keptherwaiting | 1949, Prince Edward Island, Canada

Her smile hurts her cheeks with how wide it blooms. The proclamations of love, and more so, the way his emotions fill her heart.

She loves him, so much. And she truly will never tire of hearing it.

Her fingers linger against his lips, twisted as they are around his. She leans forward, kissing him softly, sweetly, her smile softening against his mouth.

“I love you,” Alice whispers and it sounds like a promise. Then, her smile grows wide again. “Can I give you your present now?”

“Yes,” he says, chasing her mouth for another kiss before she slips out of his arms.

He just wants one more, and maybe another.

His mouth barely leaves hers before he pulls her into another kiss and another.

"I'll be back in five seconds," Alice promises, the words muffled against his mouth. One more press of her lips against his and then she's up in a flash.

She darts to their suitcases, rummaging around in one of them until she comes out with a small black box in her hands, and then she's diving back into the bed, sitting with her legs folded under her, knees pressing gently against Jasper's side.

There's no feeling the need to cover up, not anymore, content to be bared before him in their afterglow, her hair a mess, her eyes bright. A year ago, she would have wrapped herself in a robe immediately. She gives a little shrug and thrusts the black box at him.

Inside is one of Rolex's newest watches--the newest model of their 1945 Dateline watch models, where the date changes itself automatically. A pinnacle in human watchmaking. Not to mention, it's a very handsome watch, with its golden, interlocked wristband.

"I thought it would look nice on you," Alice offers, before he's had a chance to even open it. "I hope you like it."

Edited 2020-09-10 00:52 (UTC)

Jasper first has to kiss her again before he opens the box. He leans forward, pressing his lips to hers in a sweet kiss.

He’d followed her progress to the bag, watched the sway of her hips, and then had been taken in by her bright eyed, messy haired look as she slipped back into bed.

She’s too beautiful not to kiss, truly.

“Thank you,” he murmurs against her lips, before he’s even opened the gift, as she presses it into his hands.

He hadn’t been kidding before when he’d said she was his present. She really is a gift to him. One he sometimes wrestles with in wondering if he deserves or not, but his best and most treasured, surely.

He opens the box then, finding the handsome watch inside.

“It’s - Alice, this is really nice.” He pulls the watch from the box, rubbing his thumb across its face, along the fine edge of it. She always buys him such nice things and yet this seems even more so. “It’s - Thank you.”

She knew he’d like it. She saw this happening the moment she laid eyes on the watch and made the decision to buy it. Her visions seem clearer, faster and more certain, with Jasper around.

It makes sense, she supposes, with how intertwined their futures are now.

But still—Alice has felt nervous handing the watch over to him. She’s not omnipotent, he may have not liked it. Her answering smile is slower, a little wobbly, as she shakes herself out of her needless worry.

“Good,” Alice murmurs, taking the watch from him so she can fasten it on his left wrist, turning his arm so she can admire how it looks on him. “It’s perfect on you. Suits you. I love you, so much.”

The last words are a rush, as if they weren’t meant to be said then. As if they’d tumbled out on their own. She pushes herself forward, her hand at the base of his throat to steady herself, and she kisses him again.

“I love you too,” he whispers against her lips after another shared kiss.

And then he sits back to look at the watch again. It really is a handsome piece and probably the most expensive thing he’s ever own or been gifted, knowing Alice.

He feels -

Well. He doesn’t know how he feels. It’s a little weird, not being able to name an emotion. Only that it’s a good one, mixed in with a lot of love.

He’s definitely going to cherish the gift.

“I’ll be sure to take it off before we hunt, so it doesn’t get ruined.”

Edited 2020-09-12 01:06 (UTC)

“I’m glad you like it.” Alice smiles, biting her bottom lip as she watches him look it over.

It was silly to be nervous. Sometimes, he still makes her nervous, in the best way.

He looks so beautiful and handsome—he always does, but with sex-tousled hair and surrounded by messed up sheets, she knows it’s special. That only she gets to see him like this.

He takes words from her. She just stares at him, speechless, her heart full.

Jasper peers up at her from beneath that curtain of sex-tousled curls when he feels her looking, and laughs under the weight of her stare.

He brushes back his hair.

“ - What? You keep statin’ at me like that, darlin’, and we’re going to have to go another round,” he teases, leaning forward to kiss her again.

“I love the watch. Thank you.”

“I just—“ Alice shakes her head, reaching out for him. Her fingers curl around his shoulder, tugging him forward so she can kiss him.

“I just love you,” she mumbles against his mouth, her fingers sliding into his hair, tangling with the strands. “I’m just so happy I get to spend my life with you.”

“Oh, Alice.”

She’s getting emotional, and he is too.

He pulls her into his lap and then cups her cheeks as kisses her, a brush of lips against lips, and another kiss to the corner of her mouth.

“I love you,” he whispers, “And I’m so happy to be spendin’ my life with you.”

“How can one year feel so perfect?” She laughs, a cross between helpless and self-deprecating. “How did one minute?”

Lifting a hand from his hair, Alice instead twists her fingers around his at her cheek, holding his hand as she kisses him again, and again, and again—just quick, pecks across the span of his face and mouth.

He’s grinning under all her kisses. He’s so happy, almost unbelievably so.

It really has been a perfect year.

“You’re my one, and I’m yours, and that just makes everything perfect.”

Her teeth sink into her bottom lip again, to keep it from wobbling. She’s so happy, she feels like she could be crying.

That’s never made sense to her—as someone who can’t cry, why would you cry when happy? Yet, the feeling is there.

Taking his hand from her cheek, Alice presses kisses against his fingertips, the backs of his fingers, his palm. She could map him out blindly after all the time she’s spent memorizing him. Yet, she still does it—commits each inch of him to her mind.

“I love you,” she whispers again, her lips barely moving against his fingers, her teeth nipping the tip of his thumb just barely.

“I feel it too, y’know,” he whispers, kissing her forehead as she nips at his thumb. “Not just that you feel that way, but - I’m happy too. Overwhelmingly. I’d cry too, if I could. I love you so much.”

“My life was relatively easy, before you,” Alice kisses his thumb again, to make up for the nip. “I didn’t hurt much, and I was happy. But something was always missing.

“I’d get a vision of you and this overwhelming ache would press on me. Like I couldn’t breathe without you near me. The vision would end and life would go on as normal for a while, until the next.” She’s looking at their hands, twisting and untwisting their fingers as she speaks. “Heartache, Adelaide told me. I didn’t know. It feels...almost the same as when I look at you now, here. Like it hurts to love you this much. But a good hurt.”

She shrugs, rolling her eyes at herself. “It’s silly. But I worry—that I’m gonna overwhelm you with how much I feel. I know I feel a lot...I don’t know how to do anything by half-measure, I guess.”

Jasper laughs a little helplessly as he sorts through her spew of words and feelings.

“God, darlin’, just - First? I know how you feel. I feel that too. That heartache. Any and every time I look at you, even. I miss you when you’re right beside me.”

He brings her fidgety hands to his mouth, and presses his lips to them.

“Second? I don’t want you to try and hide your feelings from me, ever. I love how strongly you feel about everythin’. I’m not gonna lie and say you won’t overwhelm me, because you already have.

“I can’t turn it off, y’know. I’m always feelin’ everything, everyone. Kind of like your visions. I can only do my best to ignore it. Not let it affect me. But, I can’t always, and you’ve already seen me at some of my worst. We love each other though, right? And that’s what matters.”

“I just don’t...” Alice starts, then trails off, focusing on her fingers at his lips, the press of his mouth against them as she tries to find the right words. “I don’t want to make you feel things you don’t want to.”

Maybe she’s touched on this before—that she’s afraid that she’ll change his mood without meaning to, that she’ll use his moods against him.

She knows Maria did it; she saw it in the end.

Alice shivers a little, her lips twisting sourly at the thought of the other woman. She’s naked, with an equally naked Jasper, and she’s celebrating one year of bliss with him. She shouldn’t be bringing the mood down.

Shaking her head, Alice sighs, fingers squeezing his. “Never mind. I don’t mean to sour the mood. This is our day.”

“No, wait. We should talk about this,” he says, squeezing her fingers in return.

She’s concerned, and Jasper can’t imagine ignoring that for the sake of celebrating.

He frowns thoughtfully at her, just trying to make sense of it all.

“You’re worried about manipulating me with your emotions? Even unintentionally so?”

Alice deflates a little, even though she knew he’d not let her off the hook. “No. Maybe.

“What if I’m angry at something? And I push and push it at you—“ she bites her lip and sighs, her gaze sliding to his shoulder. “Worse—what if you’re angry and I push a different mood at you? To distract and deflect? In a way you don’t want?”

He feeds off of her emotions more than others, this she knows. They are a conduit to one another, a loop. What if she does something one day, whether tomorrow or far into the future, and reminds him of Maria in the end?

She doesn’t want to ever remind him of Maria. Not in the bad, and if she’s being honest, not in the good either.

Her fingers unwind from his to push through her hair and she shivers again, reaching for the blanket tossed to the end of the bed, to draw it around herself. It’s warm enough—not like the bath, but it serves a comforting purpose.

“I know that...Maria did that, in the end, and I can only imagine she did it before. Turning your mood to something else to serve her needs and wants.” Alice murmurs in a rush, her fingers tightening on the ends of her hair. “I don’t want that to happen and I know not wanting it means I’m not her, but if I did it, I’d still be no better.”

Jasper could be used, so easily. And to Alice, it seems like Maria did it without a second thought, whether that’s true or not.

“That’s a lot of what ifs,” Jasper says softly, not quite meeting her gaze as he toys with the edge of the blanket she’s pulled over her shoulders.

He’s not sure how else to respond. He doesn’t think Alice would ever use him in such a way, but he also hadn’t thought Maria would. And she had, hadn’t she?

Then again -

“I’ve manipulated others too,” he adds after another moment. “I worry - That is, I don’t want to do so in a way that hurts you but I can’t promise not to use my powers on you. It doesn’t excuse it but I do it to protect myself sometimes, y’know. If someone is too angry or upset, and I can feel my mood changin’ because of it.

“And I - used my powers against Maria too. Manipulated her to do something, used it to scare her, get her angry, or calm her down. I know you think the worst of her and that she manipulated me and maybe she had and maybe I’m easily fooled,” he says in a rush, “but I’m not innocent, Alice.”

It’s hard for her to believe that—he’s never given her reason to believe him when he says he hurt Maria too.

Sometimes, she thinks he’s just being hard on himself. But, then again, he lived an entire life before her, was an entirely different man.

A soldier, a killer.

Alice reaches out, her fingers ghosting over his chin and lips. “See, I brought it down—we’re supposed to be celebrating.”

She feels anxious, nervous, uneasy and she can’t pin down the exact reason, except the worry she’s upset Jasper. He’s quick to defend Maria, or rather: he’s quick to remind her he hurt Maria too, as if worried Alice will show undue hatred toward the other woman.

Alice doesn’t think her hatred is undue at all.

“Well, I guess. I promise to never change your mood maliciously. To hurt you. I don’t want to hurt you—that was the whole point of my ramblin’.”

“And I promise to never use my powers against you maliciously,” Jasper swears, frowning against the tips of her fingers pressed still to his mouth.

“Is this - Is this because I had a sexual relationship with her?”

It’s his turn to talk fast, the words pouring from him:

“I never felt an ounce of what I feel for you for her. I fancied myself in love but now I know it wasn’t that. I love you. I know it doesn’t erase the fact that I was with her first, though. That she and I were together for so long. And you - Far as you know, you’ve never been with anyone else.

“I mean, you woke up as a vampire and I was the first thing you saw. I don’t want you to be with me just because you think you’re supposed to be. Maybe you’d rather have a - a chance with someone else?”

Which, God just the thought and saying as much twists his insides and it hurts. He doesn’t want that but could he stand in her way?

“No—no—“ Alice shakes her head, almost violently, her fingers pressing harder against his lips as if she could stop the words from coming out. Her chest aches, sharp and painful. “No, I don’t care about—“

Biting down on her lip, she takes a deep, albeit shuddery, breath and tries to put her words right before speaking.

“I don’t care that you and Maria had sex. I don’t care if you had it every day, or every possible second you could. I really don’t, that’s not it. I care that she hurt you...I care that she took advantage of your powers to make you do things. I know you say that you’ve done things to her and I believe you but—“

There’s no neat way to get her thoughts into the words she wants to say.

“You are the only one I want. I know it’s cheesy, the whole ‘love at first sight’ idea, but I didn’t know anything when I woke up, and then I knew of you and I felt like I might have somewhere to belong. I wandered the country, feeling wrong and weird for so long but just thinking of you made me feel right. Why would I want to try with someone else when I know what true love is?”

She cups his face with her hands, pressing her forehead against his. “I just don’t want you to ever think you traded one cage for another, with me. I don’t want to use you, or hurt you, like Maria. And I don’t want you to hurt me like you say you did her—even though I highly doubt you’re capable of that because I mean—“

Alice pulls back to smile cheekily at him, trying to insert some sort of humor back into the air, to make him laugh or smile. “—look at me! I’m so ridiculously adorable, you can’t be mad at me.”

Jasper smiles softly. “You are ridiculously adorable,” he says, leaning forward to kiss her cheek.

He loves her and she loves him and that’s what he clings to for the next few moments.

A true love, as she says. Theirs is so strong, and he doesn’t think he’s ever felt anything stronger.

“I don’t feel caged by you,” he adds after another moment of attempting to sort through her words and thoughts and feelings. “And I trust you, more than I’ve ever trusted anyone.

“I don’t know what else I can promise you other than my love, my trust in you, and that I promise to never hurt you intentionally, though. And I don’t know how else to reassure you about the rest because - I don’t know what we’ll face in the future.

“You may, with your visions, but I just - We can’t promise to never get mad at each other or be stupid about something. At least, I can’t. I’m moody as Hell, darlin’,” he adds with with a twist of his lips, his own attempt to lighten the mood again.

She’s listening—really, she is—but that twist of his lips floods her with a sudden need to kiss him again.

“I know,” Alice whispers, shrugging the blanket off as she inches closer to him, her fingers light on his chin, moving his head so she can press her lips against his. A soft press, then a longer, deeper one.

A whiny noise leaves her when she presses her forehead against his, her words breathless. “I’m really not worried about you hurting me—you probably never will, with how protective you are. It’s me I’m worried about—I’m a mess, erratic at best. I just worry you’ll be caught in the flow of it all.

“I love you, so much,” Alice mumbles, dragging her lips across his cheek, jaw. “And I want forever with you.”

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