keptherwaiting | Apr. 14th

There's music playing. Of course, there is. The room was outfitted for it specifically, and the whole wall that was a wall and not wide full window, was an endless collection of thousands of CDs, from across all of music's recorded history, meticulously curated and organized. It makes it easier not to focus. A lie. It gives him something to focus on. Closer. That isn't. But that's the point of having non-focal point.

He hadn't looked up at Alice's question, or use of his name. He doesn't always. They all say each other's name. They think his name as loud as they speak it, too. He's learned not to react to that, too. But he does open his eyes when Jasper clears his throat. Casting around for a moment, without looking to his brother. The closest. The floor. The stereo. And then, with hand-thrown out to point.

A table by the corner of the two wall windows, where she'd been sitting yesterday evening, the sun warm on her back while she sketched and wrote and he counted down again.

“Thanks,” Jasper murmurs, following the point to the notebook.

He picks it up, doesn’t look through it, just tucks it under his arm and turns to go.

He’s trying to keep his thoughts to himself - however often that actually works - by focusing on the object in hand: the notebook.

Because there’s a thousand thoughts, a thousand questions, otherwise. To the predictable How are you? to the very mundane What’s this you’re listening?

He’s at the door again when he lingers to say, “We’ll only be a couple of days.”

And: I’m sorry I need to take her away from you right now.

It doesn't. It doesn't even when they think it does. When he lets them. Which doesn't equal that he's always paying attention to it, or even wants to, wants their thoughts thundering over his like elephants, regardless of the pristine, perfect clarity his mind will always be able to recall it with.

Edward wants to close his eyes. Edward wants to pull a breath in.
He does neither. He doesn't need Jasper's guilt any more than Rosalie's.

He knows what he knows he should say, what he knows he should mean, "I know."

It doesn't change the tension in the pit of his stomach to look at peace with the music around him. It doesn't change the lions, and tigers, and bears, oh my. Victoria pacing round them, in the shadows. The wolf pack that is not pleased to have their treaty borders back. The Volturi with the promise of Bella (and Bella still with only one answer for him, no, and no, and, again, no).

He won't know if it changes. She promised to call if anything changed.
But he still won't know. He'll have to wait. Like everyone else does.
He hates being everyone else in moments like this.

He's an asshole and
he doesn't mean that either.
Not at Jasper, and not at Alice.

He knows, he knows, he knows. He does. It doesn't stop it.

Edited 2020-07-06 18:41 (UTC)

It’s a split second decision to lean against the door frame instead of fleeing.

He’s a mess. They all are.

“Alice keeps packing and unpacking,” and Jasper is just saying so, stating the obvious.

Just talking.

He’s holding the notebook in his hands now, turning the thing over and over again.

I don’t want to make her go. I want to make her go. I’m an asshole.

Guilt is not all Jasper feels. There’s annoyance, jealousy, rage, relief, love, resolve. At himself, at Alice, at Edward, toward the rest of the family, too.

Because feelings are not so cut and dry, even when things are normal. And Jasper can pick up on one and run with it, if he has to, trying to work out how another feels, but he gets it wrong. Has gotten it wrong,

Jasper needs her to go. Alice needs to go, needs Jasper to go. As much it makes exactly ever sense and none at all, even Edward needs them to fucking go, too, even when he wants them to stay put. None of them can move forward without moving back, none of them can move on from anything without amends. Alice owes amends he can't make for her (he can hardly make his own), that she can only mean so far (the same as him), but has to make up for all the same (again). Too.

They all need to seal the cracks, and those of them that can leave to do so, need to. (He knows he won't be allowed to. Able to. Knows that even his across town, for almost all the hours of every night, out of sight after being out of sight for so long, makes certain people feel the same way he does right now.)

It's maddening. He's sorry. He doesn't want to be like this.
He doesn't want to be mad, or scared, or stressed. A mess.
He doesn't want to not be able to stop the carousel.

"You could just deny her a suitcase and give her a shopping spree instead?" Except he won't. They need time together. Not time while Alice squeals at new things, and Jasper putters after her, even if he's always pleased to be in the glow of her delight. They need time together. Time without distractions and other other things pulling them apart, even for just a few hours in it.

Just the thought of it all has him checking whether anyone else in the house is looking in the direction of any of the clocks. Just how many minutes have passed since he last checked, and how many still to go. Like he doesn't feel hamstrung about wanting to outrace this, too.

To hear her laugh. Her heartbeat.
(Alive, alive, alive.)

Edited 2020-07-06 19:32 (UTC)

To feel, and to not want to feel.

Jasper knows how maddening it is.

Questions himself all the time. (What’s real, what’s not, who is feeling what, what is that toward, who is that toward. All the who and the what and the what and the who.)

Even now he doesn’t know if his lingering is making it better or worse.

Talking, and not talking.

“I told her to forget the clothes.”

(Except the underwear.)

It’s just an honest statement, thoughts spoken aloud.

Across the house, there comes the deep baritone laugh of "Now that's what I'm talking about! We should--," a loud TWANG-clatter, and a retorted "Hey!" The unknown tumble between that had been Rosalie aiming a wrench at her husband's head, that hit his moving shoulder instead, and looked very little like a wrench now, too.

Edward rolled his eyes more at their younger brother than at Jasper's words, or the thought evinced under them. It's far too many decades in to feel all that squeamish about the subject. At least it won't be happening in his head, then?

(Until they think about it afterward. Que sera.)

"That's definitely one way to keep her in one place."

Edited 2020-07-06 23:34 (UTC)

Down a floor, there's a shriek of "Hey!"

And maybe a handful of thoughts detailing Alice's plans where she hits Edward with a variety of objects.

Rude. Rude!

Edited 2020-07-06 23:41 (UTC)

And that's his wife.

Jasper casts a glance in the direction of Alice's shriek. Cheek twitching from a tiny grin threatening to make itself known.

He did not come to talk about Alice and his plans, contrary to the current topic, however.

He's not sure what he came to say, really. Or wanted to say, when he'd thought of talking to Edward in the woods with Alice the other day.

Apologize for his part in all of this? Empathize with all the feelings Edward is currently battling? Yell at him for Alice being involved even though Alice acted of her own accord?

He fiddles with the notebook in his hands, opening it and then closing it again just as quickly.

It's good to have you home again.

Edward smiles, just enough, even as Alice throws his books at him in her thoughts, knowing that he's seeing it. Doing it on purpose for that reason. But he feels more amused than repentant for it. It's a winded feeling winding its way among all the other heavier ones, but Alice does that.

Edward pushes up, as Jasper fiddles, because he could at least be the semblance of accommodation and not sheerly enduring his brother's lingering. It's not how he feels. Things are just complicated. For all of them. His brow wrinkles a little for the words that only Esme can put together so simply, so unconflictedly.

But Jasper's means them, too, for all the conflict in him, too. Simply.

Edward is a little surprised at how much it matters. How good it feels, even when it's still hard to sort out feeling all together, everything that is filling the void he'd made himself for so long. He finds himself nodding, and oddly enough, saying, "It's good to be home."

It's true, for all that is hard about it, it's true, too.

Jasper understands that feeling of how good home can be.

Perhaps better than anyone else in the family?

For all of his struggling with this life, willing to abandon it all and destroy it to keep Alice safe, there's moments like Esme hugging him that he can't help of thinking and feeling anything other than home.

He quirks a grin at his brother. "Yeah? Well, good."

Some of us missed you.

Edward toys at the edge of that thought.

The one Jasper is still towing around, trying to figure out how to mesh a single loyalty greater than sanity with a multifaceted one for the family. Edward would like to pretend he doesn't understand. For something like seventy-eight years, he didn't. Not the way he does now.

The declaration isn't all that different. Jasper would give up, sacrifice, abandon them all to protect Alice. Could Edward truly claim any better, having torn his whole family asunder, without the ability to see them at all once he lost Bella, both times, at his own choice and to her false-death? Nothing else had mattered at the end.

There's a snort, faint, more quick expelled breath through his nose than sound at the thought Jasper decides to toss his way by choice at the end of it all. He ended up reaching up and ruffling his hair.

"Sure you didn't just miss the music?" Does he mean the piano, does he mean the music playing, or is it really just half enough there's an edge of his mouth that tries to tug upward. It's rusty as all get out, but it tries.

The tension that had been a knot in Jasper’s gut loosens itself just a little at the messing of hair being had.

The fiddling stops, at the very least.

He moves a little further into the room, glancing at Edwards extensive collection.

“You’re right. It was just the music.”

Because a thousand other things don’t come to mind: playing games, snowball fights, baseball with the family, hiking, hunting, yanking Edward into a headlock to mess with his hair, picking on Edward in general, picking on Emmett with Edward.

And all the quiet moments too: battles of chess playing out in Edward’s mind, not a piece moved on the board, quiet book exchanges, the movie-watching and, of course, listening to music.

It's so. Simple.

The way Jasper thinks of it. Uncomplicated. A list of things Edward hasn't even truly taken the time to miss. To remember as more than abandoned castigation. There's so much everywhere else. Everyone has a so much everywhere. Alice, Carlisle. Even Jasper. Which is, perhaps, what makes it such a surprising balm to be momentarily awash in how simply Jasper flips through memories of what there is to actually be missed.

He didn't expect it, and for the shortest eighty-seventh of a second, he selfishly doesn't want to leave it either. The good. Still missed. Still wanted. He doesn't need air, but for a moment it feels like what he thinks breathing must.

Which might be part of why he forgets that there should have been words, about the CDs, or music in general, or about some people missing him, or being glad to be home.

Jasper lets Edward have a moment to process it all.

He knows the feeling well.

He moves to the wall, perusing the collection of music until he finds the one he's looking for - a compilation of music from the 50s - and he plucks it from the shelf.

"Can I borrow this?"

For his trip with Alice.

There's a song on it from their wedding.

It's a strange relief, and then a strained relief, but it might be more that strain threads itself through only as Edward comes back to himself. Refuses to let himself stay there. Knows he can't. Owes too much. Broke too much. As it mingles with guilt and duty and regret, interminable patience, reticence and dedication, instead of staying that clear surprised-relief.

Blinking, habit rather necessity as he looks toward Jasper. He can't see the case himself, but he can see it through Jasper. The reason is clear enough, too, and Edward, honestly, hopes it helps. However, that works.

"Keep it. I can order another copy when I'm back tomorrow."

"Alice would probably appreciate having a copy, too."

Edward wished, again, that anything were as easy for him as it seemed to be for the others together. Matched. Mated. So in sync, even when out of sorts. The singular truth untried, unchanged, golden down the line of who all of the six of them were. He was alive. Bella was alive. Would be one of them. Would that have to be enough?

Jasper and Alice have the songs on vinyl, in a box, in their closet, with other tokens of their past together. But the CD will be nice to have.

Not that they need those tokens as a reminder of their vows to each other. Vows of privileges if not promises because all of the promises are a given.

He just hopes the music works to bring Alice some kind of peace over the weekend, too.

He'll say his thanks for the CD later.

Right now:

"Hey. It's okay."

To be relieved. To be grateful for being alive. To want to live, now.

Even with everything else he feels, and Jasper knows those feelings all too well. All the guilt, duty, and regret. Needing to have the patience, the reticence and dedication.

"You can make you a priority too."

None of it is right or wrong.

Well. There went any semblance of normality, did it.

Edward doesn't freeze, nor does he frown, or mind entirely either, but he's certain beyond a shadow of a doubt there are certain people who don't agree with that. Yet? Will. The equation is too raw, and there's so much in the air. In present. In the future. It's too soon. Maybe. This is all nothing like that, even if it sets up a house on the razed and flayed bones of it.

"I've done too much of that already, Jazz."

Everything about the last eight months was his picking himself, thinking he had done the right thing, even if it might mean the end of him.

He'd tried to do the right thing, to save Bella, from them, from him, and every memory of Charlie's waking her from screaming nightmares nightly, and every recollection of her friends, reminded him, he'd all but broken her.

He'd tried to save his family from what he knew would happen to him, making that choice, and he nearly destroyed them. How much worse could it have been if not for Alice.

Edited 2020-07-10 00:44 (UTC)

Jasper is shaking his head, at the words, at whatever Edward is thinking.

And he knows, in a way, what his brother is thinking because he thought all the same things about Edward these past few months too.

(Especially when Alice became even more involved in all of it. Acting of her own accord, again, but still in it. In the very thick of it even.)

Thought him only thinking for himself, an idiot, selfish.

But, he's also thought all of that about himself too. With every mistake, every slip, and every almost.

You tried to kill yourself. Just - Fuck off, with the rest of what anyone else needs or wants from you. What do you need?

There's a brief flicker of shock on his face, even if it gets pulled under the relaxed hold of his composure before another full second can pass. His shoulders had tensed, like he didn't quite know what to do with those words, with them being said to him. As though every game plan for everything thrown at him, none of them matched.

He drew a blank. An absolute blank.

That only hazily blurred the faces of The Three on the dais as he asked. Of Rosalie's voice, then Jacob's. Of the empty window. Of Aro's false sympathy in telling him no, while intending to keep him there. Of Bella running into him full force. Of the moment everything went from torture to an absolute dissolution of himself.

Of the four words that first came out of his mouth, then.

"No one's asked that." Like that. Even more, "Or said that."

Sure, they think about it. Sometimes. Rosalie can't stop thinking about it sometimes, replaying their call, replaying that she meant well, that she meant to yell at him to come home, not remove himself even more, and he's absolutely unsure of what to do with that.

But no one talks about it. Because the impetus is gone. Because it only happened due to Bella being supposed dead, and Bella isn't. And, now, she's never going to die, too. Which was the point of Carlisle's vote. So it sweeps off the table. A non-entity.

No one dealt with the fact he'd almost killed himself,
and he didn't deal with the fact he'd thought he was in Heaven.

"No one usually wants to," Jasper murmurs, glancing out the window.

Even when it should be.

He's dealt death so many times, he's felt it all. Felt it as if it were his own, time and again.

It exists.

"Just, if you think there's something you need and I can help."

There's a pure kind of confusion in Edward, one that edges itself into trepidation, flirting with becoming more than that and strong-arming itself form it. Even for all that he cannot let go of everything that he owes the everyone Jasper just told him to fuck off with paying attention to, that's never been part of it.

Self-preservation, or death wish, or incompatible revelation.
Not after the first night. Not after telling Carlisle.

What did he need? Bella. Carlisle. Alice.
What did he need? The family.

What did he need? ...for Bella to want him as much as she wants to be a vampire?

What did he need? ...to not want to die again?

All of it feels confusing. Beyond names. Beyond faces. Even when it's only his thoughts, his memories. It's not settled. An echoing tumult, with no ready to be preformed answers, he hasn't even looked at, that hasn't calmed any for the weeks between being on the plane, next to Alice, with Bella in his arms, and this day.

"Yeah." He doesn't know how long it takes before that one word, but there's nod to it. Uncertain. Unsettled. "If I can come up with them."

Jasper simply nods then to the words spoken aloud.

There is no ready answer, and he hadn't expected for Edward to have one for him, yet.

He knows all too well the tethers that exist, the names and the faces tied to need.

But, maybe, one day Edward will know. Even if it's just a quiet place to go to. Someone to listen. Someone to talk at him. A walk. A hunt. A project to busy his hands.

And Jasper can be there, if he wants.

A little more awkwardly now, "How're things with Bella?"

It's not small talk. He is curious to know. They haven't talked in awhile, just the two of them.

(And the rest of the house listening.)

Even for all that he can't wipe the mess newly sprung up around him entirely away, it shifts, becomes more like a puddle he's still standing in, even as everything around it changes. Becomes momentarily her face. The last laugh she gave when being dropped off after school. It's her smile, awkward, with just the edge of a frown as she leaned on her door and gave the little wave before vanishing inside. The so few hours seeming so long to her, too.

The peace of her nearby all day at school. The strain of having to wait now.
It's all there within the second, as his mind refocused only to her.

"Good." He does believe it, even as he says it, even as the pang of time bites a little harder in. "Today should be the last day Charlie isn't letting her have visitors." Officially. Official visitors, since the man wasn't in the slightest aware of Edward's presence there the rest of the night. "He's almost given in the last two nights, but it looks like he'll make the week."

He could have done so much for the motorcycle in his driveway.

(He could have done so much for her running away to Italy.)

Jasper's laugh is loud, boisterous. A guffaw at the unspoken remark that he is all happy to utter aloud: "Yeah, any official visitors."

And a smirk, and a wiggle of an eyebrow.

Not that Edward is sneaking over there at night for such reasons, but he hasn't had the chance to otherwise hassle his brother for those frequent midnight rendezvous.

"You doing any thing this weekend?"

When she's finally, officially free.

Edward half rolls his eyes and shakes his head, and hair every which way, but it makes something in his shoulder shake itself loose (each step away from the endless void of not knowing Jasper had cracked open). Somewhere between Jasper's laugh and his own ludicrous dismissal. The simplicity of the implication, like that was even a possibility available to him, no less something he was thinking of currently.

He strove toward something that attempted imperiously ignoring his brother's expression, even if this all started with Alice's underwear, but there's was an edge of his mouth twitching upward even as he pushed through,

"It's up to her, and whether Charlie relents back to guests, or actually decides to allow her out for something that isn't school or work."

Honestly, at this point, what wouldn't Edward give for more than the ten minutes tops to or from school, or her work, actually alone with Bella. That wasn't whispering as she fought off the sleep she needed, because it didn't count either, with Charlie so near and unknowing. Different entirely from everyone here, and always knowing, always hearing.

But to be able to take her somewhere again. Back out to the field, maybe. It was probably just starting to green up again out there. Another two-three weeks and the flowers would be back, too. He should have Alice tell him how that timetable was looking.

"But have you asked her out?"

Because kids these days. Really.

"Or you should ask Sheriff Swan first."

Oh, or: "Offer to make them dinner one night."

Jasper is just throwing crazy ideas out there now.

He's entirely unhelpful when it comes to having a human girlfriend who currently happens to be grounded.

Ask Chief Swan. Ask Chief Swan. There's a straight sort of expression for that, only the ghost of something that might have almost been a frown. Or maybe a wince. The man still, with all good reason, blamed him for what had happened to his daughter. Still wanted him all but nowhere near her.

Barely tolerated his presence save for Bella's emotional blackmail.
He still snapped awake all night, listening for his daughter's screams.

Still, the last thing Jasper says makes his brow quirk.

"Make them dinner?" There's a true wince there. A quick and deep disgust at the idea he'd have the eat the food the food he made them, but was stomaching refuse all that worse than anything he'd already done to himself? And if he could even begin to make ammends with her father?

For all the fast disgust, Edward's expression shift just as quick to actually considering the fact it was normal enough it might actually have traction. A way he could do something more, even without asking her father to break his rules. To play for more withing them. That hopefully Bella would enjoy.

Having to spend the night puking up the dinner would not be fun, no.

The disgust is echoed by Jasper just thinking about it. And then more so (tinged with amusement) when Edward actually considers it?

Well. That's love.

"Maybe offer to go fishing with him instead?"

Whatever he decides, "Better to try and get along with your mate's family than not, right?"

Which he speaks to some experience, having to adjust when Alice and him first joined the Cullen family.

He can't help himself. Even as part of him considers it seriously, how to make things better, the other side of his nature can't help but point out the bigger problem he's building thereby it, too.

"Right before we take her away from him forever in two months?"

The we is still so much more prevalent in that thought. Joint decision. Family vote. Jasper was part of that, and given the balance now everyone is by default. He still wants to fight her for every day, week, yes he can. But she's stubborn.

If Charlie Swan thought he was distraught waking to his daughter screaming every night for all those months, how much would two months mean, before he was mourning 'her loss' instead? With no body to bury, or one that was damaged beyond the ability for even dental work and morgue viewing.

Edward was bad at letting himself forget for long. All the exits were blocked.

Edited 2020-07-13 03:40 (UTC)

Edward already knows all of Jasper's reasons for voting the way he did. It seems silly to list them all again for his brother.

Yet, the reasons are there, he can't block them out as he can't block out any of his thoughts from Edward. Background noise as he answers simply, "Yes.

"Don't you think it'd be better that she has those two months with you and him on good terms than not?

"Not all of us got a chance to say goodbye."

Not all is nearly no one. It's microscopic.

As rare as being chosen like Carlisle chose to save them, to keep them,
to adopt and make extended family of others like them.

It was less rare to be changed like those Jasper's history entailed, created as fodder for a violent wheel of war, or like the Volturi, sourcing what they wanted in power over the will of another, or as mistakes of a frenzy that left behind vampires who woke alone, to terrorize in the wake of sudden bloodlust and a terror at their new self.

She could avoid all of that altogether. She stubbornly refuses to.
(She's stubbornly refusing him, too. But not them.)

"Maybe."

He knows Jasper's not wrong, and he might still consider the dinner thing, but it's all complicated again in his head. Charlie's anger. Charlie's forthcoming grief. Alice's promise to Aro. Bella's opposing demands and refusals. The family's acceptance. His own, still too clear, threadbare acknowledgment he can't live without her now. The potential of the family falling apart, again, if that ever happened.

He doesn't even hold it against Jasper -- even when he half wishes he could; had for that one night, when it felt like they were all against him; but Jasper is his brother, too; and Edward doesn't want anything that would tear him and all his years of work apart either -- that Jasper's reason for saying yes was that he actually cares so much he doesn't want to want to kill Bella, for both himself and her, and for all the domino reasons involved there from Edward to Alice to the whole family.

It was just so complicated now.

(Or was it, that it just wasn't, too?

That the longer he had to accept it was decided beyond him,
the more he clutched the notion of never losing her.
Himself. All of them. Ever. Too.)

Edited 2020-07-13 14:10 (UTC)

It is complicated, and isn’t.

Jasper wishes he could offer his brother all the assurances in the world that everything was going to be okay. But, he can’t.

Wouldn’t even if he could because it’d be a lie. He doesn’t know.

He’d thought a few months ago Alice and he were fine. Things happen. But, maybe, hopefully, things come out for the better on the other side of it.

Alice is the one who taught him all about hope, and looking for it when things are dark, complicated, messy.

He can say, “She loves you. She wants this with you. You don’t need me to tell you that. Maybe just remember that, every now and then? Focus on it and just be with her, and her family.”

A pause, then a roll of the eyes.

“I know, easier said than done.”

That is a hard one to put into words, but it fills up everything he is even as Jasper thinks and says the words. She loves you. Muddled relief. Undeserving guilt. Impossibly blessed by that impossible miracle. After what he'd done to her. Grateful, even humbled, swearing forever to never hurt her again, never leave again unless at her own choice, barely began to touch all those feelings that.

He doesn't think he can put any of that into erudite words.
All those languages, and language degrees, are nothing now.

Instead, Edward nods. A slow, thoughtful thing. "I'll try."

It'd probably be easier on Bella, making all her last with her father easier.

“You’ll figure it out.”

He could be speaking to the words that elude Edward for all that he’s feeling, the near-future plans with the Swans, or the relationships involved there, moving on or moving forward from everything, and he speaks to Bella too, and her feelings, the girl also as scattered as the rest of them.

They’ll all figure it out, eventually.

Apr. 14th

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