Perhaps even hoping for a Rosalie smack-down because in small towns, the good gossip is treasured.
(Emmett might look like he’s casually walking with Rosalie, but she’s clamped at his side, and he’s whispering sweet nothings in her ear to diffuse the situation. Cars can be fixed and some people are stupid, babe. Don’t let anyone know they got to you.)
And then they are there, staring at Rose’s pristine car, and it takes Jess a moment to realise what she’s seeing.
She sits on the top of the SUV cross-legged, and she probably looks bored to everyone else. Just waiting for the Cullens to show up.
(Hope is a wild thing in her chest, somehow a million times more alive and wild now that Jess is faced with what she was secretly holding on for, that tiny flickering flame that she’s protected but never acknowledged since the day Peter declared her most likely dead finally burning free.)
To Jess, she looks exhausted. Wrung out and brittle, like she’s waiting for her execution.
But she’s here. And she’s alive.
Her hair is pulled into two very small pigtails on the top of her head with plastic clips, and somewhere she’s gotten ahold of glitter eyeshadow that is smeared liberally over both her eyelids. She’s wearing a frankly rancid cat-ear hoodie that looks like it was once a child’s, and some ragged capris, with a beat-up messenger bag beside her. Both of her skinny wrists are layered with beaded bracelets that definitely once belonged to a child.
The effect is jarring - childish and garish - but it is also somehow the most Alice. That this is exactly who she is - worn out, beaten-up, but still very much herself. It feels like the first time Jess has actually seen her for herself and it’s exactly how Jess always assumed Alice looked.
“Jess?” Edward’s looking at her with a confused expression, but she’s not listening anymore. It’s like sixty years of trauma all knotted and tangled up inside of her has come loose and she can finally relax. That she’s finally putting everything together and maybe it will be okay now.
She strides over to the car, past the whispering students wondering how the Cullens know this weird barefoot girl and what Jess Hale is going to do, and right up to the SUV. For a second, they stare at each other before Jess drops her bag to the ground and climbs up onto the roof, their gazes never breaking.
Alice stares back at her, her expression not changing at all; her eyes just tracking her movement. There’s nothing there, no emotion or reaction. Just the flat gaze of someone used to being hunted.
And Jess kisses her.
She clasps Alice’s face in her hands and kisses her for the first time in more than sixty years, an apology and a celebration that Alice is here and she’s alive and they found each other.
Jess knows that behind her, the population of Forks High is gaping and whispering and judging - she can hear a few wolf-whistles, she’s sure that admin is already calling Carlisle and Esme to come in for a meeting with the guidance counselor, and that there will be a slur written on the front of her locker in the morning.
Small towns are all the same.
She knows that the penny finally dropped for Emmett and Rose (though she suspects that Emmett already guessed, after that weird speech he gave her back in ’79 about how it’s cool that he likes bears and she likes bears too and that everyone can like what they like, and it doesn’t have to be a big deal. She originally assumed it was because Carlisle and Esme were paying closer attention to the local wildlife and sustainability, but apparently it was really about her being gay. Metaphor was never his strong suit.)
Rosalie will be rolling her eyes that Jess had to be so dramatic and couldn’t do this privately.
She knows that Edward is going to have another spiritual crisis that involves too many dirges on the piano, a lot of whining at Carlisle, and somehow making the fact that Jess is gay all about his perpetual teenage-boy pain and hypocritical beliefs.
She doesn’t care that everyone is going to talk about her right up until the Cullens move away; that she’s going to be the ‘gay Cullen girl’ now, and made a whole lot of trouble for the family. She doesn’t care that Esme’s probably going to give her a sweet but awkward speech about how loved and accepted she is, and how she could have told them at any time.
It’s honestly going to suck for a few weeks, after this stunt.
But she doesn’t regret it. She doesn’t regret it because Alice is there and the familiar lemon-sugar tang of her venom hasn’t changed, and Alice doesn’t shove her away. And that’s halfway to everything being perfect.
When Jess pulls back, Alice squeezes her eyes shut. “I-I didn’t have anywhere else to go,” are the first words Alice speaks to her, quiet and nervous, and Jess hates so much that Alice seems so resigned, so small and tired.
Their good times might have been brief, a little flash in their fucked up, messy history, but that’s how Jess remembers her the clearest. That’s when Alice was the brightest.
Not this girl who seemed as substantial as mist, halfway dead and mostly lost; this girl that Jess feels is slipping away from her faster than she can save her. This is the version of Alice that terrifies the fuck out of Jess, frankly. A blank slate of emotion, no way to determine what she’s thinking or feeling, but she can see that all joy and hope has drained from her. The walking dead, in every way that matters.
And the idea that Alice would go anywhere else before coming to Jess, that Alice assumes Jess would not want her here makes Jess feel vaguely sick. That Alice is waiting for a reprimand, retribution, and punishment for coming to find her.
(What happened to her? This isn’t the steady girl that she left behind. This version of her is so very shattered. Of all the ways Jess had imagined Alice after she left, this one was never even a shadow of a possibility.)
“This is the only place you need to be,” Jess says in a low voice, reaching out to cradle Alice’s cheek. “I am so … fucking happy to see you. I missed you so much.” There are a million other questions she has - Are you okay? How did you get away? What do you need? - but she saves them, tucks them away for later when they are cloistered in a corner of the Cullens’ enormous house, and there is time for mess and raw pain and the opportunity to breathe.
Alice bites her lip and nods, and that’s when Jess’s siblings gather around the car, obviously having walked slowly to give Jess and Alice a moment alone. Or as alone as they could be with several hundred high school students watching and commentating.
“We need to take this back to the house,” Rose says stiffly; she’s not happy at the spectacle in front of the school, but she’s not particularly upset with Jess or Alice; Jess wonders how long Rose’s tolerance will last. “Edward’s taking Bella home.”
Somehow, reality is separate from whatever is happening right now, like she and Alice are in some kind of bubble, away from Forks and humans and all the day to day monotony. Right now, she’s just intensely aware of Alice’s body so close to hers; to that sweet lemon-sunshine scent that Alice has always had. Of the new scars on Alice’s hands and face that Jess doesn’t know; and the way she holds her right arm closer to her body. She is so intensely aware of the way Alice’s eyelashes brush her cheeks as she blinks, perfectly still and perfectly unhappy.
None of it feels real, not even with Alice’s hand in hers.
“Let’s go,” she manages to tell Alice, who nods. She always follows orders.
Jess slides off the roof of the car to land next to it, reaching out a hand to help Alice down.
“I’ve got you,” she says, brushing some of Alice’s hair off of her face.
Alice stares at her for a moment, those big dark eyes that Jess has been in love with for longer than she can remember.
“You always have,” Is all she says, as they climb into the car, but she doesn’t take her hand out of Jess’s.
I’ve got you.
—
alice.
The Cullen house smells clean and like the woods at the back of the garden. It’s full of light, it’s dry, it’s a hundred different things that Monterrey never was and could never aspire to be. Like so many things she’s known lately, it feels like something she’s allowed to see, but it’s not for her to keep. A stolen glimpse before she keeps moving.
Her feet stick to the wooden floors, and she’s intensely aware that the lake bath she had before she got to Forks is not enough for these people. They wear shoes and jewelry, and they’ve got their clothing in the right order. They aren’t like her.
Right now, everything feels very far away, like she’s watching herself from a great distance.
She knows that Jessamine is waiting for her to speak, to say something small. To offer her a truth, a reason, for why she came to her. To finally share that cursed secret Jessamine demanded all those years ago, when keeping it was the only thing that kept them both alive.
Maybe the thing she wants more than anything is to scream and scream until it all spills out of her. That she’s all knotted up inside, that aren’t so much secrets as the whole, messy truth.
The truth is that she was raised back up with no memory of love or affection or family, just a vague promise of it that was ruined before she even began, and she’s not really sure how love is supposed to feel anymore.
So she’s spent eighty years clinging to a half-glimpsed possibility of her and Jessamine meeting in a human establishment, of that soft and perfect promise because she had nothing else, and now she’s not who she was when Jessamine left her, and she’s never going to be who she was supposed to be, not for herself or for Jessamine or for both of them.
She knows if she could sleep, there would be nothing but nightmares and horrors. Of all the things she’s seen and done, all the things that have been done to her. That just to survive, to save them both, she had to let herself be swallowed up, bite by bite, by the wars and the propaganda and so many lies.
And now she doesn’t know if there’s anything left of her to salvage, let alone piece back together.
Jessamine’s hand is in hers, and it isn’t letting go.
That’s something.
All the words that are being spoken, they sound like they are muffled, underwater somehow. They look at her, waiting, and the words still don’t come.
The urge to scream is fading. Jessamine’s hand is still in hers; maybe she’s holding on too tight. She feels like if she lets go, everything will disappear.
So she holds on tighter and steadies herself and even manages to walk further into the house. Maybe she finds just enough words to explain that it’s all new and fresh and when she ran, it was like the flat of a knife against a human throat - a flash of a chance, more likely death than freedom, but somehow she made it work.
That the idea of hunting turns her stomach, and the whole world seemed so big and bright that the only place to go was to Jessamine.
“I’ve never known anything but you and life here.”
(Later, cloistered in Jessamine’s study wearing borrowed clothing, she’ll start to weep and she won’t be able to stop. Jessamine will hold her and stroke her hair and try to reassure her of things that Alice has never confided in her. They won’t be the last tearless tears she will cry, but they will be the rawest and the truest. She still doesn’t know what love or hope or dreams feel like, but whatever this is, it’s more than she’s ever had before.)
--
AN:
Yeah, this version of Mary-Alice somehow got the worst welcome to Monterrey; a vision of her True Love interrupted by said True Love deciding to attack her; taken back to Maria to be tortured for information for a couple of nights before being tossed into the barn with a bunch of fresh and vicious newborns who don’t recognise her as One of Them. She really opted to get all flavors of trauma packed into that very first week of life.
Mary-Alice never told Jessamine or Maria about her gift at all. According to them, she was giftless, just skilled. That first week really fucked with her head.
This version has Mary-Alice leave the South and head straight to Forks. There’s about a week between Mary-Alice fleeing Maria and turning up on the Cullens’ car, so there’s a lot of fresh hurt and a lot of terror at being in a brave new world where she doesn’t know the rules. So, she’s been with Maria from 1919 right up until the 2000s.
Jess, to me, has always had a more hair-trigger temper and spontaneous personality compared to Jasper. This is because of the period-typical emotional repression that men aspired to during the Civil War; Jessamine is a little freer with expressing herself because, frankly, it would take balls to run away and pose as a boy to join the army, and even more to achieve the rank of Major. Jessamine is definitely a wildcard.
I spit on Life and Death’s version of Jessamine being kidnapped into the wars.
It was intentional that Jess only shortened her name after she met the Cullens, and that whilst she calls Mary-Alice ‘Alice’, Mary-Alice never calls her ‘Jess’. How this is significant is up to you.
Yes, the relationship between Jess and Alice feels darker than in OG STL, but this is Jessamine's side of the story. She's always painted all of her choices and actions before the Cullens with the same brush - that she was toxic and monstrous.
It's that time of year again!
Let's team up and pick prompts for this year's event!
We need 12 prompts total! Let's see which ones win!
If you’d like, you can fill this short form out before midnight 11/30 CST!
I’ll then look over the results and post the prompt list on December 5th at 11pm CST!
More info about the event is below the cut.
Okay so this event is basically a fun little countdown to Christmas via prompt fills, but feel free to use it as a happy winter celebration!
With the name of the event being called Ficmas, it sounds like it’s just a writer-focused event, but you can do whatever you want to fill the prompts (I’m mainly a writer and the title is catchy)!
You can join in as little or as much as you’d like. If you want to just vote on the prompts and see what gets made, or if you want to try to make something for every day, or something in between, it’s all up to you!
I’ve got some links with more info:
FAQ
AO3 collection
2021 calendar
2022 calendar
If you have any questions feel free to shoot an ask to the blog and I’ll answer them as soon as I can as best as I can!
Good evening! I had my first drink in a hot minute tonight and it has hit me like a battering ram, so we're doing this fast because I am definitely feeling the effects.
Tonight's is some old Hybrid; it'll be pretty obvious why this ended up being archived (and I honestly don't know if this counts as Hybrid or Hybrid baby-verse).
Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy it!
tw: mention of miscarriage
After the Cullens left, I was kind of at a loss. I know they hoped Bella and I would stick together, but that didn’t happen.
Simon and Dad were sympathetic and let me mope around the house a bit. But I was exhausted. I was sleeping sixteen hours a day when I had the opportunity and still felt like I had pulled an all-nighter. My schoolwork was fairly average but enough that no one called Dad. I managed to scrape enough energy together to help plan Cynthia’s fifteenth birthday party, and then Thanksgiving.
It was Christmas Day when I figured out what was wrong with me. I was exhausted all the time, and eating ridiculous amounts of food but still looked like a prisoner of war. I got out of bed and went into the bathroom, getting on the scales to find out that I’d lost another two pounds. Simon would notice soon, and I had no idea what to tell him.
And then I spied Cynthia’s box of tampons on the shelf, and I had to brace myself on the counter for a moment. My period was a rare and unwelcome visitor, and hardly a trustworthy indicator of anything but... it made sense.
//
“Oh, Alice, honey, this arrived for you a couple of days ago,” Simon said, plucking a small box from under the tree. It was still in its mailing box, with my name and address typed on the label but no return address or indication of who it was from.
Inside was a small black jewelry box, and for a second, I thought perhaps Jasper had sent me something. I hoped he’d sent me something. Even just a letter would have fixed everything.
I ripped into it, and the contents spilled into my lap, and it took me a moment to understand what I was looking at. It was a silver sun charm on a black ribbon, with smaller stars dotted along the band, though one was missing.
It had been my mother’s. I remembered her wearing it; she'd never taken it off. I could see the stain of blood on the ribbon, the frayed edge where the knife bit into her, and for a moment, the room swam.
“Who is it from?” Dad asked curiously.
I put the necklace down with shaking hands, trying hard to act normal, and plucked the card up. It was black too, with a white crest – the shield, candle, and compass of the Benoits, the Latin motto running along the bottom – Ex Deus Veritas. Truth in God, coined by the Order.
On the back of the card, the message was short.
Our best wishes of the season to you and your family, Mary-Alice.
Meaning: we know where you and your family are.
//
The bag I packed was like so many others. Basic, warm clothing; my first aid kit, a new phone I had bought in Port Angeles, money. I had ordered a ton of gift cards over the internet, since they weren’t traceable. Nothing sentimental was meant to come with me, but in the end, I saved a photograph of Jasper and I to my new phone.
And then I left Forks.
//
it sounds all fun and luxurious to say I ran off to Hawaii.
The truth was, Mexico would have been way better but with the vampire and Order problem down there, I chose the one place in America you are least likely to get cornered by a vampire: Hawaii.
Specifically Paukaa, which was home to less than 600 people. I was nothing more than another post-high school traveler who decided to stay. I rented a tiny one-room place from a family and got a job at a café. It was quiet and safe and I settled into a mind-numbing existence.
I hadn’t contacted anyone back in Forks or even checked my email. As far as everyone was concerned, Mary-Alice Brandon had disappeared for the last time – I half-hoped they’d declare me dead.
I was Mary Hale here.
It was a little embarrassing, yes, taking Jasper’s fake surname, but it kept me hidden because I doubted anyone would think to run a search on that name. And none of the Cullens called me ‘Mary’ anyway.
It had been a few months. The hardest. When the test came back positive, I had tried to find the Denali clan in Alaska, to pass on a message to the Cullens. To find help.
I got close - so close. I made it to Anchorage after almost two weeks of traveling; I didn't have a lot of money, I didn't want my fake I.D. questioned too much, and I was terrified I was being followed and kept double-backing and waiting to throw any stalkers off my trail. I was pretty sick by then, but I was certain I would make it. Hell, I'd broken into the Cullens' before I'd left and found a map in Carlisle's study that had helped me narrow down the Denali home a lot.
Then I woke up in the Anchorage ER with the news I’d collapsed on the street and miscarried.
I didn’t know what to do with that information.
I probably should have gone home to Forks and my Dad and pretended it had never happened. Or actually tracked down the Denali clan and demanded they get me in contact with the Cullens anyway. But the Benoits knew where my family was, and I just couldn’t. I didn’t want to see anyone I knew before ever again. I didn’t want to look them in the eyes and have to explain everything. I didn’t want to be Alice Brandon anymore.
So I didn’t. As soon as they released me from the hospital, I bought the first plane ticket to Hawaii. Actually, it was the next scheduled flight. They could have flown me to the moon, and I didn’t care.
That had been in January. It was now August, and it seemed surreal to me now. It felt like a movie I’d watched. Sad, but distant. It was easier to pretend it had happened to someone else, and just focus on each day. I had enough problems to deal with - I still hadn't managed to gain back any weight, probably because I was a shitty cook living on a diet of orange juice and minute-ramen; I barely made enough to cover my cost of living and had no particular way of getting a better job; and I barely slept, plagued with nightmares.
And now I was dreaming again, the truth had slammed into my head. Bella was in so much danger. Victoria was coming for her with a newborn army, and the Cullens were long gone.
I couldn't stay away and let Bella die - let that newborn army descend upon Forks without warning.
If nothing else, I had to protect Bella. And my family. Worst-case scenario, I could trade myself for the safety of others. I could try and take Victoria, though she would most likely win, especially when I was so weak and out of shape. Death sounded very peaceful.
Maybe I’d see my baby there. And Mom.
I didn’t tell anyone I was coming home. I told the café I had a ‘sick family member’, and I didn’t know if I’d be back. I gave the same story to the family I rented my place from. And then I packed up, bought the cheapest airline ticket I could get, and went home again.
When I slept on the plane, I realized the Cullens had come back to Forks. Bella was better protected than I anticipated, but they still didn’t know what was coming for them. Not to mention the danger that Simon, Dad, and Cynthia were in.
//
I didn’t look like much. My hair was shorter than I had ever worn it, and I was the thinnest I had ever been - that was including the years I spent in the hospital and on the street. Dark circles had set up residence underneath my eyes. I was wearing the only pair of jeans that I fitted me, and they were wearing thin. My sweater had shrunk, leaving a bare panel of skin between my waistband and the frayed hemline. And my sneakers were held together with hope and super glue.
Rather than go home and deal with Simon and Dad, I went straight to the Cullens.
It was Esme who opened the door, blinked and gasped, pulling me into a hug I couldn’t return.
“Oh, Alice, where have you been?” Esme pulled away, smoothing my hair back from my face. “We’ve all be so worried! Come in, Jasper is going to be over the moon to see you.”
I managed a quivering smile as Esme drew me into the house, into the living room where everyone was gathered, everyone’s eyes on me.
“Alice…” Jasper went from standing in the corner to at my side, pulling me into his arms, my body stiff as I reluctantly curled against him, breathing in his scent of forest and books and something indistinguishably him. “Darlin’, where have you been?”
I just shook my head. If I spoke, I’d start crying and I’d never stop. When Jasper pulled away, he must have seen that in my face and reached up to cradle my cheek. “Are you alright?” he murmured and I let out a shuddering breath.
“You’re in danger,” I managed, pulling away from Jasper reluctantly. “Victoria is returning, she’s in the area and she has her eye on Bella. And the Benoits are coming – to destroy you, the Quiluetes, and my family.”
An hour later, Esme had put a plate of food in front of me, looking worried. I was eating, my stomach twisting at the invasion of food that wasn't bought at a convenience store.
The pasta was good, but I couldn’t enjoy it.
//
Dad and Simon had been so grateful that I was home, there were no questions or accusations. Just more food, a shower, and bed. Simon had checked on me half a dozen times, looking so worried.
I slept badly, shallowly, my dreams twisted around the baby, the hospital. Terror and pain that I didn’t know were memories or imagined suffering. I dreamt of blood and misery, and woke up screaming twice – the first time, I wasn’t even awake when Dad came in to try and sooth me; I woke up with him half-rocking me, smoothing my hair back and trying to calm my sobs and screams.
“It’s going to be okay, sweetheart,” he murmured.
“I wish I had died,” I sobbed, half-asleep.
“Oh, honey, don’t ever say that,” Dad said.
He managed to get me back to sleep, my hair sticking to my clammy face, before I woke up screaming again, and Simon managed to get me to take something, leaving me in a soupy state that at least kept me quiet so everyone else could sleep.
I didn’t stir again til nearly dawn, my dreams blood-splattered and full of desperation. The drugs left me boneless and vulnerable, and when I finally opened my eyes, I couldn’t scream or call for help or do anything but lie there, staring at the ceiling. My hand lay on the pillow beside me, but I stared at it as if it wasn’t even mine.
I ended up dozing a little; clearly enough that my visions kicked in – I could see Carlisle, Esme, and Jasper arriving at the house, Dad and Simon looking grim. Well, Dad looked miserable and old. Simon had this professional nurse ‘this is bad’ face on.
“How is she?” Carlisle asked, after they were invited in.
“Broken,” Dad murmured, looking worn out and distressed.
“Screaming night terrors,” Simon clarified, putting his arms around my father’s shoulders. “I ended up giving her some Valium – we’d get her back to sleep, and minutes later, the screaming would start again.”
“You drugged her?” Jasper demanded, a dangerous look in his eyes.
“We didn’t have a choice. It was Valium or I called 911,” Simon said gently. “I couldn’t treat someone for trauma in my own house at midnight. Hell, I couldn’t treat someone for trauma without a doctor present. The Valium prescription was one of Alice’s when she arrived. And she needed sleep.”
“She kept telling us she wished she had died,” Dad added. “Over and over again. It’s all she would say.”
Esme and Carlisle looked shaken, but Jasper had just shut down entirely.
//
I managed to drag myself out of bed, and into the shower, but eschewed clothing for a clean pair of pajama bottoms and tee, running my fingers through my hair. It needed to be washed.
My chest felt tight as I sat down in front of the food Simon had made for me. Simon was still cooking, with Dad, Carlisle, Esme, and Jasper gathered around the island with me.
I felt hollow and exhausted as I considered the plate of fruit and yogurt, along with two slices of toast. I managed a small bite and felt the cool cloud of Jasper’s gift seeping into myself, not bothering to resist.
“Where have you been, Alice?” Dad asked gently.
I flinched, and then rearranged my expression again, poking some melon with my fork. “Away,” I said softly. “Somewhere safe.”
“You weren’t safe here?” Simon asked.
I brought another bite of food to my mouth to avoid answering the question; I didn’t want to say it, but they were all watching me.
“Not anymore. Not after Christmas,” I mumbled into my fruit.
Finally, I gave up. I got up and left the table, padding up to my bedroom, where my backpack was. The folded piece of paper was filthy and crumpled, but still legible, thankfully.
No one was expecting me to return to the kitchen, clearly. I slid the folded paper across to Simon and Carlisle.
Jasper would be disgusted with me. That I’d only gotten sick because he’d left me and I had been trying to find them when they didn’t want to be found. I always knew I was twisted up and ruined inside, thanks to Mommy Dearest, but this was the proof. I had had an opportunity to give Jasper the one impossible thing, and I had fucking failed.
I missed him, I needed him. He was my other half, the lost fragment. And in two short steps, I was curled in his rather startled arms, my face half-buried in his shirt.
It took Simon and Carlisle only a moment to decipher the medical shorthand, and Simon looked up at me in horror. Carlisle just looked so sad. I let out a shuddering breath, breathing in Jasper’s scent, and waited.
“Oh, kiddo,” Simon said, looking heartbroken. “Alice, why didn’t you tell us?”
“What?” Dad said, squinting at the paper.
“Alice, have you seen a doctor since?” Carlisle asked kindly. I shook my head.
“Okay, you need to be checked out, as soon as possible,” he said.
//
I didn’t have any energy left, and went back upstairs. It felt like cheating, to have Carlisle and Simon to tell everyone, to do my dirty work. But the idea of voicing those thoughts, those words, made my stomach twist tightly.
My bed was cool and smelt like home. It was good to be here, to be back. That was what I was telling myself.
Good evening! An early post tonight because I am fueled by chocolate frogs, the potential for some amateur surgery tonight (doctor approved, it's fine), and the promise that the holiday season is nearly upon us and I'll stop waking up in a terrified haze that I've forgotten to order something that Amazon doesn't stock locally.
It's been a weird day.
Tonight I bring you what at least three people have requested: an Attempt at Jasper/Archie. This was started for Pride and I've continued working on it. This is the first draft, so it'll undergo some polishing and edits before it hits AO3, not to mention a ream of author's notes for context.
This is my first time writing m/m, so I'm oddly fascinated with how this turned out. I think it's okay? I think my biggest issue is characterizing Archie right and making sure I capture what we know about him with what we know about Alice.
I probably need to do more world/lore building for the boys like I have with Jess and Alice, but c'est la vie. I tried and I hope for all the people that wanted this, you enjoy it!
going to ground.
The motel is dim and smells damp, some rundown place halfway to Olympia that was never more than half full, used by truckers and seasonal workers on their way to Peninsula and back home again. The bedspreads were shiny, discoloured polyester; the smell of mould and stale air permeating every crevice.
Archie isn’t happy. But it’s easier to be pissed at the state of this motel to distract himself.
Jasper’s stripped to his waist in the bathroom, prolonging the inevitable. Hot water will alleviate the pain for a short time, but he’s damn well pushing it. He’s not even treating the wounds anymore; he’s just hiding.
It’s always been Jasper’s habit to go to ground when he’s injured. In Calgary, in New Hampshire, and now in Forks. He won’t - can’t - even be around the Cullens when he’s that physically vulnerable. Archie always privately wondered if Jasper brought him alone so that someone had his back, or if he knew Archie would follow him to the ends of the Earth no matter what, or maybe so that he knew that Archie was protected.
His boy was wretchedly overprotective.
Which was, frankly, the reason that they were in this mess in the first place.
Scowling, Archie nudged the bed ruffle with his toe and nodded to himself when it crinkled like plastic. This place really was a dump. Normally, Jasper would take them out in the middle of the forest somewhere, carefully chosen for their inability to be tracked. After Calgary, it had taken Archie weeks to convince Jasper to go home, that it was safe. That they were safe, Maria was gone, and the Cullens were their family - they were no danger to them, they weren’t angry or upset with them for what Maria did (though Esme had been nigh hysterical at their sudden disappearance) - and they needed to go back.
New Hampshire had been somewhat easier; it had only taken a week to get Jasper home, and that hadn’t been an emotionally loaded incident, just some territorial nomads.
And now Forks.
Jasper had driven them here, and it was an unexpected that he hadn’t simply insisted on plunging into the Olympic National Park for days on end. But maybe that was more strategy - the woods were the first place the Cullens would look. A shitty motel halfway to Olympia wouldn’t be a place anyone would come looking for them for days - especially with both Bella and Jacob wounded.
Archie scowls again, and decided he’s been patient enough. He’s not one to sulk over big things - he wants the air cleared and everything resolved. But Jasper hates arguing so much that he’ll cloister himself rather than face Archie. It doesn’t matter where, as long as he can hide - in his study, in the garage with Rose, or - apparently - in a motel bathroom only a few steps above a truck stop.
The pain would be excruciating.
He’s been in there long enough.
“Jas.” He knocks on the door, and hears nothing besides the running tap. He waits a beat before he tries the knob - surprisingly, it’s unlocked and Archie wonders if he missed Jasper unlatching it, or if he just assumed it was locked.
Jasper’s slumped against the wall, his eyes pitch-black. There’s something about them that when they’re thirsty; vampires look gaunt and slightly grey-er than usual. A little closer to dead. Probably not noticeable to humans but to him, who looks at Jasper every single day, he looks miserable.
Archie moves closer, crouching down. Jasper’s eyes are tracking him, but he says nothing.
“Show me,” Archie says gently, but Jasper’s eyes have dropped to Archie’s right arm, covered by his sweatshirt.
“Jasper, you need to let me help you.” He can smell the venom - mostly Jasper’s, but there’s a sharp, foreign note that makes Archie worry. The scent is strong enough that the wound is still open, and it’s been hours. “Please.”
“Let me see it,” Jasper says hoarsely; speaking sounds painful. He needs to hunt, on top of everything, and he can’t. Not yet. Not til they take care of this.
“You first,” Archie replies firmly, but Jasper doesn’t move, his eyes fixed on Archie’s arm.
Sighing, Archie shoves the sleeve of his sweatshirt up; there’s an old ace bandage wrapped around it whilst the skin repaired. But after he removes it, the wound is obvious - the angry purpling of the bite has faded, now that it has been cleaned of foreign venom, it’s only slightly darker and will fade completely in a few hours, especially if Archie goes hunting. It’s a shallow wound, will barely scar. Frankly, Jasper’s given him more impressive marks in bed.
But Jasper doesn’t even stop the horror from rolling off him at the sight of it.
“Your turn,” Archie says in a voice that brooks no arguments, trying to squash the irritation down. It’s been a long time since Jasper’s been this… shaken up over anything, and it’s easier to pretend that it’s him being dramatic over Archie’s bite mark right now.
Jasper nods, and gets on his knees to lean forward.
It looks exactly like Archie’s visions showed him. Worse, actually, because this is real life.
The fissure runs down his back, parallel to his spine, from where his neck and shoulder meet, to his waist. The flesh has split like a geode, and Archie can see all the petrified fat and muscle right down to the bone, with an eerie golden sheen over it all. The edges are purple-black from the foreign venom, almost blistered. In contrast, the bite mark on the back of his neck looks benign, even though it should scare him more.
The whole thing makes him feel sick and frankly, Archie doesn’t feel even a tiny bit capable of dealing with this. He would give anything to have Rose or Carlisle here to patch Jasper up, whilst he flirted and made jokes to distract him.
But Jasper wouldn’t trust them. He might respect Carlisle, and love Rose, but when it comes down to the meat of it, he doesn’t trust them like he trusts Archie.
“Don’t be mad,” Jasper says in that same hoarse, flat voice. “Please don’t be mad.”
“I’m not mad,” Archie replies, and it’s not totally a lie. He’s panicking internally, he’s still annoyed and frustrated, but he’s not angry.
Jasper lets out a sound that’s somewhere between a groan and a whine, and that pushes Archie into action - Jasper’s in pain and he’s sitting here navel-gazing.
“Come and lie on the bed, and we’ll clean this up. I promise I won’t make any moves on you,” Archie tugs him to his feet, his lame attempt at a joke falling flat. Jasper limps after him, looking miserable.
The groan Jasper lets out as he lies face-down on the bed is made uglier by the way the wound pulls and shifts as he moves. Archie’s not one with a weak stomach, but knowing that mess is attached to the person he loves most in the world… it’s hard to look at.
He almost understands why Edward’s so fixated on keeping Bella safe. If Jasper were as vulnerable as Bella…
There’s no one else to help them, so it has to be Archie.
The bag from the convenience store is on the nightstand; salt, a bottle of cheap vodka, and a tube of aloe vera. It was a goddamn crude kit; Carlisle would be horrified at the use of vodka. Actually, he’d be horrified by this whole set-up. In a perfect world, they’d be back at the Cullens and Archie would be allowed to do this properly.
But they aren’t and he can’t.
Archie had honestly never asked Jasper how they discovered flammable fluids could purge out foreign venom, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know -the vodka would draw out any venom that stuck to the open wound, since foreign venom gained a nearly honey-like stickiness to it after a short time. The inability to purge it successfully was nearly always what caused scarring. Salt worked to purge the rest of the foreign material out of it, and aloe vera kick-started their cells healing again.
It’s not human blood; human blood would do the heavy lifting if they used that, but both of them know that it’s a slippery slope, and one that is best left alone for many reasons. The least of all is the fragile alliance they’ve formed with the Pack. Archie feels like they wouldn’t take kindly to them stealing blood from the hospital, even for injury treatment, so he didn’t even suggest it.
Carlisle would adore to discuss all of this in great detail - he’s been fixated on vampire healing principles for years. Archie should suggest it to Jasper as a holiday gift for next year. Hell, one page of notes would keep Carlisle and Eleazer occupied for days.
The worst part of treating Jasper, Archie decides as he very quickly douses Jasper’s back in salt and alcohol, is the fact that Jasper stays silent. Protesting the pain, even the smallest noise, is a sign of weakness. The only indication of the agony that he’s in is the tightening of his back and arm muscles.
So Archie talks. Everything spills out, all the inane shit that goes through his head - that he’s still disappointed that Bella didn't want to go to senior prom because the dress he had in mind would have been a showstopper, and no he wasn’t going to use it for her wedding dress because that dress has been drawn and cut for a while now.
He complains about the fight, that the wolves blocked his visions and there were one or two half-visions that looked like they spelt doom but nothing came to pass so now he’s reconsidering the accuracy. Or was the fact the wolves are unknowable affecting the outcome?
He’ll have fun debating that one with Edward at some point.
Archie isn’t sure when he runs out of easy words to say, but it does happen as he watches the foreign venom burn out of the fissure, and the room is silent. The only real communication they have is Archie’s hand rubbing Jasper’s shoulder soothingly; the only form of reassurance that he can offer right now. Too many things need to be said. Even more need to not be said.
So, they sit in silence. When the wounds look clear, Archie carefully helps Jasper lie back on the bed. It’ll take a while for them to heal, and it’s draining - Jasper told him that years ago. He’ll need to hunt immediately after this. Jasper lies back with a sigh, a breath released now that the worst of the pain has been dealt with, and closes his eyes. Archie takes up his spot in the rancid-looking armchair, hugging his knees to his chest, and waits.
Jasper breaks the silence after a couple of hours.
“Do you want to talk about it?” He sounds clearer, better, and it’s a tangible relief. Archie immediately crawls onto the bed, motioning for Jasper to lean forward so he can check his back. The fissure already looks so much better; the bite too has lightened, but both are going to leave a nasty scar.
“You still need to hunt,” Archie informs him, absently pressing a kiss to Jasper’s shoulder blade before settling Jasper back against the pillows.
He’s delicious and it doesn’t matter how many years pass, Archie still gets butterflies looking at him. Shirtless and in worn out jeans really is his very best look. If this were any other moment, just a quick getaway for some privacy…
But it isn’t.
“Talk to me,” Jasper said insistently, his hand reaching up to cup Archie’s cheek. “I know you’re still mad.”
“It was a stupid fucking risk,” Archie says precisely, but without the vehemence he had earlier. “I had everything under control. One bite is not the end of the world.”
“It is to me,” Jasper said simply. “When it’s you.”
Archie closed his eyes to drag up some patience. “Jasper. One bite verses this,” he waved his hand over him. “You were mauled. It was opportunistic and you could have gotten killed.” His voice rises and he has to stop himself, keep his temper. It’s the fear of what could have happened that makes him angry, he knows that. “I have seen you get hurt so many times over the years… so many near misses, so many times you’ve been so close to not coming back, not being there, that the fact you take those risks…”
He closes his eyes for a moment to compose himself, and instinctively lies next to Jasper, curled to rest his head on Jasper’s shoulder. It brings back memories, the scent of Jasper’s skin (the same leather-sun-wood he’s known for decades, but tinged with the venom and alcohol that leaves him uneasy) not quite soothing Archie’s anxiety. He remembers the visions where Jasper was too far gone to fight but he still went into battle. How many times did he nearly lose his head, did he nearly get overrun by enemy soldiers desperate to prove themselves by bringing down the Major of Monterrey?
How many times did Archie watch everything he ever wanted fade away for a second, because Jasper took a stupid fucking risk? And he was certain those days were over so many times - when they met; Ohio in ’49; Calgary is ’76; New Hampshire in ’81, and now Forks. It just never stops; it’s always going to linger, that idea that Jasper is never going to be safe, never going to be protected.
“If you’d been able to see it, would you have stopped me?” Jasper asks softly, one arm wrapping around Archie.
“Duh.” He’s tracing the scars on Jasper’s chest now, scars he knows so well he could draw them with his eyes closed - an absent gesture that calms him. “You never would have noticed.”
“Exactly.” Jasper waits for Archie to acknowledge his point, but he doesn’t look up. “I saw what was happening and I stopped it. The same way you would have for me.”
“But you were…” Archie scrunches his eyes up and turns away. “I would have been okay. One bite is nothing compared to all of this!”
Maybe this will turn into a proper argument. They haven’t had one since Calgary. Maybe they’re due for one.
“Come back,” Jasper says, and he sounds so tired that Archie rolls back over reflexively, but sprawled half-across Jasper’s chest this time, staring up into Jasper’s black eyes.
“I’ve seen arm bites go terribly, terribly wrong,” Jasper said in that low voice that he used just for Archie’s ears; intimate and almost dark. “You’ve seen Peter’s scars; that’s one of the better outcomes from a bad bite. And there is no part of me I wouldn’t sacrifice to make sure you aren’t the one with a mutilated arm - if we managed to save your arm at all. That newborn wasn’t going to just bite you; he was prepared to take his pound of flesh, and I…
“The injuries I’ve seen on the battlefield… Arch, I know what our venom can do to vampire skin. I’ve seen it go half necrotic, I’ve seen it eat through flesh until you just have to amputate at the shoulder. Neither Maria or I ever figured out why that happened to some bites. Only that it did and there was nothing we could do. It might just be a bite, but I couldn’t risk it. I wouldn’t risk anything about you, ever.”
Archie leads out a huff of breath and Jasper chuckles, brushing his hair from his face.
“I’m not gonna lie to you, it got away from me for a moment,” Jasper continued, his hand cupping Archie’s face again. “But I knew you were there and you had my back and that everything was going to be okay as long as you were.”
“You know that it’s the same for me, right? That it’s only going to be okay for me if you are?” Archie’s contemplating kissing him right now, but not if that’s going to interrupt this talk so that they have to finish it later. “I need you to… I need you to be selfish and be safe. Every time I think it’s gonna be okay and we don’t have to worry about dying any more, something changes and I’m tired, Jas. I’m so, so tired.”
Jasper ghosts a kiss over Archie’s cheek, and it’s not enough. “I’m never going to apologise for protecting you, and I’m never going to stop making sure you’re okay,” Jasper murmured, frowning as he shifted on the bed to redistribute their weight. “But I swear I will always come back to you, okay? When it’s our time, we’ll go together.”
Archie nods, and that’s when Jasper surprises him by pulling him flush and kissing him hard. It’s the kind of kiss that is always a precursor for more, especially if Jasper’s hand on his belt is any indication of how the rest of the night is going to go.
And he’s okay with that, as long as Jasper doesn’t mess up his back any worse.
Tomorrow, he’s going to have to check in with their family, reassure them that everything is okay, and drag Jasper home and pretend they just ran off to fuck in the woods and everything is fine. There were no grievous bodily wounds tended to in a rank little highway motel, there were no meltdowns.
But right now, he’s going to take this kiss, and the next one, and just be here and now, with the battle over and won and everyone in one piece. He’s going to get his boy naked and have one of those nights they don’t get to have very often in a family of seven where they don’t have to be quiet or subtle or keep one ear out for potential interruptions.
And he’s going to turn those words over in his mind - “When it’s our time, we’ll go together” - warm and safe, until he can trust and believe that they aren’t just a promise, but their future.
