betagainstme | 1954 // fallout of a closet

1954 // fallout of a closet

She's agitated.

Even more so, she's agitated that she can't figure out why she's agitated, but something has made the space between her shoulder blades itch. Sighing, Alice sets another sketchbook in a basket, collecting things for the closet she's planning on emptying out later.

The closet she and Edward are going to share--their Freaks Only closet. Thinking about it chases the agitation away, makes her smile softly. He's slowly letting her in, more and more, and this will make it happen all the more quickly, she's sure of it.

A quick spin of the future: Jasper coming upstairs, to talk to her--it makes her smile, but the small falls and her brows knit together at the look on his face in the vision. He looks upset.

Slowly, Alice sets colored pencils in the basket as well, staring down at the pretty woven wood as she concentrates. Edward's words flit through her head, reminding her that not everyone would be pleased about this turn of events.

Still, that seems so silly to Alice. It's just a closet. It's just Edward. Jasper will surely understand there's nothing to be upset about.

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She’s agitated, and Jasper is to blame for it.

He’s not bleeding the emotion purposefully, hasn’t willingly inflicted these negative emotions on anyone in years, but it happens. Especially if something has been bothering him and he

He’d been in the garage with Rosalie, her trying to teach him how to change oil, when shed made him leave - “Will you, please. Go. Away.” - after yet another tool had been crushed in her grip.

He d let his feet carry him to their room where he now peeks in on Alice, sitting on the floor, and packing?

"A coven is not going to help.
"You don't know what they're like.
"They'll change us."

“- I was thinking,” Jasper is saying as soon as he enters the room with a frown, “Maybe we could go to Paris?”

(He hadn’t been thinking about it, but he is now.)

Her head turns fractionally to glance over her shoulder at him as she sets another pack of pencils in the basket, her brow furrowing again.

He hadn’t been thinking that. She would have seen it—he made the decision quickly. It’s weird.

Turning around fully, Alice tucks her feet under herself, arranging her skirt at her knees while looking up at him, head cocked to the side—such a curious bird. “Really? You’d let me run wild in one of the biggest fashion capitals in the world?”

She smiles at the end of the question, trying to tamp down the strange trepidation she feels. “I mean, yes, of course I’d love to go—I just think you’ll regret it about five seconds in.”

A small giggle, her fingers twisting into her skirt.

“Whatever you want, darlin’.”

Jasper has always been weary of traveling by plane, though Alice has repeatedly assured him he’d be fine and he knows she knows this, so he feels that twinge of unease from her and knows he’s being weird.

And yet, he feels (and fears) the change that this closet will bring, as surely as he still feels her love for him

Maybe, if they just got away, he can remind her of what it was like, just him and her?

He joins her on the floor, pushing the basket of art supplies aside to sit in front of her.

“We can see it all: France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal. It could be like before.”

It’s the phrasing that sits wrong.

It could be like before.

Her hand curls around the basket’s handle, pulling back to her, keeping it close as she watches him. “That would be nice, a little vacation. We can start planning—I have a few things to work on here, at home, first. But yes.”

Her words feel cautious, as if navigating a field she’s unsure of. There’s flickers off a fight on the horizon. She’s trying to pick a course that avoids that, no matter how inevitable it feels.

A little vacation?

Not quite what he meant.

He clears his throat before trying again, “I was thinking maybe longer than a little?”

She’s being careful, he can tell by the way she’s holding back, and now he is too.

Alice stills, her hand on a sketchbook she was placing in the basket. Her eyes fart around for a moment—to the items she’s set aside, to the door, to Jasper. Edward’s name is a brief flicker in her mind and then a quick no to assure him he’s not needed. She didn’t see him coming in, but she’s being overly cautious.

“I thought you were happy,” she breathes, finally speaking after a long moment. “Here.”

Here. With them. Her. Something.

Edited 2020-07-15 17:31 (UTC)

“I have been,” Jasper assures her. “Am.”

And he has, truly. As he thinks of the memories made in the past years they’ve been with the Cullens.

He likes all of them, a lot.

But, things will change.

Are changing.

“But, we’ve been here awhile now?”

(They haven’t.)

“It’s barely been four years.”

The words, almost accusatory in tone, slip from her before she can edit them. Her hand flexes open and shut for a moment.

“This wasn’t a temporary respite, Jasper.”

This was home. Supposed to be.

Edward’s worry floating to the forefront of her mind, unbidden. Her lips press together and then: “Is this about my friendship with Edward?”

She places emphasis on the word friendship and manages to keep most of the annoyance out of her voice. Most of it.

He winces at her accusatory tone and then again when she confronts him about the Edward thing.

“No?”

He looks away, and his gaze falls on the basket of packed supplies.

A muscle in his jaw twitches.

“Yes?

He huffs then, picking up on her annoyance to fuel his own.

“No, it’s not - I don’t know. You’re confusing me.”

“I’m confusing—“ her voice raises half an octave, incredulous. She pushes the basket to the side and scoots closer, crowding into his space. “Jasper, what’s going on—I know I’ve been spending a lot of time with him but, he’s finally letting me in! We’re friends now, truly.”

Alice reaches for him, her hand ghosting over his jaw, trying to reach him, somehow, before the visions of his upset grow stronger. “He’s important to me—but you’re know you are too, more—“

She breaks off, frustrated with her inability to word things as she becomes a little more frantic.

“I didn’t say anything about him,” Jasper shushes her with a glance to the door and a lowering of his voice.

Not that lowering his voice helps as anyone in the house could still hear them.

“ - I’m not trying to stop you from being friends. You - You’re just - “

He’s having a hard time finding the right words too.

“You are spending a lot of time with him. And - And what’s this about?”

He gestures to the basket.

“You need a room with him?”

She just looks at him when he shushes her. As if anyone in the house couldn’t already hear a word she said.

“Yes,” Alice frowns, crossing her arms. “Just a hobby spot. We work well together. He helps me learn about my abilities, with the way he can see my visions. It’s not—“

Sighing, she breaks off. She’s annoyed, frustrated, and trying not to let it show. Instead pushing the feelings down so she doesn’t have to deal with them. “It’s just a closet.”

A closet is still a room.

And she can do her hobbies in their room!

And, she has him! He can help her with her visions, can’t he?

And, and, and and.

All of these thoughts in his head, and he just stares at her, frowning.

"Jasper, I don't understand!" She snaps, dropping her hands away from him to curl them against her legs.

"You can't just sit there and say nothing, help me out!"

“Well you getting snappish at me isn’t helping,” he snaps back, her frustration and annoyance getting to him now. He frowns at her again, a little angry frown this time.

She stands quickly, growling under her breath as she moves to the window. Her fingers curl around the sill and she forces herself to breathe out, to calm down.

It doesn't really work, still feeling worked up, his frustration coloring the air. Her's. Idly, she wonders if this is the first time his frustration has ever actually been with her. She can't recall a previous time, except when she said they were leaving Peter and Charlotte, heading west.

To the Cullens. A common denominator.

"Don't make me leave them," Alice whispers, turning around and twisting her fingers into her skirt. "Jasper, please."

Her whisper guts him. He can only describe it as such, with his breath punched out of him.

That's -

" - Not fair. That's - not fair."

He feels like he's back in those woods again, on his knees, begging. He had two choices then, and now none.

He's never thought her selfish, until this moment.

(And maybe he is too.)

He growls in frustration at not being able to voice his feelings. "Forget it."

He jumps to his feet and leaves. Down the stairs, out the door, avoiding the rest of the family on his way.

He's gone.

She'd never seen that coming. Never, in a million years did she think he would leave her like this.

That's not fair.

His tiny whisper, broken, runs repeat in her mind as she stumbles out of their room, pushing herself along the hallway and down the stairs, following his path. Rosalie sticks her head out of the side room as Alice passes, her eyebrow raised at her little sister, but Alice just shakes her head.

How easily Alice thinks of herself as Rosalie's little sister. As daughter to Esme and Carlisle. And wife to the man she's currently chasing down.

"Jasper." She doesn't shout, she knows he can hear her, even meters away from her. She's following, as quickly as she can without overrunning him, without making him run faster. "You can't just leave."

"I'm not leaving," he snaps over his shoulder, just before he stops and whirls around to face her.

A distance still, yet close enough now.

"I can't leave."

She stops short, her feet skidding in the wet grass. Belatedly, she realizes she's not wearing shoes, her stockings soaked at the feet from the perpetually rainy and soggy ground. It doesn't matter.

"Then stop!" Alice hisses, her fingers curling into fists at her side. "Why? Why are you doing this? We were happy, I thought. This place is good for us. They're good to us. Why do you want to leave suddenly? I don't understand, Jasper!"

"Because you're pulling away from me."

The words leave him in a rush, carrying across the distance between them to her.

At which, he sighs, dragging a hand through his hair.

This is not at all how he wanted to go about having this discussion.

"I am not."

She moves forward to stand closer to him, her eyebrows drawn together in a scowl as she stares up at Jasper, reaching for the hand in his hair. "I'm not. I'm just...I'm spending time with everyone--Edward just...there's--"

It's not coming out right. Alice drops her hand, hesitating. She doesn't think she can tell him the easiest thing: that Edward fills a part of her that has been empty her whole life. A missing puzzle piece. Jasper will take it wrong--no, worse, he'll take it exactly as it sounds.

"I need him," she murmurs. No, that's not better. "I need you. It's different, it's not the same kind of need."

Edited 2020-07-16 01:34 (UTC)

Jasper stares at her, wondering if she even hears herself as she talks.

Her words are not exactly making him feel better about any of it.

"Just - Go back to the house, Alice. I'll be back later."

He turns away, setting off into the woods at a walk.

"No!" Alice shouts after him, following him, not letting him get away from her. Her hand closes around his arm, tugging him back, to make him look at her, face her, something. "No, you don't just get to walk away!"

She's never been angry at him before. But now, it bubbles and toils under her skin, making her feel off balanced, crazy. She hates feeling crazy.

"You need to talk to me. You can't even tell me what you're thinking, so I'm just filling the silence with shit that's making it worse. I'm not going back inside that house, Jasper. Not until you speak to me."

She won't stand for pitying looks from the others. Especially when Jasper can't even tell her exactly what's wrong.

"I told you," he snarls, her anger like a match to ignite his own.

He shrugs her grip off his arm.

"I told you, and you made it about you. What you need, who you need.

"And now I need to get the Hell away from you right now."

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