keptherwaiting | 1948 / Philadelphia

She shivers, it having nothing to do with the chilly Pennsylvania air and almost everything to do with those nerves pulsing through her body as she focuses on her gloved hand in his bare one.

His hands dwarf mine, she thinks, and it's such a silly, absurd thing to focus on that she nearly laughs aloud, tamping it down just in time so that instead she's just left smiling up at him.

They're passing a drug store, which totes the Best Milkshakes in Town and she wonders idly if she's ever had a milkshake before. If Jasper's ever had one? A pity, then, that she can't try every milkshake in America and find the best one for herself. Glancing in the window, she sees children digging into candy barrels, women leaning against the soda jerk counter, cigarettes between their fingers. A man in a red apron talks to the men reading the papers on the other end of the counter. A simple life, for a simple people, here in Philly.

"Three days," she says, focusing back on Jasper. And it's an easy thing to do--he's tall, handsome, everything her visions said he'd be. And that accent, the soft Southern drawl, well, it does things to her nerves. Like not calm them one bit. "My...glimpses of possibilities told me the week and the weather but not the day I'd meet you. So I've just been...hanging out in the diner or wanderin' the bookstores and boutiques. Rented a room at the hotel, to make it believable and all that."

Alice wrinkles her nose at herself, shaking her head. "Sorry, I'm ramblin', aren't I? I do that sometimes."

Edited 2020-06-25 01:05 (UTC)

Jasper hasn't taken his gaze off of her. Even when she'd paused to watch the people through the window, briefly wondering what she was thinking. When she focuses on him again. The wrinkle of her nose.

He only looks away when he feels like his heart could leap right out of his chest.

He's not sure which of them is more nervous, him or her. And more than just nervous: Excited. Charmed. Captivated.

He focuses on her small hand in his, the feeling of her glove against his bare skin.

She is rambling, but they're supposed to be getting to know each other, right? And Jasper hardly minds listening to her speak.

"Bookstores and boutiques. A hotel. Sugar in your coffee." He tilts his head, curiously. "You prefer livin' that way? Like them?"

“I do,” she nods, stretching her fingers out and then curling them back around his. It feels perfectly right and makes her bounce a little as she walks. “I like their ingenuity. Their creativity and how they throw themselves into everything they do, one hundred percent.”

Alice looks up from the sidewalk in front of her, curling her free hand against his arm as they walk. She takes in his features, as if she’s memorizing them. But that’s silly, she has known his face for 28 years.

Checking, then, matching up mind’s eye with what’s in front of her. He blows it out of the water.

“I like nice things,” she continues. “Living in a forest doesn’t always afford that.”

Her hand in his, her other on his arm, all feels so natural.

And Jasper likes the bounce it puts into her step. He steps half an inch closer, tucking her petite frame into his side without so much a thought about it.

But her close scrutiny has him ducking his head, suddenly shy. He's not sure what her thoughts are, but her emotions then certainly speak highly enough of whatever she sees.

"No, I suppose it doesn't," he agrees with her assessment of the nomadic life after a pause. "I guess I never thought our kind could live like them. I thought - Well, things are different where I'm from, you see. It wasn't until recently I'd even learned of living free."

There’s—

a snarl, a woman with dark hair and red eyes, skin brown, her hands on Jasper’s chest, his hair a wild mess, his eyes red, new vampires unleashed upon others—

—moments she knows. He was still in the South when Alice woke up. She twists her lips to the side and tries to pick up where he’s left off.

“I had a rough few early years with it. I woke up alone and had no memory, so I wasn’t entirely sure of what happened, or who I was supposed to be. But being around people has been a comfort, mostly.”

Jasper can't imagine having awoken to no memory of who and what he was.

(Though, perhaps, his own awakening was not any better with Maria to guide him.)

He pauses their walk, turning to face Alice properly.

He means to ask her something else entirely - maybe if she's been alone this whole time, or if she's only ever hunted animals because of how she finds comfort in humans - but then his thumb is at her chin, his gaze on the twist of her lips.

"Are you okay, miss?"

She stares up at him like he’s something she’s never seen before when his thumb touches her chin and a phrase uttered in writing suddenly makes sense—feeling like her heart may beat out of her chest even if her heart does not beat at all.

“Oh,” she squeaks, an overwhelming desire to kiss him again hitting her like a brick in the head. If she could blush, she’d be bright red right now. “I-I’m fine. The early days were just a bit of a whirlwind of...unknown possibilities. Overwhelming.”

Like her sudden reaction to his touch. She clears her throat and her eyes dart to the side. “Um, so, let me ask another question, one you didn’t answer at the diner. What’s your favorite kind of music?”

Jasper too clears his throat, immediately withdrawing his touch when Alice averts her eyes. He didn't mean to make her uneasy.

Nor himself, in which he finds himself a little unsettled too.

An overwhelming desire, and all.

"Music? I - I don't know," he says, peering down the rain-drenched street, rather helplessly, for something to focus on. "I guess I don't know enough about it to say?"

He's heard songs on the radios and from people playing when he's in towns like these, but only a few have stopped him long enough to actually listen and he couldn't say what those were now, the knowledge lost to him.

“Well, we will find out!” Alice smiles up at him, the happiness only wavering a tiny bit when he draws away from her. Tugging on her glove finger with her teeth, she pulls them off, stuffing them in her pocket to take his hand again, this time, cool skin against cool skin.

“Okay, now you ask me a question. Anything you want.”

The return of her hand in his immediately brings his attention back to her.

You... have very nice hands.

"Okay," he murmurs, swallowing hard. "I guess - What's your favorite music?"

She'll have to forgive him for the stolen question as he takes a moment to pull himself together again.

Edited 2020-06-25 20:26 (UTC)

Tugging on his hand, she starts their walk again, her smile widening. "Oh, I love all kinds. But I'm quite fond of Bing Crosby right now. Frank Sinatra, too. Love songs and ballads and swing dance music."

She pauses, blinking up at him with an excited look, "Do you dance? Or...I guess, if you don't, would you?"

"I have?"

He says it like a question, only because it has been quite some time since he has.

"When I was - I mean, before," he elaborates. "I lived in Houston, with my family. There were a few dances and the like."

And at the excitement on her face, he adds: "And I could learn, again."

"I love dancin'," Alice murmurs, her eyes a little unfocused as she gets a tiny glimpse--

--his hand flat on her back, the other clasping hers, swaying and not even really dancing, just staring at each other, lost in one another.

He spins her out, and she laughs, the sound ringing in the room--

She swallows hard when she misses a step, because of the vision, grimacing apologetically at Jasper as she splashes water on him, her white shoe caught in a puddle. "Ah, hell, sorry--"

Jasper is not concerned about the water splashing him.

"Are you okay?" he asks, his hand only leaving hers to rest on the flat of her back as he guides her away from the puddle with care.

He glances back at the puddle, where the misstep occurred, frowning. "You disappeared for a moment."

Like he couldn't feel her at all, for just a second, and then he could again, followed by a rush of emotion from her.

"I...disappeared?" Her brow furrows as she looks up at him, trying to parse the meaning. She's never had anyone around to see her go through a vision, not like this. Tiny ones happen all the time; she can ignore those while still holding a conversation.

But the bigger ones, the ones that actually play out in her mind, she's never tried to walk, talk and see all at once. Especially not in front of another vampire. Especially not one with powers like his.

"I'm sorry," she apologizes, earnestly. "I didn't mean to disappear. I didn't know that's what happens. It was just a..." Vision? Possibility? She'd told him she didn't really see the future, not the way others expect. But her power has evolved a lot since she first woke up. "My power. Sometimes they come without warning. Usually I'm not trying to woo a handsome man at the same time."

Her eyes widen slightly when she realizes she said that out loud and God she's grateful she can't blush. She'd be violently red right now.

His eyes widen at the same time as hers and he averts his gaze quickly. He's not sure who is more embarrassed at the moment. For all of having already been kissed by Alice in the dinner and knowing quite well how interested she is.

“No, Alice, I - I apologize, I should have said - I have a power too,” he says in a rush. “I can feel what others feel. What you’re feeling.”

He grimaces. He feels bad for not having said so sooner, but it’s not something he’s used to bringing up in random conversations with beautiful women and he's been cautious of telling other vampires after Maria.

“And when you had your vision - it was only a moment, mind - but you didn’t feel anything and then you felt ...everything.”

He becomes incredibly interested in a puddle on the sidewalk.

They're getting wet.

The umbrella is still over them, Jasper still holding it, but Alice stands enough away that the water dripping of it is dripping into her hair. Not to mention her shoe having sunk into that puddle, and along with it the foot of her tights.

"It's...I know," she murmurs, reaching out to hover her hand over his arm, tentatively touching him again. "About your power. Well, vaguely, it's not like I can feel in the visions."

Alice glances around, getting her bearings before touching his jaw with her cool fingertips, turning his face back toward hers. "My hotel is around the corner."

She drops her hand quickly, worried about being weird again. "Not...I don't mean to sound horribly forward, and I'm sure I'm sticking my foot in my mouth once again, but let's go there. Get out of the wet clothes and have somewhere more comfortable to talk. Nothin' crazy. I uh, picked up a few things for you, before you got here. Like I said: I knew it'd be raining and you'd be here and figured I'd offer you something dry to wear."

Jasper's head is spinning, somewhat. He immediately misses the touch of her fingers at his jaw, yet every muscle in his body poised to run out of habit.

She already knows about his power?

She has things for him?

He's possibility, she'd said.

His gaze drops to her foot where he can see the water spreading, darkening her stocking.

"Okay," he agrees, remembering the touch of her hand in his, her lips on his, and focusing on the hope he'd felt then rather than the worry that seems to be bubbling up between them now.

He holds his hand out to her.

"Around the corner, you said?"

She very purposely takes his hand.

Slides her palm into his, slots her fingers between his, holds on to his--it seems like an important moment. Which also seems silly, because she kissed him mere minutes after meeting him and they were holding hands a moment before this.

But he's trusting her, going with her, and that means the world to her.

Nodding, she leads him down the street and around the corner. The Belgravia Hotel stretches up above them, its brown facade darker in the rain. Alice purposely walks in, down the carpeted hall and into an elevator without a second look behind them at the other guests and clerks behind the desk. Her hand stays in his until they reach her room's door and she has to fish the key out of her jacket pocket.

Opening the door, she gestures with a flourish. "Welcome."

It's a nice room--a bathroom off to the right upon entering, a closet that is full of dresses and shirts hanging up. Two nightstands, one with a blue rotary phone on top, bracket the large bed in the middle of the room and a dresser sits across from it, with a radio on top. By the window that shows off a lovely view of Philadelphia, sits two overstuffed armchairs.

She flits to the closet, tugging out three hangers with men's shirts on them, pants folded underneath them, laying them on top of the bed for him to look at. "Those are yours, if you want them or...whatever. I figure it'd be nice to just...get out of the wet clothes."

That said, she turns back to the closet to look through the other dresses she has, her fingers fiddling with the fabrics as she thinks about what to wear, trying to ignore the threat of nerves taking her over again. She's trying to be calm, normal, not weird, so she won't scare him off.

Jasper glances at the clothes left on the bed, then at the bed, the carpet, the wallpaper, the rest of the furniture, taking it all in. The inside definitely matches the outside of the place, speaking to its grandeur.

He feels decidedly out of place, even as he shucks off his jacket and moves to the clothes Alice has left out.

He touches the sleeve of one, a pant leg of another.

One of the shirts is blue. He likes blue.

He glances at Alice, her back to him before he cards his fingers through his hair, combing his wet curls back, and starts to unbutton his shirt.

Jasper can tell she's trying to keep calm. But there's calm, and then there's someone trying to be calm. Alice is still a bundle of nerves. He thinks that's partly his fault too. Not just because of the situation but his own nerves too.

He clears his throat. "What did you see before?"

She glances over her shoulder at exactly the wrong--right?--time. Jasper's shirt undone and being taken off, the bare expanse of his shoulder before his undershirt starts, covered in half-moon scars. Whirling back around, Alice buries her face in the nearest dress and sighs.

Get it together, idiot.

"Uh," she stalls, grabbing a light green dress off the hook and some new tights out of a bag on the ground. Alice darts into the bathroom and shuts the door behind her before speaking barely above normal volume, knowing he'll hear her. "Dancing. Silly thing to walk into a puddle over."

Toeing her shoes off, Alice changes as quickly as she can, tossing the old stockings into the trash bin, hanging her sweater and skirt up to dry and toweling off the heels she wore. Stocking-footed, she peeks out the bathroom door, looking ahead at her closet. "Are you good for me to come out?"

It happens so fast.

She's there one moment and then the bathroom door is closing behind her, and Jasper is left gaping.

He hadn't meant to excite her so?

Modesty wasn't of much concern with the other vampires he's been around. Not when a quick swap of clothes had to happen, anyway.

Which he gets about to again, after staring at the bathroom door for about a full minutes.

"I - Yes," he says, answering Alice's question now, "I'm sorry, I should've - "

He moves to the bathroom door to greet her as soon as it starts to crack open.

"I apologize. I wasn't thinking. Or suggesting anything," he adds, gesturing blindly at the bed behind him. "I don't intend to take advantage of you because of your feelings for me."

Her eyes are about the size of saucers right now.

"Oh my God," she whispers, looking up at him with dread and worry before grimacing and burying her face in her hands. "Oh my God, I'm an idiot. Jasper--I'm so sorry. That's...not...I didn't mean."

A strangled sort of noise leaves her as she ducks under his arm and moves to sit on the edge of the bed, trying to sort out her jumbled thoughts. Her fingers pinch a piece of her dress between them, rubbing the fabric in a self-soothing sort of way.

"I...have...seen you, in these visions," she starts after a long pause, trying but failing to find a normal way of saying this. "Since the day I woke up as a vampire. Twenty-eight years ago. You were...a fixed point. A lighthouse, in a storm."

Her tongue darts out to wet her lips as she thinks, glancing up at him quickly then back down to her fingers as they let go of the dress and begin twisting around each other. "I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing. How to survive. I knew my name, weirdly enough, but nothing else. I barely remember my first kill, so soon after I woke up, but I remember being barefoot and in a nightgown and covered in the blood of some poor milkman coming down the street I happened to be near.

"But you," She keeps her gaze on him this time, her expression vaguely sad, kind of wistful. "A guiding light. I knew that I'd meet you, and that things would...start to finally make sense. Not that...I've waited twenty-eight years for you to show up and fix something or..."

Her lips twist to the side again and she picks at the comforter under her. "I've done alright, by myself. But it wasn't right. It wasn't...everything I know it could be." She scoffs out a self-deprecating kind of laugh. "I doubt anything I just said made any sense. I'm sorry."

The room is quiet for a moment when Alice finishes talking.

Not that Jasper has nothing to say, only waiting to ensure she's finished. He'd made no sounds or moves to interrupt as she told her story.

He gestures now to the spot on the bed beside her before he sits down next to her, taking the hand that picks at the comforter into his.

"Please don't apologize," he murmurs.

He traces the back of her hand with his thumb, a soothing motion.

Not that he's using his powers on her. He doesn't want to do so in this situation, when she's been so honest and sincere with him. Different from the coy flirt from the diner.

"I might misinterpret what you're saying - I can't know what've you see, or how you see it, but, Alice, I can try to, okay?"

He's looking at her profile as he speaks, taking in the twist of her lips, the concern in her brow, and the sadness in her eyes. All of which he wishes he can chase away.

"My beginning was something else entirely. All I've known is how to endure since I'd been turned. It's a powerful, greedy, thirsty world that I know, and I've been in it as a vampire for eighty-six years. I'm spent, Alice. Or, was," he corrects himself. "Because then I met you. An hour ago, in a diner. You sat across from me, and I felt alive again."

Edited 2020-06-26 03:48 (UTC)

Her head turns toward him, a little, with his words. A small smile appears on her lips, chasing away some of the worry in her brow, but the sadness lingers. "Oh, Jasper," she sighs, "You're far too young to feel so old."

Reaching out with her free hand, the other still in his, Alice places it on his chest, just above his heart. Her fingers smooth out the fabric, then curl into it. "I get jumbled up," she murmurs. "Sometimes I think that if I were this emotional as a human, I probably never stopped crying."

Studying her hand against his new blue shirt, she focuses for a moment on the red nail polish she chose, the rings that adorn her fingers, before lifting her gaze back to his. "I'm starting to think that my life didn't truly begin until that diner. I want to show you a world that isn't greed and power, Jasper. Our world, that we can make together. It can be better, so much better than what you left."

1948 / Philadelphia

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