𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑏𝑙𝑢𝑒,

Jaz, Jazzy: reserved for the Cullen family only. Seriously. Nobody else can call him these. I don't think anyone else knows that he's ever called this?

Jas: close friends, intimate relationships of all sorts.

Jasper: acquaintances (good or bad), friends, the in-between. You know, his public name.

favourite movie with Jackson Rathbone (requested by Anonymous) 

perhaps she’d gotten to the point where she’d grown overconfident in her ability to be able to catch glimpses of people whenever she needed to, and this was the price she was going to have to pay for it. maybe she should have just kept her infatuation to herself and let it continue to linger. maybe that way she wouldn’t have gone and made a mess of it all. ( it wasn’t as if her feelings hadn’t been returned in the past; but this time felt especially sharp in her throat when she tried to swallow it back down. )

if she keeps her eyes down and gaze focused on the table he’d gestured to, maybe, just maybe, she’ll be able to hide the carousel of emotions on her face — the embarrassment, the regret, the way she’s a hair's breadth away from another apology the moment he'll agree that he wants to go. ( and really, could she blame him? people get their signals crossed all the time, sure --- but she knows better. she knows better than most. and she should have known better this time most of all. just because you want someone something so badly, doesn’t mean they want it just as much as you do. ) all she can do now is hope she hasn’t completely wrecked whatever it was they’d come to be over the last few semesters. she starts to reach for the nearest set of tongs before he speaks, but even hearing that he doesn’t want to leave doesn’t do much in bubbling up enough courage to actually look up at him again. at least not yet. but it’s at least enough to keep her from picking up the tongs; enough to pull her back up against the wall where he’d let her go.

but he doesn’t want to go ... regret gives way to confusion again; the hard line between her brows softening in time for her to ( finally ) raise her eyes away from the safety of the table and back towards him. “i don’t want you to go either.” her bottom lip retracts again, left to suffer the indentations of her teeth as he speaks, bracing himself against the table as he does as if he needs the extra help keeping himself upright. ( she knows the feeling; the coolness of the wall behind her is similarly doing it’s part in keeping her knees from buckling. ) and what he says ----- it’s everything she’d convinced herself ( somewhat selfishly, she’ll still argue ) she’d felt around him in the hope it would be returned in kind ( or perhaps a little bit more than kind, considering ). it was everything she’s been wanting to say to him without knowing how. “you do?” — there certainly wasn’t any sense of self - pride there in her voice, only slightly more than a whisper, at being told she’d been right about all of it despite not being able to rely on what she gleamed from touch like she could from others. at least there was some sense of relief that she hadn’t managed to completely ruin … what even were they now? ( what had they been before she’d gone and thrown things into chaos with a simple request statement? )

when he reaches for her again, she makes a point to stand still, trying her best to resist the urge to pull him as close as he’d been the first time ( or the similar urge to lean into that touch and probably ruin it all over again ). but that attempt at being stoic in the moment falls by the wayside as soon as his fingertips catch her jaw. that static sensation returns just as quickly — the one that had her coming up empty as far as an explanation before, but now was eager to feel again because it was solely connected to him. ( as if she needed the extra help after he’d laid it all bare to her. still ... there was always going to be something about the way it felt when he touched her; now even more so. ) she only allows her eyes to close halfway, leaving her to look at him through lashes before he comes back into focus. “i shouldn’t?” again forgetting her silent vow to keep herself from reaching out, her hand finds his wrist and her head cants at a gentle angle into his hand. he was making it difficult for her to see a reason why he was so keen on getting her to push him away ------ not when he’d been nothing but gentle, even in the way he’d broken the kiss.

‘i shouldn’t’.

Perhaps if he had a heart he would feel it drumming against his chest. Instead Jasper would settle for the rhythmic beat of hers, tune into the pulse at her throat (and how terribly delicious it seemed with each passing moment) and let himself count time that way. (Whatever images they had deposited in their respective chemicals were surely ruined by now, well over their limit and over exposed. It didn't matter, he didn't care. He was focused on--)

That sweet pulse of hers really was a damndable thing. He pushed the thought of the blood rushing through her entire body back into the furthest corner of his mind, attempted to stuff it with the things he'd lived and forgotten when he was just as alive a she was. Instead he chose to think of the net positives that came from the very thing that tempted him (and made his mouth water slightly not with saliva but the same venom that had turned him into this creature in the first place.) Her warmth was entrancing and despite the fact that Jasper simply didn't feel the cold he enjoyed basking in it regardless ---a golden cat on the sunny sill of a window in the middle of high noon on a clear summer day.

Whatever he had become, whatever he was before he was turned, he was a gentleman first. Raised with manners, even his posture suggested he was always presenting himself in the highest of manners. When he killed on a whim for Maria (and felt the crushing ache every time), when he killed in the name of a free people before then, when he did what he needed to do to survive ... it was always with a postured stance. In some of those instances it was with an apology on his lips shortly thereafter, though that mattered very little - then and now. When it came to courtships he always needed permission, for the smallest of gestures to the more grandiose.

Modern fiction suggested a vampire needed to be invited in. While such wasn't the case, Jasper preferred it. On all fronts.

Her permission was a blessing and a curse wrapped all in one. Expectation, which oozed off of her in place of all of the negative feelings she'd rolled through moments before, tilted the corners of his lips up in the very slightest. He was careful when he kissed her again - for his own benefit this time, lest he focus too much too quickly on the rush of life between them. Soft lips met her own, opting to press the tip of his tongue to seek hers out more immediately in lieu of gentle politesse earlier.

He sought to commit this to memory: the curve of her neck as she tilted to meet how he bowed, the slack of her posture relying too much on the wall behind her ---pinned between the coolness of the wall and himself as he leeched the heat from her body entire, the feel of her tongue against his own, the hum he gave her again and the one she may have returned (probably in the top 5 of conversations they'd had, as their communication tended to rely on expressions exchanged more than words). His free hand eased toward the round of her hip, tugging her away from the wall and toward his body perhaps possessively ... a tone to match his fervor.

While he didn't need to breathe she did, and when he parted for just a moment he took his own sup of air before claiming her maw once more - less softly, with more of that hunger he'd felt before instead repurposed to desire to feel her rather than feast. He caught her jaw between his thumb and index finger, gently keeping her steady before letting his grip slide lower to the elegant column of her neck. No force, no aggression in the manner in which her held her.

He didn't much like to sway the emotions of others. He did it when it was necessary or when he felt so much of something himself that he simply couldn't help it (and a part of him felt regretful for how often he cast melancholy from his room at the Cullen house when he was home). Like now where the want rolled off of him in soft waves. He knew it would mix with hers, crash and roil and ebb as the ocean. When it returned it would be larger, sturdier, and the process would repeat. So he moved with it as any creature bidden to the force of something so great and fearful would.

Desire could be so very frightening. And intoxicating.

With his thumb he turned her chin, exposed her neck to himself (tempting, tempting, behave Jasper or you'll do something you'll hate yourself for), felt the subconscious push of his hips into her own when he dipped to press feather-light kisses to the flesh below.

       THEY CALL HER SUNSHINE ; THE KIND THAT EVERYBODY KNOWS.