keptherwaiting | 1948 / Philadelphia

1948 / Philadelphia

"So, where do we go from here?"

"I could use a walk."

"I'd like that, ma'am."

The rain seemed to be coming down harder now than it had been. The roads flooded, cars spraying the water this way and that. But Alice seemed capable of missing each and every little wave that was sent their way, pulling them aside before it so much as formed.

The drops were loud against Alice's umbrella, which Jasper took from her to hold above their heads, but it could be the rapid beating of his heart, if possible. His palm might be sweaty in her grip, even through the glove on her hand, if it could be.

She'd said he makes her nervous. She makes him nervous too.

"Have you been in Philadelphia long?" he asks.

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"Alice," Jasper pleads softly, trying to pull her attention away from the radio.

He can't have her feeling like she should be ashamed, or have to apologize.

"Please. It was the both of us. It was - " His mouth quirks, a tiny grin. " - good. Pienso que tú eres atractivo."

"I can't speak Spanish," she whispers, turning to look at him again, her head tilted to the side, curls falling to her shoulder. Bracing herself with hands on the dresser, she offers him a lopsided smile. "But I can pick out one or two words."

Alice steps forward, pushing off the dresser to stand in front of him, her fingers coming to fiddle with the end of his hair, before pushing her hand through it. Her emotions are subdued, tamped down, under the layer of nerves and awkwardness she's feeling. The hand in his hair drags his head back a little, so his face is turned toward hers.

"Mais," she murmurs, "je pense que tu es si beau, so I guess we're even."

Jasper likes the feeling of her hands in his hair. He itches to put his hands on her hips, draw her into his lap.

He refrains from doing so.

Just barely.

"I guess we are," he murmurs, "Was that - French?"

There's the tiniest flicker of the future where he does draw her into his lap, there and gone again. Her fingers twitch against his scalp.

"Mmm," she agrees, pulling her hand from his hair so she can sit down next to him, taking his hand instead, following the lines of his palm. "I taught myself from books and this vampire in New Orleans I met once."

"I picked up a few words myself there too."

Maybe Alice will teach him some more.

"When were you in New Orleans?"

And should he be jealous of this other vampire?

"Late 1930s," Alice murmurs, her fingers pausing at either end of his life line. "I'd grown tired of wandering Atlantic City and bought a car and drove down. The mystic and strange live in New Orleans."

And the vampire and his coven had given her an odd sense of familiarity. Like she'd known someone like them before.

"Unfortunately, it's a little too sunny there, and I'm a little too friendly to keep to night." She laughs, the nervousness easing in her heart. "But it was nice, for a time. I was only there a year or so, but it was nice."

Jasper is not sure what she finds in the lines on his palm. He's happy to watch her trace the lines though, smiling softly as she talks and thinks on her time in New Orleans.

He himself hadn't been in New Orleans nearly that long, and it'd been some time since he'd been.

"Where'd you head to after that?"

He wants to know more about her.

Anything, and everything.

She hums in thought, moving her fingers to his love line instead, smiling down at his palm. "I went to Georgia, but didn't stay except a few days. Even sunnier than New Orleans."

Looking up at him, Alice meets his soft smile with a softening of her own. Her fingers slot between his, just holding his hand now. Outside, the day is turning to evening, the rain pattering against the window in a staccato rhythm.

He's bracketed by the little bit of light left in the sky, his gold hair almost aglow and her heart does a little flip as she looks at him and swallows hard.

"After that, I went up the coast. South and North Carolina, stayed in Virginia for a while, then before I knew it, 1948 and it was time to find you."

The way Alice is looking at him -

He knows he’s attractive, knows how (/has had) to use it to lure humans, but he can’t think of another vampire who saw anything other than his scars or him as a means to an end.

(Maybe Maria, once. Before things went so wrong. But she had a mate before him. And he knows (now) that she could never see him as anything other than what he actually was to her: a soldier.)

He’s not balking under the weight of Alice’s looking, he’s staring back.

Vampires are beautiful, Alice is extraordinary. Not just in her looks, and the gold of her eyes, but how she feels, strongly and candid.

He looks to their clasped hands, the way hers fit so perfectly in his.

“Favorite stop?”

And the way he stares back...

She shivers under his gaze, her smile still there, even as she tugs her bottom lip between her teeth. His gaze drops to their hands, but she just tilts her head, taking in his profile.

The curve of his brow, the straightness of his nose, his eyelashes catching in the light. He makes her feel alive.

"Hmm," Alice murmurs, reaching out with her free hand to push his hair behind his ear, watching him. "I went to Tennessee on the way back up here, and I loved Knoxville. So much music and life. But absolute favorite stop?"

Her fingers curl under his chin, making him look at her. "Here."

Her fingers on his chin, her gaze meeting his, and he closes the distance between them once more, just the barest brush of a kiss to her lips.

"Mine too," he admits, softly.

He's certain of this much: Nothing has compared to meeting Alice in the diner.

He conveys that certainty to her with his power, allowing himself in this moment to let his guard down and deliberately expose his own feelings.

Her eyes flutter closed at the wave of his feelings, his emotions, unfettered, the gate opened. It's hard, to figure out what's hers, and what's his, and in the end she decides it doesn't matter, because they're a near mirror image of her own anyway.

He's going to love her. And it'll be someday soon.

She closes the gap between them, kissing him again, another soft, quick press of her lips against his. "Well," she whispers against his mouth. "I must thank you, Mr. Jasper, for stoppin' in Philly today."

"Thank you for waiting for me," Jasper says in between these fleeting kisses.

Those twenty-eight years, and these three days.

He only lets her hand go to cup her face, to look into her gold eyes, bright and alive.

"We're going to see some things, huh?"

Together, her and him, giving and getting.

"Oh, everything." She grins, letting her thumb graze across his lips.

Turning her head, she kisses his palm, her hand falling from his mouth to trace a scar on his neck, trying very hard to not think about kissing him there too. Instead, she kisses his palm again, distracting herself.

"You're gonna love it," Alice murmurs against his skin. "I'll make sure of it."

Jasper smiles softly, watching her lips move against the skin of palm, and his free hand tucks the curls of her ear. An echo of her actions from before.

"Be gentle with me now," he says, lightly. "I'm an old vampire. Too much fun and I might expire."

Not to mention his heart has been borrowed and battered before.

"Not on my watch," she pulls away from his hand, hers moving to his chest, to rest just above his heart. "I'd never let that happen."

No, he's hers now, whether he knows it or not. And a world without him in it is a world she can't bear to be in, not anymore, not when he's here in front of her, finally real.

Slipping in closer, Alice rests her head against his shoulder, her fingers curling into his shirt again, leaning against him in an approximation of a hug, one leg folded under her, the other dangling off the bed. "You're not nearly as old as you think you feel," she smiles against his shirt. "You just gotta...look at the world in a different light, now."

His arm loops around her without a thought, holding her close, and he kisses the top of her head.

He's grinning.

"You'll have to bear me with me as I adjust to seeing it differently, darlin'."

It'll be a process.

“Well, lucky I’m an expert at being full of joyful experiences.” She tilts her head up to look at him, seeing just his neck and underside of his chin. It’s enough to make her smile.

“It’s going to be perfect.”

Jasper laughs. "You say that now. You haven't seen me when I'm cranky. Peter says I'm more ornery than a mule."

“Well that doesn’t matter—you’re not getting rid of me so easily. Afraid you’re stuck with me now.” Alice pulls back to beam at him happily.

"You may be the first someone in a real long time for who wants to willingly be around me," he says, meeting her grin with one of his own. "I'm not easy to be with. More ornery than a mule is an understatement."

She giggles, her fingers poking at his side. “I’m not lookin’ for easy.”

Alice leans forward and kisses him again. “I’m lookin’ for you.”

He's laughing as she kisses him again.

"You're adorable," he says into the little space between them before kissing her again, the corner of her mouth.

"And fascinating."

Another kiss.

"Irresistible."

His laugh is...like nothing she's heard before.

It makes her dizzy with happiness, his kisses only making her dizzier. She wants to spend every day of the rest of her nonlife knowing and learning him, being with him. Her life isn't complete, without him in it.

Her hand tugs on his shirt, pulling him even closer to kiss him properly. "You keep sayin' nice things about me, Mr. Jasper, you're definitely not gonna get rid of me," she whispers against his lips, chasing them to kiss again. "'s a weakness of mine. Compliments."

"That right?" he murmurs, allowing himself to be kissed and to kiss her in return.

Seeing as he has no desire to get rid of her any time soon:

"You are captivating, you know? You lit up that diner. I had the best sit in the house with you across from me."

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