LOG oo1; Jasper and Crysta...wherever they happen to be.

[feelingthirsty]

Who: Jasper and Crysta
What: discussing Beowulf in class
When: ...you know, I'm not actually sure
Where: a university classroom in Chicago
Info: In which Crysta is nearly late to class and, Jasper is a grumpbucket, but he could be worse.

Who: Jasper, Crysta, and a very foolish mugger
What: a mugger has a very bad night
When: later that night,

Comments

[feelingthirsty]

Jasper shook his head, both at her question and her statement. "It doesn't tire me to run." That was a lie, but a small one. Physically, he was just fine. But he would need to hunt later. He would try his best to keep his prey from being a human.

Beside his own jean-clad legs, Crysta's skin glowed bare in the dappled sunlight. Jasper found his gaze drawn to them. She was so human looking, he couldn't quite get over it. Not like Alice at all, or even Maria. She was attractive, in a forbidden sense. He knew he could never touch her; she was too fragile, she would break beneath his rough hands. But it wasn't often that he had to remind himself of such things. It wasn't often that he thought them in the first place.

He sighed and shifted his gaze back to his own legs, where he noticed his knee was torn, the skin beneath it pale and dirty where it must have caught on whatever had ripped through the fabric. He needed older clothes for this. Nothing revealing like Crysta's, but something that wouldn't draw a sibling's ire upon him if he happened to ruin them.

"At least you can use this time to relax," he drawled idly, for conversation. "It isn't mentally straining, isn't? You need a break from all that."

[crystamaye]

Crysta noted, with mild amuesement and envy, that even with his hair torn back from being wind swept from his run, jeans frayed and dirtied from brushes against trees and dirt, shirt disheleved and torn from whips of branches, Jasper was of course as always breathtaking to look at it. How he managed to still look like some sort of greek God was beyond her, the clothes hardly changed that fact. And he didn't look particularly tired or worn out, except for the ever present almost blue black circles beneath his eyes. "Are you ever tired?" She asked, always it seemed curious about Jasper.

His study of her legs hadn't been lost on her like it normally would if it had been any other guy. But she was always keenly aware of when Jasper's eyes were on her, his focus, just like his whereabouts.

Here she sat, side by side with a vampire, alone deep in the woods, and Crysta found that it wasn't hard at all to relax with him. Jasper put her at ease, even if he tried his damndest to be surly and indifferent towards her. She knew at this point that he wouldn't hurt her and that somewhere deep down, well, he must care about her just a bit. As a friend of course.

"Not...that mentally straining." She shrugged, though honestly, with all the concentrating, she had developed something of a migrane a while ago that throbbed at her head.

[feelingthirsty]

Tired. Always, Jasper wanted to say, every minute of his stupidly long life, with no respite for such a simple thing as sleep. But he knew that wasn't the kind of tired she was asking about, and so he shook his head again, as if constant awareness was no big deal. "We don't sleep."

Her answer, however, was easily recognizable as a lie. Jasper turned to look at her with a frown that slowly deepened with his growing concern. Damn this strange mental block of hers. Not only did it prevent him from gauging her capacity for all this strain, but it also kept him from being able to help her to relax afterward. He didn't like the thought of overtaxing her. This fascination with her powers was his own, not hers; he'd definitely picked up on that during the all the time they'd been spending together. Perhaps he should lay off some, and take a step back. She had a life to live. It was embarrassingly easy, sometimes, for him to forget that.

"You need to tell me when you tire," he instructed her, though the words, as soon as he said them, made him pause and then shake his head at himself in wry amusement. He swept a hand back through his hair to keep the wind from blowing it into his eyes and sighed, reevaluating things. He'd never said those words to anyone in his life--or at least, not in his second life. He'd never before done several things that he now found himself doing with Crysta. Perhaps he was the one in training here, not her.

"I'm sorry. You're not like most people." His gaze fell to his lap somewhat guiltily, as he tried to figure out a way to work around this, a regime that would not overburden her for the sake of slaking a curiosity she simply didn't share with him. "I've never tried this with a human before, let alone one so...clouded. I can't feel your edges. You're going to have to help me out."

[crystamaye]

"You don't..." Crysta blinked, giving him a surprised look. "You don't sleep, like...ever?" She couldn't imagine what that could be like. Well, perhaps a little bit, considering she hardly had time for sleep herself these days. But to never sleep. And for however long Jasper had been alive. Unimaginable.

When he turned to frown at her, she shifted a bit under his scrutiny. She wasn't very good at lying, she knew. And now she knew for certain as he studied her that he hadn't believed her for a moment. At his insistence that she tell him when she was tired, she furrowed her brows, giving a slow nod. "Of course Jasper." But then as soon as the frown touched his lips, his expression was changing once more, the change to amusement confusing her more. His thought process was obviously much quicker than her own, because she wasn't following him at all.

As he looked down to his lap she found herself leaning in to him a bit more unconsciously. "Feel my edges...what do you mean?"

[feelingthirsty]

"We don't need it," Jasper explained, though his voice came out sounding more weary than he'd have liked. "We don't need anything at all, save the one." And he was sure he didn't have to clarify what that was. But he didn't like talking about it; not with a human, the very prey he lusted after every moment of every hour of every day. Such an urge was simply incomprehensible to a being with so many different needs. They didn't sleep, they didn't tire, they didn't even thirst; their bodies, by whatever magic, ran on one thing and one thing alone, and for as long as they were alive they would crave it.

Usually when he spoke with someone, they were a member of the family. Jasper was constantly catching himself off guard with Crysta, when he realized after the fact that he'd said something that was completely commonplace with his usual company, but of course made no sense to a human. And his gift...was not something he really wanted to get into. She would take it the wrong way, he was sure. She would consider it an unforgivable invasion of her privacy, and wouldn't quite be able to understand that he had no more control over it than he did over his vision--less, even. At least he could close his eyes when he wanted to.

And yet, he couldn't immediately come up with a spin to something like that. He hesitated, sure Crysta noticed it, which made it doubly harder to come up with someone nonchalant to say.

"Just that..." Rather than lie, he gave up and shrugged instead, plucking up a long blade of grass from the ground to carefully wind around his fingers. "Nothing. You've just got to be more vocal. I forgot to ask, sometimes."

[crystamaye]

No. He didn't have to clarify at all. Not about this at least. Even though she knew what he was, what he must do to survive, Crysta had never really put real thought into it before. The whole...blood thing. And she knew better than to ask. That was just asking for a pissed off Jasper. Or at least an aggravated one. He was so mum about who he was as a whole, she had this feeling that bringing this up of all things would be a sore topic for him.

But still, every word he spoke, the way he held himself still...she knew that he held a lot back. It was in the way he carefully picked his words. Actually, it was in the way he would slip up in his words and the look that would cross his face as he realized this. What did he think Crysta would do if she knew more about him? Be upset with him, think of him differently? He should know at this point, considering, that not much would deter her from wanting to stay in his company.

Studying his face, which was starting to remind her more and more of carved stone, Crysta still had her brows furrowed the slightest, her nose scrunched in that way she did when she was thinking about something. "Do you...not trust me Jasper?" She asked after a moment of him fiddling with a blade of grass.

[feelingthirsty]

Jasper's fingers slowed to a halt at her words. He was surprised by the way they affected him, that they even affected him at all. Did he trust her? Of course not. He didn't trust anyone; he knew better than to make that mistake, had exploited it in others more than once. And he had his reasons, and they were good ones. Most people didn't trust others because of reliability issues, but Jasper knew exactly where he stood with everyone he interacted with, and often knew their limitations better than they themselves did. No, that had never been his problem. He simply knew better than to trust anyone with himself, with his sordid history and perversions. Edward and Alice knew him better than anyone in the world, and there were things he simply didn't discuss with them, that he knew better than to even broach. It was bad enough that he couldn't completely filter his thoughts around his brother. Luckily Edward mistakenly considered it an even trade that he couldn't completely filter his desires around Jasper.

He sighed, and took a very long moment to reply. He could lie again, of course, and say something reassuring to make her feel better, but he suspected that wouldn't work on Crysta. She was too perceptive somehow. Despite how little she knew him, he could tell when he'd disappointed her with half-truths and lies. And what was the risk here, really? So he admitted the true depths of his monstrosity, and she was so horrified that she refused ever to see him again. Isn't that what he wanted? Then why did the thought of frightening her make his stomach fill with dread?

"It...isn't you," he said eventually, slowly. Even as the words left his throat he wondered if he was making the right decision in sharing even this much with her. There were some things humans were simply better off not knowing.

"There's nothing you can do to me except leave." He kept his gaze leveled downward on his hand as he admitted that, fingers tearing the blade of grass to shreds. "It isn't that I don't trust you, you're just...not a threat. I'm the threat, and I'm worse than most. I'm worse than the very worst thing you can imagine." He sighed and tossed the ruined blade aside, then grabbed another and started again, avoiding her eyes. "That, and I'm not used to this...talking...thing." He flicked his hand up and tossed the grass aside, as if that explained everything. "I don't have friends. With good reason."

[crystamaye]

Crysta took note that Jasper actually seemed to be fidgeting. It was fascinating really, to watch as pale long fingers plucked at bright green blades of grass, tore at it absently and yet almost meticulously. And it was while she took note of this that she really noticed for the first time how focused on him she seemed to always be. It took no effort on her part to notice these small details about Jasper, she just...did.

With his gaze still focused on his meaningless task, Crysta blinked at his words, a bit unbelieving for a moment of what conclusion her mind came to. Was he actually worried about losing her? She could hardly believe he cared that much. But the facts were there, laid out before her. He must care, even if he didn't want to. To put the effort into saving her, to fixing her car, to being worried about her well being. Jasper cared. How much though, she couldn't say.

But it was clear to see that he wasn't quite happy with feeling anything for her. He seemed to want to put himself in this category of someone undeserving of company or friends. He thought he was a monster.

"Well. I am your friend. Can't exactly say that I'm not anymore Jas." She gave him a small smile, even though he wasn't looking. "And, it's alright. You don't have to talk about anything if you don't want to. I just want you to know, even if you don't believe me, that you can trust me. That's all."

[feelingthirsty]

She said that now. That was so easy for her to say right now. Hopefully this "friendship" of theirs didn't end the way a few of his earlier ones had.

But that line of thought reminded him of what Alice had told him. She'd promised he wouldn't hurt Crysta. She couldn't be certain, and she'd made a lot of miscalculations in the past, but she'd never been wrong about his...less than savory impulses. He didn't know they'd simply gotten lucky, or she actually knew this one thing about him for certain, or if hearing her confidence in him made it a self-fulfilling prophecy, but he trusted her. Perhaps more than he trusted anyone.

Crysta, on the other hand...she was very different from Alice. Night and day from Maria. Jasper still seriously doubted she would want to associate with him if she truly knew him as well as she thought she wanted to, but the thought made him feel a little sad. Lonely, even. Exhausted. Perhaps it was only a sense of rebound after losing Alice to her true mate and watching Edward finally learn to care for someone of his own, but Jasper was so, so tired of being by himself all of the time. His communication skills were obviously rusty, when they weren't being used to bully or frighten or avoid. He wasn't sure he even knew how to do anything else anymore.

"You're taking a very large chance on me," he told her with a glance and a small wry twist to his lips. "I reckon I can at least try to afford you the same courtesy." He sighed then, and swept the windblown hair from his eyes before grabbing up the first stick he saw and slowly twisting it to dust between his thumb and forefinger. "All right. I'll answer your questions, as long as you promise to think long and hard about exactly what it is you want to know."

[crystamaye]

Fascination. Would it ever go away? She doubted it, at least, when it came to him. But she just couldn't help it. He was more fascinating than any book she had ever read before, more complex than any panting, just...more. So of course there were questions, tons of them that she had pushed into the back of her mind since the moment he admitted what he was to her. Well, perhaps questions she had from even before then. And that she had known better to ask. Because Crysta wasn't a fool, before now Jasper hadn't been ready to answer anything from her, she knew that. So she diligently kept most of her curiosity to herself.

She had to keep from looking much too...amazed at the way he ground that stick into pure dust between his fingertips, how easily, how strong he must--

"Really? Well...thank you." Because that was his sort of way to admitting he trusted her and that meant more to her than she would have thought. "I do have one question right now though, that I've had for a while..."

[feelingthirsty]

Jasper braced himself for the worst. He was sure her first few questions would be harmless enough, more than likely just about his age or human life or the...differences between them. But still, the thought of opening up to someone, to a human, made him more nervous than he'd like to admit.

A little excited, too. But he was reluctant to admit that as well.

The stick disintegrated between his fingers more quickly than he'd have liked it to. He quietlt snatched up another and shot Crysta a questioning look, attempting to look nonchalant.

"What is it?"

[crystamaye]

Biting her lip, she cast her eyes down to her hands, playing with her fingers now.

"What is it you really think about me?" She asked, voice quiet, a hint of color touching her cheeks. Sure she could have asked about his age or heightened senses or speed. But his opinion of her, well, she had been dying to know for a long time. What he thought when he first spoke to her or even first saw her. That day they sat together and discussed...what was it? Beowulf. What he thought about her now.

[feelingthirsty]

The look Jasper shot her was one of genuine surprise. That was what she wanted to know? Not how old he was, how many people he'd killed, what blood tasted like, how fast he could move, or any of a few dozen other questions about his obvious lack of humanity? This little human girl was sharing a picnic blanket with a preternatural killer, and the thing she was most curious about was his opinion of her?

It was enough to leave Jasper feeling rather flustered himself. He knew she liked him, and that hadn't been anything new. But he'd never had to deal with anyone before who hadn't bombarded him with questions the moment they realized he wasn't human, especially the ones who'd thought they were attracted to him. Crysta seemed more interested in who he was rather than in what. And Jasper really...liked that.

"You're different," he admitted honestly, still taken aback. "You're...new. And you have no idea how new that is for me."

But that wasn't a real answer, and Jasper knew it. A real answer required some thought,and some reevaluating. If he was really honest with himself, he had to admit he was attracted to her. She was very intelligent and very beautiful, and more intriguing every time she surprised him. But he was also coming out of a very long, very intense relationship, and she was very young and very human. Jasper recognized a recipe for disaster when he saw one.

"I don't...do this very often," he said slowly, after a long moment of careful consideration. "Talk to people like this, I mean. And I haven't done it in a very long time. But I like you. I enjoy this. It isn't just the training--although you do need to learn how to redirect that," he added with a stern look. "You're smart and perceptive, and frustratingly difficult for me to read. Which, irritable as it may make me, is a good thing."

He smiled a little, recalling his first few months with Alice. Crysta was nothing like her, but the challenge they presented him was similar, and his reaction much the same. But Alice was a seer and a vampire, and she was also abnormally stubborn and persistent enough to peel away his defenses. Crysta was, after everything was said and done, still human. She also had a knack for both frustrating and impressing him, but he doubted she had the patience or the attention span for someone like him. But at least, for a little while, they could get to know one another. Jasper was finding himself increasingly curious.

"And you?" He met her eyes, the corner of his mouth turned up in an expectant smile. "You're not like most people I've known. Why weren't you scared of me when you saw I was different? What do you think if me now?"

[crystamaye]

Crysta's eyes flickered up just in time to catch the look of surprise on his face. She supposed he hadn't been expecting a question like that at all. But she genuinely wanted to know. And she guessed that perhaps he would take it as her way of asking how he felt about her, but it wasn't that either. Mostly. Crysta knew, a long time ago now, that she was interested in Jasper being more than just a friend. But she also knew that nothing would ever come from it. She had eased herself into accepting that and she wouldn't idiotically hope for more.

And Crysta was interested in who he was. Even though she knew what he was now, that didn't define who he was as a man. She wanted to know his opinions on things, from music, to art, to literature. She wanted to know what he did for fun, wanted to know his dislikes. As cheesy as it all may sound, she really, just wanted to know Jasper.

Different. She hoped he meant different in a good way. Or maybe he didn't even know in what way he meant it, just that he knew she was different from any person he had run into before. Crysta had never quite thought of herself of being different from anybody else. In her opinion she was rather boring, mundane.

But as he went on, describing what he honestly thought of her, for once she felt that maybe to someone, she was actually interesting. And he liked her. Those words alone had her stunned for a brief few moments as she processed that. Again, she would never idiotically hope, but still...

Their eyes clashed, green meeting-- well, she never did have an exact color for Jasper's eyes. The only description her mind could ever come up with was....stormy. They were a swirl of colors that mixed in an intense gaze that could hold her captive. Clearing her throat as he smiled at her like that, she couldn't help the small one that graced her lips as well.

"I know you're probably going to laugh at me or something, or scold me like you usually do, but honestly...you've never really scared me Jasper. I just don't have the instinct for it or something. Because in my mind, I knew I should be, especially after that night, but the feeling for it just...was never there." She tried to explain, blinking, but still staring back into his eyes. "And now, well, you're not quite what I had been expecting and yet exactly who you should be. Of course you're stunning, I had always known that, and you're incredibly intelligent, though that may be due to your many years to acquire so much knowledge, but mostly I just find you to be so..." She trailed off, not sure what word to use here. "Well. I know what you are. But you seem so human to me Jasper." There was compassion in him that he didn't know was there, caring, and he seemed to like to pretend that he wasn't capable of such things solely based on what he was. As smart as Jasper could be, he could also be blind to things as well.

[feelingthirsty]

For a long, long moment, Jasper was speechless. Again he'd assumed he had her figured out, and again this woman had taken him completely by surprise. A small, nervous part of him still wanted to attribute it to the near-impenetrable cloud that kept her emotions hidden, but as comforting as that excuse sounded, he knew it wasn't true. Sure, he might be a little more in tune with her if he could read her, but that only accounted for a small portion of the mystery she was becoming. Suddenly Edward's recent frustrations with Bella weren't half so amusing now that Jasper found himself in the midst of his own. It was downright disorienting to pass unnoticed among generations of undistinguishable humans for so many years, only to run headlong into one so unusual, so completely unexpected.

And it wasn't just that. Jasper had to look away after a moment, when her words brought to life an entire well of mixed emotions he hadn't been aware were lying dormant. No one had ever...called him that before. It was certainly one of the last traits he would ever attribute to himself. Of course Crysta had no idea of the things he'd done in the past, but he doubted trying to explain them to her now would make any difference. She truly believed that of him. What could he possibly say to that?

His immediate instinct was to go off and disappear, to deal with this tightness in his throat by himself for a while, but...he didn't really want to. Here was a human who not geriatric, who knew what he was and even a little of who he was and actually considered him human. It wasn't true; Jasper had traded his humanity for power the night he'd slaughtered his first group of coming-of-age newborns, and he'd continued to willingly piece out the remainder of it throughout his next ninety years with Maria. But for some reason, none of that really mattered right now. It was Crysta's honest opinion of him regardless, and after his endless struggle with this stupid diet, and after, for the second time, losing what he'd thought had been his mate to another man, it was an opinion Jasper hadn't realized he'd been so desperte to hear.

"You..." His voice was rough and caught in his throat; he had to clear it before he could speak. "You wouldn't say that if you knew. But thank you."

For once, he was glad he couldn't tell how she felt, and that she in turn had no way of reading him. They were just two separate entities sitting alone in a vibrant forest together, and Jasper was finding the juxtaposition of privacy and company to be comforting in a way he'd completely forgotten how to appreciate over the years.

[crystamaye]

The following long silence worried Crysta, sure she had said the wrong thing. But it couldn't be wrong if that was how she truly felt about him. She was only being honest, and she would never be anything but honest with Jasper.

Their gazes were finally torn apart as Jasper looked away from her quickly, all the emotions she could see swimming in his eyes cut off from her study. Not that she had been able to decipher half of the emotions. Had what she said meant so much? She supposed it did, if the way he seemed to struggle to speak to her was any indication. She had never seen Jasper at such a loss for words before, it was almost amazing.

But it was really what he said that had her blinking at him, reaching out without really thinking about it to take his hand in her own. Of course she would still say that about him, even if she did know, no matter what it was he could tell her.

So hand in his own, squeezing gently, she just smiled softly. "You're welcome."