hearts under fire ;

name: jasper hale

species: vampire

cultural background: yee-haw

age: uhh. someone throw me a bone here pls.

occupation: fence straddler supreme and a regular at the knockturn fight club

specialties: fighting, being everyone’s therapist, square dancing, staring blankly into the abyss, making alice smile.

emo-vamp‌:

He tried to appreciate his brothers, he really did, but what good did it do to try and focus on anything fun when he was a murderer? He killed his own damn soulmate, and Edward couldn’t find it in himself to care about anything else at the moment. Her face was ingrained into his mind and would never erase, that much he knew, and he hated that he could still vividly recall the moment he tackled her to the ground, the moment he leaned down to suck up the blood that came from her would and just kept sucking no matter how often she told him to stop– 

Edward shuddered shut his mind down, closing his eyes as if that would get rid of the red hue they now sported instead of the gold he’d grown fond and proud of. He didn’t blame his brothers for being irritated with him, not with how he was acting, but he didn’t blame himself in the slightest. Neither Jasper nor Emmett would understand; both of them still had Alice and Rosalie respectively to stay at their sides. Not to mention that neither of them could figure out what the hell Edward liked to do in his spare time anymore; god, he really was pathetic. 

Drag racing was a fun memory, though. Even if Jasper effectively ruined the memory by inadvertently bringing up Bella. He took a deep breath and tried to brush that away for five minutes, not really wanting his brothers to hate him as much as he said they should.

“Emmett’s always been a sore loser,” he finally said. “I’m sure I could still easily beat both of you in a race if given a moment.” The smirk he attempted was strained but still there, and he was about 90% sure Esme would pat him on the back for at least trying to not mope. Maybe.

He sighed as they stopped in their tracks and crossed his arms across his chest, the brief moment of reprieve he’d reached for vanishing as he looked between Jasper and Emmett. Why was he still here? They were obviously better off without him. “You’d both be better off going off without me,” he said a bit sulkily. “Leave without me, kill me, I don’t care. It’ll make your lives easier if you left me behind like I kept telling you miles back.” He sighed. “The further away from me you get, the better. Now just go, dammit.”

[ @bearfuckcr​ ]

“I’m not a sore loser,” Emmett interrupted, a little too hastily to build a credible defence of any kind, “All of you are just terrible drivers.”

And maybe, just maybe, Emmett would vastly prefer the option of fighting the damn stupid out of Edward because he was terribly ill-equipped to deal with the black parade that had stormed Edward’s life and taken him over, but it seemed that Edward couldn’t even deliver on that front lately. Instead he dissolved into another tepid pool of self-pity while Jasper set about shaking the pebbles out of his gaudy cowboy boots and Emmett was left back at square one again.

He stared dumbly for a moment, listening to the distinctive ping, ping, ping of pebbles ricocheting off the stone floors providing an oddly cheerful percussion to Edward’s slam poetry extravaganza of pity me, my soulmates dead and turned slowly to face one of the dark walls, inhaling deeply for show if not for substance before gently (he didn’t want to bring the tunnel down around him) beginning to thunk his forehead repeatedly against the wall.

“You know what? I told Carlisle I didn’t want to be his therapist, but does anybody ever listen to Emmett? It’s always no Emmett, and stop breaking things Emmett and I hate country music Emmett, change the station and you can always get another Jeep, Emmett and bears don’t have names, Emmett and we need to support him through his murder guilt, Emmett. It’s not like we haven’t all had a little nibble on a hiker every now and again. Everyone’s allowed a damn cheat day.”

Despite the rambling monologue, Emmett didn’t appear to notice the fine line of dust beginning to filter down from the ceiling that coincided with each deliberate thump of his forehead into the rock wall. “Fuck. Why. Do. You. Suck. So. Much.”

[ @waywardsoldicr  ]

Playing Mother Goose to a pair of grown ass immortals wasn’t a task Jasper had ever imagined himself undertaking, least of all with the looming threat of the Volturi snapping at their heels. But it seemed neither of his brothers found their fugitive status to be of any pressing concern, and at the rate Emmett was going they’d all be digging their crushed limbs out of a cave-in before he even got the chance to yank free the stick up his ass and beat them both senseless with it. He cupped the last two pebbles in his palm, gingerly feeling around their weight from his spot on the ground, then took aim.

The first one flew from his fingers with cutting precision and struck Emmett on the back of the neck, leaving a sizable welt. “First of all -- you wouldn’t know decent country music from a line of singing roadkill, so jot that down. Second, do me a favor and give yourself brain hemorrhaging on your own time. We have too much ground left to cover.” 

When he stood back up again he did so with all the bearings of his past life, back straight, shoulders squared, and an intensity hinging on his expression that felt completely at odds with Emmett’s violent frustrations and Edward’s soul-sucking pity party. But that’d always been the case, hadn’t it? They were all just scattered, mismatched pieces that Carlisle and Esme had gathered together and claimed as family, and still they’d found a way to make it work. Bella Swan of all people didn’t deserve the privilege of being the one to tear them apart. 

A sharp jerk of his hand sent the last pebble colliding against Edward’s temple before he could get a head start on his next soliloquy. “And you,” Jasper assumed a familiar stance in front of his brother, hands clasped behind his back and eyes boring into the dark cloud before him. “A century, Ed. We’ve been at each other’s throats and by each other’s sides for over a century now. You don’t think everyone’s lives would’ve been easier if you’d all just dropped me after my first half a dozen cheat days in the same week? Hell, I know it would’ve been easier to lose Emmett at a gas station somewhere before he ever learned how to work a car radio. But we don’t do easy.” He gripped Edward’s shoulder as if to put into words all the things he didn’t care to say out loud -- the guilt, the frustration, the loss of control -- he understood it all. He’d felt it all himself at one point or another. “We’ll drag you unconscious the rest of the way if that’s what it takes. But you don’t get to cop out on us. Not after everything.”

Texas was extremely different from Washington, Alice noticed when they entered the state. 

It wasn’t as if she’d never lived anywhere outside of Washington, but after being in similar states to Washington for the past decade or so, she wasn’t used to the boiling heat that came with being in the Southern United States. Alice gave a disgruntled huff and pulled her hair back into a half ponytail, the hair slowly growing out of the pixie style she’d sported for so long and allowing her liberties with styles. It wasn’t as if she could burn or sweat anymore, but glaring sun is bothersome to anyone, living or dead.

She didn’t necessarily blame Edward more than she had to for the situation they were in, but that didn’t mean she was happy about being on the run.

The group passing by a strip mall was one of the greatest things to happen to them all in her opinion, and Alice let out a happy squeal as they got closer to the shops. “Oh, we have to go! We deserve a break, don’t we?”

“Your funeral,” she heard Edward mutter from the back, but she easily ignored it in favor of going to Jasper and taking his hand.

“Let’s go shopping for a bit, take our mind off of things. Please?”

[ @waywardsoldicr ]

Home sweet home.

There was a bitterness taking root in Jasper’s chest. It spread quickly in the wake of their arrival, growing prickly vines designed to wring out memories from him that left his hands stained in an all too familiar red. The car ride had come with all the usual quirks of a Cullen family road trip -- Emmett’s authoritarian rule over the radio station, Carlisle’s endless version of 19th century dad jokes, Rosalie’s insistence on passing by every rest stop and the subsequent argument over what she needed a bathroom break for when none of them had taken a piss since the Stone Age (Emmett’s words, not his) -- just with the added bonus of a moving target looming over all their heads. He’d been on edge since they’d fled Forks, though now that they were here his limbs had turned to stone in anticipation.

The hot Texas sun cast her unflinching glare on their SUV, sunlight filtering in through the windows. For a moment Jasper saw the many scars of his past come alight under the sun’s gaze as she passed judgement over him, scorching him with the full weight of her disapproval. Murderer. Jasper squared his jaw and forced himself to look at his feet. 

It was Alice’s voice that drew him out of the past and locked him squarely inside the present. She had a habit of doing that and he’d never find the right amount of words to thank her for being his anchor. “Ah -- shopping?” He looked hesitantly out the window. The less time they spent in Texas the better, as far as he was concerned, but when they reached the Louisiana border he knew they’d be going their separate ways, him and Emmett forging ahead with Edward in their care. He glanced Alice’s way again, the rigidness of his jaw giving way to a half-hearted smile. Sacrifice, right? “... Thirty minutes, tops.” He took her hand in his, giving it a gentle squeeze. 

emo-vamp‌:

No matter how much any of his brothers or sisters gave him flack for being stoic, he knew he was this way not without reason. Edward had lost count of how long they’d been traveling away from Forks to God knew where, not that he cared much. The rest of his family chatted away (or complained, in Emmett’s case) but he stayed silent, out of the picture. How could he inject himself into such a false sense of security when he was the reason they were all on the run in the first place?

He remembered Bella, her chestnut brown hair blowing in the ocean breeze as he finally let himself get close to her. Soulmate, she was his soulmate, and damn her for not staying away when he warned her how dangerous he was, but she was so alluring…

Then she’d cut her finger, the intoxicating smell of her blood had been so overwhelming that he’d lunged. He remembered her yelling and squirming under him as he drank and drank and drank until she was dry, and he just kept going, and–

Jasper’s hand on his shoulder jolted him out of the memory, the calm emanating from his power washing over him enough to chase the remains away, and he looked up at his brother with a bitter smile. “How am I holding up?” he asked, biting back a humorless laugh. What kind of question was that? His melancholy doubled in strength, and he broadcast it to Emmett and Jasper as loudly as his mind could.

“My soulmate died at my hands, Jasper. How do you think I’m holding up?!”

[ @bearfuckcr​ ]

It had made sense to split up, in the grand scheme of things. Edward was a walking and talking wall of bitterness they’d been tugging along with them like the world’s gloomiest balloon, still high on the vestiges of his last kill and all the more dangerous for it. And he and Jasper were perhaps the ones best equipped to keep him in line, to keep him calm and if necessary, keep him restrained. In theory. 

It also made sense to keep Rose as far from Edward as possible what with her considerable talents in making Edward situations that much worse and he couldn’t really blame Carlisle for wanting Esme and Alice safely out of Edward’s way. But it hadn’t stopped the endless lather, rinse, repeat cycle of Edward’s misery from wearing thin two days ago and it hadn’t stopped Emmett from wishing Rose was here if only because at least then he’d have someone to make off-colour jokes with in the back. Even his boundless well of optimism was beginning to run dry at this point, sapped away by the friendly neighbourhood emotional black hole orbiting their lives. 

He pulled a face at Jasper as he turned his head, a valiant effort in buffeting back the ricochet of melancholy that Edward sent spilling across their group via their very own Civil War era sounding board. My soulmates dead. I’m forever alone. Blah blah blah blah.. 

Frankly, Bella had been kind of boring anyway and he didn’t care if Edward could read his mind because it wasn’t rude if it was true.

“Hey Ed,” a few extra long strides caught him up with the pair to note the strained look on Jasper’s face and Emmett dropped a hand heavily onto Edward’s opposite shoulder. It seemed less like a comfort and more like a warning. “Maybe we can play some baseball when we get there,” stop brooding, “Get you a nice steak,” or a prescription, “Or maybe..”

Emmett’s eyes drifted, somewhat panicked to Jasper as he realised he had no idea what else Edward might actually enjoy doing. “I don’t know, we can get some psychic to seance you up the spirit of your dead soulmate and you can brood together. Jas, I’m going to kill him if we don’t get out of these tunnels soon.”

And he hadn’t exactly meant to say that out loud but with Edward around he may as well do.

( @waywardsoldicr​ )

It spoke to the considerable amount of distance that a certain someone had introduced into the brother’s relationship that at Emmett’s prompting, Jasper drew a sudden blank. What did Edward like to do these days? Lately it’d felt as if everything that came out his mouth always circled right back around to Bella this and Bella that. She’d been a pint-sized vacuum with twice the suction power, somehow managing to draw in not only Edward but the rest of their clan into her petty, human entanglements. He’d branded her a liability from the get go, had even volunteered to be the one to dispatch her for the sake of maintaining their secrecy, but Alice had provided the staying hand. His instincts were hardly ever wrong; maybe if he’d followed through with them from the onset they wouldn’t have ---

Don’t finish the thought.

“Drag... drag racing?” he offered after much deliberation, shooting Edward an apologetic half-smile. Cars. That was safe. It was as Bella-proof a topic as they were going to get. “Remember how we used to race those Bugattis around Spokane Valley? You’d always cut Emmett off right around I-90 and he’d slam on the horn till our ears bled. What do you say we pick it back up again when we reach New Orleans? I still owe you one from that thrashing you gave me back in Veradale. We can even break out those motorcycles. Haven’t touched them in months, have we? I still have the one you gave me after---”

 ... after he gave it up to make Bella feel better about losing Jacob. Jesus H. Christ.

Let it never be said that Emmett didn’t have a gift for one-upping everyone in the foot in mouth Olympics. In the split second that Jasper had felt Edward’s spirits prepare themselves for yet another theatrical swan dive, Emmett’s words managed to take the cake, swallow it whole, and then upchuck all over Bella’s gravestone for good measure. It was times like these that reminded Jasper of some of the simpler pleasures of his former life -- namely, that he’d been an only child.

“Both of you need to give it a rest.” he shot back, irritability beginning to seep into his tone. His arms dropped back to his side, foregoing any further tries at trying to defuse the tension. Might as well hash things out now for the sake of his own sanity. “No one’s in the mood. If you want to throw down right in the middle of our fugitive run, then please, don’t let me stop you. I’ve got some pebbles I’ve been meaning to fish out of these damn boots for miles anyway.”

The truth was that Emmett had always inherently understood how he fit into the world around him. Whether it be in his short human life or his significantly more permanent existence since, he adapted with the kind of ease that few possessed and even fewer understood — it was an ease that he shouldered with the grace of a man who’d never known anything different. 

It was also an ease that was being sorely tested right about now.

Emmett strongly suspected that the raw edge wearing away at his nerves didn’t necessarily belong to him (Jasper had always been high strung when the prospect of battle loomed and his feelings had a way of leeching messily into everyone else’s when Alice wasn’t around to distract him) and he also suspected that Edward’s incessant brooding since The Incident would wear anyone’s good mood down, but as one of the innocent parties caught up in the equation, Emmett couldn’t help but think that all this trudging through dark tunnels underground was taking their punishment a little too far.

If he had to suffer, by god everyone else was going to too.

“Are we there yet?”   [ @waywardsoldicr ]

Truth be told, he was almost grateful for the interruption.

There was too much to the loaded silence that stretched between the three of them. Too many unanswered questions and lingering doubts --- too many emotions. 

If anything the lapse in conversation had merely given Jasper more reason to fold in on himself, twisting into a tightly wound coil of nerves being pulled between Emmett’s restlessness, Edward’s crippling depression, and his own anxiety. He’d fought enough battles in his lifetime(s) to recognize the storm clouds rolling in from afar to welcome the taste of ashes in his mouth; they were on the cusp of something, something he’d prepared himself for long ago, from the very moment that Carlisle and Esme had opened up their home to him. 

... He’d just never expected Edward to be filling in for him.

“You mean since the last time you asked, twelve minutes ago?” Gravel crunched beneath the soles of his boots, scuffed from their weary travelling. Alice would be disappointed, he thought. She’d bought them in all their obnoxious, Texan glory off some strip mall vendor as a surprise for him. The way her face had lit up when she’d shoved them in front of his face would’ve made anyone think the damn things were made of gold. ‘You’ll love them, I know you will!’ -- he had, though Jasper suspected the smile on her face had more to do with it than the red-and-blue Southern Boy stamped across the side. A smile touched the corners of his mouth as the memory anchored him, if only for a moment. Relax.

“I’d say we’re making progress.” he said wryly, shooting Emmett a half-glance over his shoulder. The sulky bag of bones formerly known as Edward Cullen loomed next to him, brooding as though this entire venture was nothing but a pointless interruption to his daily self-flagellation routine. Jasper slowed his pace, coming to a stop next to him. He placed a light hand on his brother’s shoulder, projecting calm. “How are you holding up?”

@emosparkles